Year: 2017
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Pantsing vs. Outlining
I am an outliner. I need a plan, I need to know I can hit my beats, I need to know where my characters are going. Therefore, I plan in advance. Yet, the further I get in this journey, the more I realize what a useless label that really is. The supposed distinction between pantsing…
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Song Styles
Another few months, another set of CDs for my car listening pleasure, and another game of word association, as I string song titles together by links of varying degrees of sense:Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under? – Shania TwainThese Boots Are Made F…
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Song Styles
I made a new set of car CDs for myself yesterday, and part of the collection is my playlist for Surgeburnt. It’s incomplete, technically – some characters don’t have songs, but beyond character specific themesongs, I have songs for specific relat…
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Monday Meanderings
Last week, I brought up the thorny topic (to me) of calendars. To me, our month and day names stand out as products of our world, so they don’t work well in a fantasy setting. (Exceptions would be alternate earths or the stealth fantasy-set…
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Song Styles
So when I did my flash-and-poetry boot camp, I generated more ideas than I was going to need so I could pick and choose … but not too many more, so I wasn’t left dithering.There was one idea that I put down and didn’t end up using, but I think it’s a…
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Monday Meanderings
Suspension of disbelief is a marvelous thing. It makes possible our immersion into fantastic realms where wizards fly and griffins sling fireballs … wait, reverse that. It even operates in other genres, allowing us to believe in the amate…
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GoodReads Review: Shelf Life ed. Greg Ketter
Shelf Life: Fantastic Stories Celebrating Bookstores by Greg KetterMy rating: 3 of 5 starsHow could I resist an anthology full of stories about bookstores? These are all solid, satisfying tales, but the narrow theme is made narrower by the fact they al…
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Song Styles
I’ve been adding songs to my Surgeburnt playlist as I come across them, and noticing a pattern: all of Maren’s songs, except one, in some way reference death or dying. There’s a nihilistic attitude underlying the songs I’ve chosen, a s…
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Dragoncon Atlanta, GA 2017
Hey everyone, I know this is a bit last moment, but I’m super excited to announce I’ll be at Dragoncon in Atlanta, GA!!!!! I’ll be selling books at the litRPG table (booth 1222) and I also have several panels and a specific autograph time with Dragoncon on Saturday at 4:00 PM in the Marriott International…
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Arekan’s Blog: Gratitious Cat Post
Date: Who the Hell Knows “Arekan,” says the scribe. “Why has your cat moved in with me.” “I don’t have a cat.” Truth is I dislike those nasty little furballs. Hate me if you will, but they are entitled jerks and keep the humans wrapped around their tiny paws. Come and go when they please.……