Ryan Williamson
The banality of evil is not just that people look the other way while terrible things happen. It’s that ordinary people become willing participants, convinced they’re doing something righteous or necessary. They genuinely believe the narrative that the targeted group poses an existential threat.
My publisher expected weeks of work on Podium Entertainment’s audiobook production forms. Monday morning they’ll find complete submission materials in their inbox—detailed character breakdowns, comprehensive content warnings, and a 200+ entry pronunciation guide covering four distinct linguistic systems. Total time invested: one Friday evening. Here’s the exact process I used with Claude Sonnet 4 to compress what’s typically 2-3 weeks of tedious work into 5 focused hours. For a 136,000-word space opera with body-swapping operatives, multiple aliases, and invented languages, systematic beats casual every time. Use AI for data processing, not creative judgment. Keep your weekends free.
We’ve internalized Golding’s vision: strip away civilization and children become monsters. But in 1965, six Tongan teenage boys actually got stranded on a deserted island for fifteen months. Instead of tribal warfare and murder, they thrived. They organized into rotating work teams, maintained a signal fire, built gardens, and created conflict resolution systems. When one boy broke his leg falling off a cliff, the others set his bone and adapted their work to include him. When Captain Peter Warner found them, they were healthy, organized, and still friends. The real story was unknown until 2020 while Golding’s fiction became cultural gospel. Maybe the question isn’t whether human nature is good or evil—it’s what conditions promote cooperation versus conflict.
As a philosophy, Kintsugi treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise. My daughter survived open-heart and spinal surgery. Other girls mock her scars in the locker room. They don’t understand she’s a warrior. Whether our scars are from surgery, war, or trauma; whether visible or hidden—they’re proof we survived. It’s our scars that make us beautiful.
Asking “should I write what I love or write to market?” is the wrong question. The writing world has manufactured a false binary that’s keeping writers from building sustainable careers. It’s not about compromise. It’s about understanding what you genuinely love writing and finding readers who are hungry for exactly that. The market isn’t your enemy. Your passion isn’t a liability. Find where they meet. That’s the sweet spot.
Your indie book cover doesn’t need expensive custom artwork to compete with traditional publishers. After thirty years in graphic design, I’ve learned that bold typography often outperforms elaborate illustrations—especially at thumbnail size where most readers first see your book. Typography-focused covers are budget-friendly, easier to maintain across a series, and cut through the noise when someone’s scrolling Amazon on their phone. The trick isn’t slapping words on a background; it’s understanding hierarchy, color psychology, and genre conventions. Learn these principles, avoid amateur mistakes like font overload and poor contrast, and you can create professional covers yourself.
Not every strong female character is “woke trash”—but the lazy Strong Female Character™ trope deserves its criticism. Lisa Kuznak’s viral defense of heroines like Ripley and Sarah Connor sparked a crucial conversation: What truly separates inspiring warriors from one-dimensional girl-boss clichés? Enter Sarai izt Kviokhi from the forthcoming Dark Dominion sequence—a psychic revolutionary who sidesteps the SFC pitfalls through hard-earned vulnerability, moral complexity, and realistic combat grounded in strategy over brute force. In a galaxy crushed under tyranny, she proves that truly empowering female characters aren’t about effortless dominance—they’re about enduring, evolving, and forging liberation through sacrifice and meaningful connection.
Grok “beta reading” a scene from Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora is a perfect example of why you absolutely should not use AI like Grok for feedback on your writing.
Plotting a novel using the Save the Cat method, popularized by Blake Snyder, can be inadvisable for several reasons, particularly for writers seeking originality or depth. While the structure offers a clear, formulaic approach—dividing a story into 15 beats like “Catalyst” and “Midpoint”—its rigid framework risks stifling creativity and producing predictable narratives. First, Save the … Continue reading Authors, Please Don’t Save the Cat
Someone suggested I do a series of Goth Disney Princesses, and I thought it sounded like a fun AI art challenge so here we go… Cinderella Rapunzel Snow White Sleeping Beauty Merida Belle Pocahontas Ariel Jasmine Moana Mulan Tiana Elsa
The Annex 