The blog of fantasy fiction author and writer Tarah L. Wolff

I’m going to start with everything that is not who I am as a writer. My name is Tarah L. Wolff and I was born on February 24th 1986. I am a writer, a golfer, a photographer, a web designer, a horse back rider, a dog owner and I was home schooled. I want to go to college someday more or less so I can be on a golf team. I love everything about golf, my family owns a golf course. I want to become one hell of a golfer, but I am not naive, I do not expect to ever be good enough to become a professional golfer someday. But that doesn’t stop me from playing and hoping to join a college so I can compete for a while.

On the right you will see that I have two other websites that are references to me. One is for my Photography and one is for my professional web company Web Services of Park Rapids (a company I run and own with Joseph Crawford). I’ve been designing print and web media for several years – go check it out.

I am a writer, you already know this about me because you’re here. I have been the layout designer and co-editor for the literary journal The Talking Stick for ten years. It is a publication put out by the non profit organization The Jackpine Writers’ Bloc. I have designed eight books. I have been on the Editorial Board for selecting submissions for the last six years in a row. This adds up to that I’ve read a lot of really terrible writing and

I know what dead writing looks like and we get a lot more bad than good writing. On average we throw out over 2/3rds of what is submitted and often publish a certain amount that I don’t believe is worth publication. I am notoriously hard to please. I see the same mistakes made by writers year after year after year. The mistakes are obvious and damn near common sense but writers seem to be incapable of common sense when submitting their “babies”. It is on this note that I had another reason for creating this blog. There will be posts made by me here that will be rants and frustrations with the shitty writers of today. Will I be heartless? Yup. But you don’t have to read it and I promise to remain objective and honest. But, to be honest, if I read another memoir when our guidelines are only for creative nonfiction I am going to scream.

I have been published over forty times in several anthologies and publications. That includes poetry, creative nonfiction and fiction. I am not a poet, though I have written some poetry that I actually kind of like. A great writer once said that the short story is absolutely the most difficult thing in existance to write well. And I am in total agreement. I have read more terrible short stories than any other type of writing. I am working on my two books (the real theme to this blog) but I am also working on my short story writing. That may or may not come up here, depending. I have a little bit of an unpublished short story collection and I am playing with the idea of a book of short stories some day (you know when I’m a rich and famous novelist… haha).

Do I think I am qualified to be a critic? To give advice? My answer is that I am a reader so yes, my advice is valuable to all writers. That is a lesson I learned very quickly with my writing, good readers are hard to find. Good readers who are also writers are extremely hard to find and very valuable. There will never be enough books for me to devour in my lifetime. As a writer there will never be enough advice that you can absorb or enough books that you could can learn from. The very best writers I have ever read still feel that they can improve as writers. I have no time for writers who have no interest in advice. Take it or leave it – but first consider it.

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Embraced by Darkness

My monster. As a summary EBD is a fantasy novel and that includes dragons, elves and several other races that I created to add layers to the story. It has three main characters: a warlord, a healer and a betrayer. They are all women despite my best intentions but it’s not something I can do anything about at this point. One big thing is happening that can mean the destruction of them all. The women end up working together throughout the book, though they have no idea that their actions dictate how the lives of the others wind up. In the end it is up to them, on different ends of their universe, to save them all. It is a personal story, like all of my stories, it is character driven and though the larger picture pushes the book along, it is not always the main subject. The lives of these women, altered as they go, is what EBD is about. I don’t really have a well written summary for this book yet (obviously). I have no book to put it on the back of anyway. When I do get it written it will be posted here first. This is a book that has already begun to spawn sequels in me and, of course, it would be my absolute dream that one day I would be encouraged by a publisher to write those sequels.

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The Death of Eliana

I wrote on the back of my book The Death of Eliana this: “Eliana lived in a world known to the outsider as LIFA controlled territory. She was born and she was owned by LIFA before she was even born. By the reckoning of only life she ran away from it all for enough time that Eliana no longer sees LIFA like the rest of them. She no longer sees Life Infinite For All, but instead catches more and more glimpses of the true LIFA, of the company that watches and controls everyone. In a story about death Eliana finds her life, not necessarily a LIFA born child, but a person who can love, who can kill, a person who is capable of whatever needs to be done. Including destroying everything she has ever known.” I believe this book is my only real hope right now because I think it will be more appealing to publishers. It’s too short, though I have “finished” it. I want to go through it again, take my time and decide more accutately where greater detail will improve the book. I love this book, I love Eliana, this is my pride and joy but I just haven’t yet done it justice.