I’ve been reading the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher. It’s a pretty standard fantasy series. The Roman-style setting is a bit different, but most of it is still a fairly standard set of twists and turns. The big twist is easily seen from the end of the first book, despite the fact that it’s not overtly stated until book 4. And I’m enjoying it.
Continue reading “The Value of a Decent Book”
WordPress.com is excited to announce our newest offering: a course just for beginning bloggers where you’ll learn everything you need to know about blogging from the most trusted experts in the industry. We have helped millions of blogs get up and running, we know what works, and we want you to to know everything we know. This course provides all the fundamental skills and inspiration you need to get your blog started, an interactive community forum, and content updated annually.
At the end of 2020, I managed to burn myself out pretty good on, well, everything. It was a long year, and I kind of pushed myself a bit too hard to keep busy. Because, hey, I couldn’t go anywhere or do a lot of things or go to my job half the time, but at least I could write. So I wrote. Right up until about an hour before midnight on December 31st.
Then I pretty much crashed. Continue reading “January/February Report”
After doubling my usual goal last year, I decided that this year I need to slow it down a little. Because reading 100+ books was fun, but now I think I can let my brain take it a little easier. My normal goal is 52 books a year (which is one a week), and now this year I’m going to aim for 26 books. Continue reading “Reading Goals for 2021”
Quick explanation: A few Christmases back I was given a “Writer Emergency Pack” deck of cards. This included a set of prompts. So I’m going to go through and follow them, to the best of my ability. Some of these will end up being parts of my works in progress, others will be standalone stories, depending entirely on my mood.
Let me know what you think of it!
This is Prompt #18: Switch Genres
Consider how your story might play out if it were in a completely different genre. Continue reading “Prompt #18: Switch Genres”
Having experienced a veritable blizzard recently, there are a number of experiences that I can now add to my stories that can be based on real life experience. Like having noodle arms after shoveling.
(Okay, so mostly I just find snow to be lovely and I just want to revel in it for a bit so work with me) Continue reading “The Beauty of Snowy Days”
(According to me)
As you might guess, the idea for this post came when I was very hungry. But also snacks. I tried to aim for slightly healthier ones, but also sometimes you just need junk to fuel the writing.
There are a number of snacks to consider, Continue reading “The Best Snacks for Writing”
I’m doing a challenge for World Anvil. Two, actually. One is an official contest that I will not win but I’m still going to make this article fantastic because I like the character and I plan to use her a lot more. The second challenge was to take a heroic archetype I don’t use much and create a hero. Which meant I was stuck with the Tragic Hero archetype because I’ve used all of the other ones.
I do not like tragedy. I generally avoid reading tragic stories, or watching them, and as such I do not have a great deal of experience in creating one. Luckily, for this challenge I don’t need to create a whole hero, but just a summary of one. Basically.
I started from another hero who I’m designing for the official challenge: Glenna Stormraven. Part of her backstory was that her family was driven from their homeland by a rival clan. So a natural place to start my tragic hero was with her parents. Namely, her father.
I didn’t take too much time to design the tale of Derek Stormraven, because there’s only so much time in the day and the article doesn’t need to be too ridiculously long. His tragedy, therefore, was fairly simple to come up with. He became a hero, and his hubris led him to ignore the clan’s rivals, and that lack of consideration so enraged them that they attacked. Nothing too elaborate.
A little positivity after a long, miserable year. Now that it’s gone and I don’t have to do it again. Barring time travel, but let’s be honest, no one wants to go back and risk making things worse.
Continue reading “2020: Favorite Things About the Year”
As far as blogging goes, 2020 was not a great year, but it wasn’t a great year for a lot of things so I will take what I have got and go from there. One of the things I’ve done over the past few days is to figure out how I want to handle this blog in the coming year. I don’t plan on changing things up entirely, but I’m going to do things differently. I think.
Continue reading “2021: New Year, New Blog (sort of)”
I’ve officially read 104 books this year, which works out to two a week. I’d like to thank the lockdowns for giving me the time and stress level required for such a feat. Also, on a less sarcastic note, my friend — for starting the Lord of the Readathon challenge which really boosted the number of books I read, as well as pushing me to read different books than I might have otherwise chosen. Also a thank you to my friend who loaned me the entirety of the Dresden Files, which was interesting enough that it kept me reading even after the summer challenge rush was over with.
Continue reading “This Year in Reading”