Susan and John Ruff, Fantasy Authors

  • Writing Productivity vs Burn Out

    Being an Indy author is tricky. You must learn to market your own novels. You need to find others to help with proofreading and editing, and you need a circle of friends to encourage you… Read more

  • Writing Inspiration Destination: Heidelberg, Germany

    (Note: as mentioned in an earlier blog post, one of my friends suggested that I write about some travel destinations that had a direct influence on my writing. This is part 2 of the series.)… Read more

  • Writing Update for July 2021

    A lot of exciting news from Emerald Cove today. First and foremost: John and my new fantasy novel Prophecy’s Malignant Son is now for sale on Amazon. You can find it at: Amazon.com: Prophecy’s Malignant… Read more

  • When Travel Influences Fantasy Literature

    A friend (who also loves to travel) suggested that it might be fun for me to blog about how I draw inspiration for my fantasy stories from the real-world places that I visit and photograph.… Read more

  • Fortifications, Walls, and Battlements

    After I wrote the blog post about castles a few weeks ago, I started considering other types of structures that can be important in fantasy literature. One of the easiest to overlook (no pun intended)… Read more

  • Keeping Honest with those Writer’s Resolutions

    We’re now half-way through 2021, and it seems like a good time to review your progress on all those writer’s New Year’s resolutions that you made. How is your writing coming? Are you satisfied with… Read more

  • Visiting the Stones that Speak

    Last week, my blog discussed ancient ruins and fantasy novels. Today, I want to write about a special subset of that topic: carvings and rock art. Humans have been communicating by leaving words and pictures… Read more

  • The Literary Lure of Ancient Ruins

    “On the top they found, as Strider had said, a wide ring of ancient stone-work, now crumbling or covered with agelong grass.” – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring. Ancient ruins, both real and… Read more

  • Five Places to Inspire Writing

    Readers really seemed to enjoy the “Castles!” blog a couple of weeks ago, so I’ve decided to try a short series (maybe the next two or three Fridays) of places that can inspire writing and,… Read more

  • Fighting Writing Procrastination

    When I told Danny Atwood, my good friend and fellow Emerald Cove author, that I wanted to brainstorm ideas with him about ways to combat writing procrastination, he said, “We should schedule a time to… Read more

Welcome to Susan’s Monthly Blog!

On the first Friday of every month, Susan writes a short post about our books, the craft of writing, upcoming projects, travel, writing inspiration, and similar topics that strike her fancy. We hope you enjoy reading them.

Feel free to leave a comment. Susan loves hearing from readers!