Writing villains is easy. Writing GOOD villains is substantially more difficult. As with any character, they need to have a reason to exist, and often a reason for their evil. They have to have motivations that are grounded in reality, motivations that make sense. Even if that sense is twisted, we still have to be…
As if the title weren’t obvious enough, this post contains harsh language and depressing themes. Be warned. ***** It occurs to me that, more and more, Americans (and possibly the world) revel in being complete jerks to other people. Cries of “He speaks his mind.” or “She tells it like it is!” seem to be…
I was having a discussion recently with an acquaintance. She had asked about my published fiction, and I was explaining that, so far, I’ve had two short stories published, and was working on a couple more, plus a novel. She replied that she never reads short stories — didn’t like them, in fact. I was…
I first saw Star Wars when it came out in 1977. It was the early days of the Disco era, and I was… young. Anyway, I was given this shirt as a gift, and have worn it extensively over the years. It’s a subtle joke from one of the Robot Chicken Star Wars sketches. It…
I like plants. I don’t have quite the same affinity for them that I have for, say, dogs or cats, or wild birds, but I enjoy tending them and watching them grow. In our tiny, postage-stamp back yard, we’ve had pots that for years now have grown Morning Glories. We added a trellis behind the…
The only thing that remains constant in this world is change. The title of this post is sensational, and perhaps unfair. However, GenCon has announced they are scrapping the Industry Insider Program for something different. Instead of a couple dozen Industry Insiders who speak on panel discussions and presentations at GenCon, they will now being…
Missed my weekly blog post deadline this week; things are going on behind the scenes that I can’t really talk about just now, but the reveals for most of these projects should be happening soon – some even in the next week or so. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks, with more in store!…
Horror has been a major component of my writing career. Of the sixteen tabletop role-playing projects I’ve worked on that have been published so far, at least ten are overtly horror-themed. Both of my published short stories are horror or dark fantasy. While I have concerns about being pigeonholed, the horror genre has been good…
Recently, I switched the appearance of my blog to better accommodate people who visit to read using their phones. Much to my surprise, I lost most of the photographs in posts because of this change-over; suddenly, ALL my posts are solid blocs of plain text. For a technophobe like me, this is a major headache.…
With the recent reveal that Facebook user data was compiled in such a way to sway voters in the United States, many have called for a boycott — or outright abandonment — of Facebook as a social media platform. I completely understand these concerns, but I’d like to share a bit of wisdom I heard…