Wouldn’t you love to be trudging along on a terrible day and then suddenly find a new-to-you book to take home and brighten your day?
Well, okay, you’d probably prefer to avoid the terrible day in the first place and just find the new book on an already-awesome day. That’s good, too.
Anyway, both possibilities can be real, and you can help make it real for yourself and others, by participating in the first Hide A Book Day.Hide a Book Day 2017
I walked out to my pond today and was not nearly fast enough to photograph the Great Blue Heron I startled out of it, but I did manage to snap a photo when he perched in a tree to avoid the enthusiastic Doberman chasing and barking at him. (Undómiel apparently did not get the memo about large birds not being dangerous aliens.)
What? You can’t see the heron? Well, sorry, all I had was a cell phone and some excitement, which does not equate to a telephoto lens, no matter how much excitement is involved.Birds & Fish
After two days of intense upgrades, my house is powered by the sun.
We’re brand new and still working out the bugs, but our first day of full sun produced enough power to fuel my car over 250 miles. Our first day of partial sun produced enough power to run our house comfortably. We’re on Day 3 right now, so I can’t offer much more in the way of numbers or averages.Let the Sun Shine! New Solar Panels to Power My Work
I write about Robin Archer, a fae in our world charged by the Fairy Queen to protect human children from human predators. The second installment, released in October 2015, was called “Orphan Heirs & Shades of Night” and was set in Irvington, where someone had created a haunted… When Life Imitates Art
It’s been a busy month!
First I went to Realm Makers, which has become one of my favorite writing conferences, and then to a small local writing conference at Taylor University, my first time visiting there. In a couple of weeks I’ll head west again to attend the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers conference. It’s like I’m trying to get my annual allowance of writing conference in just a few weeks!
Then I had Gen Con, an awesome gathering of 65,000 or so (final attendance not yet released for this year) of your geekiest friends to talk about games, books, history, film, anime, and pretty much everything related. Gen Con is always super-busy for me, because I teach sessions (this year I presented twice on Japanese Folklore & Mythology and once on Norse mythology, as well as teaching costuming workshops from Featherweight Armor to Moldmaking to a make-and-take for simple, hallway-safe wings) and because we compete in the costume contest, which because of Gen Con’s process is mostly a whole-day affair.
Conferences, Cons, and Solar Eclipse 2017, Or What I Did On My Summer VacationIn the small Indiana town of Upland lies an unlikely hero.
In 1965 this drive-in opened to sell burgers and shakes, like so many others. It’s expanded and changed with time, but it’s also specialized and become internationally famous for its impressive dessert lineup.Ivanhoe’s Drive-In
Part of the fun of being a writer is hanging out with other writers. I just got home from the Realm Makers conference — more on that later — and today I get to share a schmancy new cover in the Storms in Amethir series by my friend and critique partner Stephanie A. Cain. Check out The Weather War!
Cover Reveal: The Weather WarThe next installment in my chocolate sampling series! And I just plain forgot to plug in my mic for this one, so the camera mic was picking up background noises and my dog Undómiel warning off some nocturnal creature outside. My apologies. Also my camera was a bit high, but at least that means you get to see a better view of Mr. Snaggles, one of my dinosaurs.Chocolate-Peanut Butter Soda
On the one hand, I can’t believe we need to have this discussion of how to write female protagonists and balance. On the other, since clearly we do need it, let’s have it.
With the announcement of the 13th Doctor as a female regeneration, the internet slightly exploded. I was actually at a fandom convention during the announcement and heard not only discussion of the announcement itself, but of reactions to the announcement.
We’re going to ignore those who were horrified to discover their Doctor now has girl cooties. They’re easy to ignore — or just borrow for humor, where they’re most useful. Anyway, the haters are vocal but seem to be a minority, or maybe I just have a better-curated network, and I don’t intend to waste blog space on that sort of thing.
But one repeated protest I heard repeatedly in several less-hysterical discussions was, now that the Doctor is a female, the male companions will be written down to idiocy so that she looks clever, and so everything will be less cool and the storytelling will suffer. I found myself saying or typing the same thing repeatedly, so let me just save time and put it here.
This is indeed a huge problem, only the problem is not the Doctor’s personal plumbing.Doctor Who, Writing Female Characters, and Equality.
Please welcome with me to the blog today Garrett Hutson, whom I have the advantage of having as a very useful critique partner in my writing group. Garrett writes mysteries and spy novels set in various historical contexts, and I always learn something new when I’m reading his… Guest Post: Garrett Hutson on Choosing a Place and Time
