I finally got Skyrim in a Steam sale. I’m not sure exactly what I expected but I kind of thought it would be something a bit more … well, different from Oblivion. All of the same annoying things from Oblivion are still there in Skyrim. The most annoying of which is when five people walk up to you and start talking at the same time. While you’re already talking to someone else. (133 words.)

I stumbled on this post from Rachel Aaron entitled “We need a new name…” which made me laugh. Me, “I’m a fantasy author!” (always so cool to say) Lady, “Oh wow! So like Harry Potter?!” Me, “No, Harry Potter’s YA, I write adult fantasy.” Lady, “………….” Me, “NO! Not THAT kind of adult fantasy!” This is probably one of the main reasons I’m using the name Everett Renshaw. Because it is unbelievably embarrassing to say to real people in real life that I write in a genre that the industry calls “adult fantasy. (225 words.)

After two whole days without writing anything (where it felt like I had about 5 hours of spare time each day), I’m back on it! However, I’m going to take a short break from Naobi and Cheton and work on some scenes from Motiva that have been in the back of my mind for a while, which will hopefully become relevant toward the end of the story. I’m also going to wait a few days before I start posting again. (81 words.)

Okay, if you want to continue to be an Alpha Reader, here’s what you need to do. Click on the link on the right that says “Register,” under Meta. (If you’re reading on a tablet or mobile device, it might be way at the bottom of the page.) Pick a username and an email. Don’t use a fake email because it will send a password there. Copy the password in the email and click on the link below it. (204 words.)

Soooo um, ahem. I may have screwed myself a little bit by posting the Airworld story as I go. There’s this concept of “First Publication Rights” which is apparently kind of a big deal to publishers. For some very strange reason, many of them are only interested in publishing things that have never been published before, and some of them might think that posting on the Interwebs is publishing. Oops! (226 words.)

Squee! A real live fantasy author answered my question! (This was actually the second one she answered - the first one was more about my own personal insecurities though.) This is what I asked: Hi! Me again. Early in this thread you said: “Fantasy has changed a LOT as a genre over the past few years, and if you’re not reading modern books, you might be surprised.” I didn’t see where you had already done this, and if you did, feel free to ignore this, but I wonder if you could expand on that a little (or a lot, that’s fine too :). (1050 words.)

So this is what I’m staring at today. (8 words.)

A while back I was making fun of the first episode of Walking Dead, Season 2. I still think that episode kind of sucked. But I diligently carried on and the show got much better. I thought the pacing was really slow, though, and then everything happened all at once in the season finale. So of course I had to watch Season 3. But that’s the current season, so it isn’t on Netflix. (125 words.)

Hrm.. something wonky is happening with comments. I am investigating. UPDATE: Okay it’s working again. It was not displaying any comments, even though they were there in the system. The Facebook plugin was the culprit, so I have disabled it. (40 words.)

In a fit of inspiration, I wrote out a “pitch” for Kubak Outpost, in case I wanted to write a query letter for it. This is what I wrote: Fen, a man who has lost his love and his livelihood, enlists in the army to fight in the war against magic-wielding kaanfar warriors encroaching on the border. Along the way, he meets The Demon Hunter, who has to drink the blood of his victims to power his own form of magic. (133 words.)

I am sure you have all seen this photo by now. https://twitter.com/whitehouse/status/269785942326398976/photo/1 I am SO glad that this picture came to light, so I can ask this vitally important question: WHAT IS THIS EXPRESSION CALLED?? Preferably in a past tense verb form. The president _____ ed for the photo. Here is the context in which I would like to use this word. “I’m really looking forward to Black Friday,” Jack said. (277 words.)

I started out writing Airworld as a sort of light-hearted adventure. Despite a somewhat serious premise (the home town is dying!), I didn’t intend for anyone to get into any real trouble. But somewhere along the way, things got pretty serious. People are getting their throats cut. People are getting their heads smashed on stone walls. People are getting framed and tortured. People are coming face-to-face with their worst nightmares, and doubting their own convictions, and having to make life-altering decisions. (99 words.)

Okay so I’m a little bit ahead in writing today, so I thought I would finally sit down and watch the first episode of Walking Dead Season 2 on Netflix. I thought the first season was “okay” but I didn’t see where it deserved all the nerd praise it got. I guess it’s a generational thing. Zombies are “cool” with the kids and whatnot. But since Walking Dead is now in it’s third season and everyone is still raving about it, I thought I should give it another chance. (651 words.)

You may notice some changes in Airworld’s writing style now that NaNoWriMo is starting up. Until now, I have made some small efforts to write grammatically correct sentences, avoid too much repetition within a paragraph, find the right words to describe things, put events in the right sequence, etc. With the start of NaNoWriMo, all of that is going out the window. I will need to roughly double my daily output, so I will have to go into a more stream-of-consciousness sort of a writing mode and discard all filters. (164 words.)

Consider this contemporary engraving of a woman by Wenceslaus Hollar, from around the mid-1700s: From here, btw. Sadly, I am a complete moron when it comes to clothing. If I look at that picture, I see a woman wearing an old-timey dress thingy, with a hat thingy on her head. But for some reason, that description wouldn’t go over very well in a published work of fiction. So, what the heck are these things called? (219 words.)