To quote the giant in Twin Peaks, “It is happening again.”
The Witcher 3
But it’s a strange thing when you’re level 30, and tasked with defeating the end boss, but the guardsmen are all level 40. Why can’t one of them save the world? They’re wasted guarding the streets of this city with abilities like those.
Grief and Creativity
My younger sister died last week. It was sudden and I’m still in shock and maybe I’ll write about that later, but right now I’m thinking a lot about grief and its effect on creativity.
Gamification
It turns out I’m a sucker for gamification, and it seems this is a good thing.
2020 and the Luck of Writing
2020 has been a hell of a year and I’m not about to take for granted that it doesn’t have something horrible in store in the last month, but we keep trying to move forward, because collapsing on the floor is not an option. Although, maybe I better not say that while 2020 can still hear me, the bloody year might take that as a challenge.
Music and Exercise
For a few months now I’ve been on what I call the Stop Making Sense exercise plan. Put simply, I put a concert on the TV or on the YouTubes and dance about the living room like an addled muppet.
The Bastard Gods of Olkhar
Indeed in addition to the main deities, there is an entire pantheon known as the Bastard Gods.
Heroes of the Third Age
From Grimble Crumbol’s The World of Olkhar Volume IV, “On the Heroes of the Third Age.”
Much must be said about heroes, our world owes so much to them, and yet they are a topic of much complexity.
The News and Cable News in particular have more than a subtle sway on public opinion. It’s an imperfect power, it often works, sometimes it doesn’t, but I have seen its dark magic in action.
The Fall of the Republic
During my university years, my main focus was ancient-medieval history, and the subject of my thesis was the fall of the Roman Republic. As such I’ve spent the last decade wondering if I’m seeing what I think I’m seeing or just experiencing the world’s worst case of confirmation bias.
Serial Worldbuilder
It might be time to acknowledge I have a problem. I can’t stop building new worlds for stories or even entire series of stories to be set in.
Our Dystopia
Having written three novels that range from dystopian to outright apocalyptic, I’m trying hard to write more optimistic science fiction and fantasy these days. Skipping right past my fear that optimism isn’t really in my wheelhouse, I have a couple reasons for making this switch.
Fallen Hero
Paul Darrow passed away on June 3rd.
Paul Darrow is best known for playing the character Avon on the British science fiction show Blake’s 7. I remember clearly that one of the first times I genuinely wanted to write was watching that show.
I’m back online after a week with no internet and several weeks before that where the internet kept dropping out entirely.
Baseball Season
Baseball season has started and with it comes the dichotomy of emotions. On the one hand I love baseball, it only enhances my two favorite hobbies: drinking too much and napping. On the other hand the arrival of baseball season means my mood will be on a rollercoaster based on a ridiculous sport that I have no control over and is essentially meaningless. Not like politics, which is a ridiculous thing that I have no control over but could end up meaning everything and also leads to drinking too much.
Writing... Drafting... Writing
When I write, I do a lot of drafts. I’ve blogged about this before.
The thing that’s new is, I’ve realized that with the current overly ambitious work in progress…
And when I go, I want to go to whiskey heaven...
Since it is St. Patrick’s Day this weekend, three things come to mind: 1) This is the one time a year I will not, under any circumstances, go to an Irish pub, 2) Related to the first item on the list, probably a good time to remember our old Blizzard tradition of going for Mexican food on St. Patrick’s Day and to an Irish pub for Cinco de Mayo, and 3) It’s probably a good time for a blog post about whiskey.