terrybartley (he/him/his)

If DC used Natasha Irons to her full potential, they would have had their own Riri Williams long before Marvel.

Every month I'm giving away a signed book from the Galevyn catalog to a reader of the Starlight King Herald, my newsletter about fantasy fiction, indie publishing, and interrogating the industry's perspective on "AI authors." Enter by subscribing. kingsumo.com/g/1xq5j9m/the-s…

The one thing about the Wicked movies being successful makes me curious about is how long it is going to take Hollywood to start adapting "A Lion Among Men" and/or "Son of a Witch," and how the hell they're going to make them connect to the musical.

I'm someone who loves to say I hate tragedy in fiction, because I don't like to feel sad. But when I'm honest with myself, I love a good cry. If a book makes me reach for a tissue, it's a good book.

Tech billionaires like to tell us that bubble/bust economies lead to innovation. I disagree. starlightkingherald.substack…

As a high school English teacher, it's hard to explain to students why reading Shakespeare tragedies are worthwhile. But there's something about that moment at the end of MacBeth or Hamlet when all the characters we followed are dead that always hits just right.

First drafts are like the selfie you posted directly from the concert, then you look at it the next day and realize it's blurry and you can't even tell where you are or whose in the photo. It captures an incredible experience, but it needs some work.

If your 'revolutionary' product is mostly just older tech in a shinier package, that's not innovation. That's rebranding. Which, fine, but let's not pretend the boom-bust cycle is what drives progress.

Hot take: the 'move fast and break things' era has given us incremental updates, not true innovation. The real innovation happened when workers had pensions and housing was stable. Stability > disruption.

Sometimes I think I love to write in first person so much just because it lets me role-play my characters more directly.

My favorite love triangles are the ones where one of them could really take or leave the relationship. Love a love interest who is really just a distraction from an OTP.

Sometimes I wonder if the CW Supergirl is what I want Jon to be. I'd love to see Jon be a hard-nosed journalist and a superhero. Let him be both.

The reason I write queer fantasy is so I can write scenes about a guy doing dishes in his maybe-boyfriend's apartment. I want the small queer moments mixed in with the epic world-saving moments.

Hot take: I'd rather read a student essay with comma splices everywhere than one that's been smoothed out by AI. Grammar I can teach. Voice? They've gotta figure out how to build that.

I asked ChatGPT why it changed 'incredible' to 'excellent' in my feedback. It said 'more formal.' I'm an English teacher. I *chose* that word. AI isn't just fixing grammar anymore. It's flattening how we sound.

Cody Walker on crowdfunding: "Sometimes you're posting for support mid-campaign and you feel like you're panhandling. You get pity donations and you're like... oh." The indie author experience, distilled.

We tell writers 'read more to write better' because you absorb style from what you read. So what happens when a whole generation learns to write by reading AI's output? We're teaching them that flat corporate-speak is what 'good writing' sounds like.

Love this: Cody Walker's Everland comic Kickstarter failed, so he wrote it as a novel instead. Now he's got two books out and six more planned. Failure isn't the end of the story, sometimes it's just the wrong medium.

Pro tip from Cody Walker: never launch a Kickstarter in December. "No one has money for Kickstarter in December" is now seared into my brain alongside "show don't tell" and "murder your darlings."

Best creative advice I've heard in a while: make stuff for yourself first. If other people read it, that's awesome. But the only person you truly owe a finished draft to is you. (cc: everyone stressing about audience size)

I would kill for some consistent lore around Clarion the Witch Boy. DC's magic characters are so cool, but their lore changes every time we see literally any of them.