WRITE WITH FIRE! Charles Gramlich shows you how.

If you were to choose just one book on writing for yourself - or someone on your Christmas list - you’d be hard-pressed to find a better choice than Write With Fire.

There’s something here for everyone, from rank beginner to seasoned pro, and certainly for those like me, who are somewhere in between. I wish I’d had this book twenty years ago, so I could have started following some of this advice sooner.

Part One, comprised of tips for writers, makes up over half the book. The tips run the gamut from dealing with writer’s block, to getting started, creating strong characters, generating suspense, constructing a strong ending, and optimizing your chances of making a sale. Charles really empties his trick bag, sharing his secrets for getting ideas, finding time to write, and staying motivated, right down to the nitty gritty of  punctuation and problem words.

Part Two goes beyond the tips, exploring subjects like critique groups, blogging, what makes a good horror story, and lessons learned from other writers.

Part Three is more personal, where Charles relates how his own experiences brought him to writing, and how his writing has affected his life.

Write With Fire covers so much territory I couldn't list it all, so I scanned the contents pages for you. Check them out! Bottom line: If you really want to write with fire (and who doesn't?), you need this book.

As an afterword, I’m offering a tip of my own to Charles and his publisher Borgo Press. The way they’ve marketed this book is just fine, but they might find additional readers with another edition aimed directly at the Bathroom Reader crowd. Each chapter is short and to the point, and each tackles a different subject. Just right for those multitaskers determined to miss no opportunity at self-improvement! (Personally, though, lest you get the wrong idea, I read this entire book in the living room. On the couch. With dogs on my lap. Really.)

SWORDS OF TALERA by Charles Allen Gramlich

For the past couple of years I’ve been itching to re-read the first three books in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars series. So when I cracked open Swords of Talera and discovered it was firmly in that John Carter tradition, I knew my itch was about to be scratched. And I was right.

Charles Gramlich starts things off in the best Burroughs fashion, with a Forward signed by Charles himself, in which he reveals he is related to the narrator of the story, and explains how the manuscript came into his possession. He then presents us with the manuscript itself, and next thing we know we’re off on a wild adventure on a strange new world.

But make no mistake. Talera is not Mars. It’s the product of Charles’ own imagination - a world created by mysterious beings for their own mysterious purposes. These creators have gathered sentient beings, beasts and plant life from far flung planets and turned them loose to interact according to their own natures on Talera.

Not surprisingly, many of those sentient races have violent natures, and their first inclination is to do battle and enslave one another. That’s when Charles’ shirt-tail ancestor Ruenn Maclang comes on the scene, discovering he can not only fight with the best of them, but is a natural leader of men.

Swords of Talera is a tale of non-stop action and adventure, with battle scenes that would have done Burroughs - and Robert E. Howard - proud. Along the way we’re introduced to many of the planet’s cultures, both malignant and benign, and many of it’s mysteries. And though Ruenn Maclang and his friends achieve a great victory, there are difficult tasks left undone, and more mysteries to solve.

And that, of course, is exactly what you want from the first book in a trilogy. You want more, and you know its coming. Luckily, the rest of this trilogy has already been published, so there’s no waiting. Wings over Talera and Witch of Talera are already on my reading list. Thanks for the adventure, Charles!