One of the things I plan to do this year is read all of Heinlein’s short stories and about half his novels in order. I…
Another Obscure S-List Writer
Author: Herb
In 1947 a book titled Of Worlds Beyond: the Science of Science Fiction Writing was published. It was a collection of essays about writing science…
The correct answers are “Planet 10” and “Real Soon”, but those won’t help the aspiring novelist doing NaNoWriMo. On Day 3 the original run of…
My principle goal this NaNoWriMo is figuring out a sustainable writing habit. Like a lot of NaNoWriMo winners the year I won I burnt out,…
Today’s episode of The Everyday Novelist is about getting started, titled appropriately enough “Here’s Where You Start”. The first time I listened to these episodes…
I have completed NaNoWriMo once, back in 2018. I lacked the courage to publish that novel at that time. I have tried NaNoWriMo a couple…
Today’s picture was taken after I took recycling and garbage to the curve before driving to Midtown to swipe into the office, log into my…
Happy Labor Day everyone.
Not nighttime, but a twilight picture. I didn’t go outside until early evening to get milk. I took this when I got home.
I took today’s picture before I left for gaming about 1. Just getting the post up now that I’m home.
I have even less excuse today. I was home all day and forgot to take the picture until I was at Walmart shopping. I don’t…
I forget to take a picture before going into office. I stayed through end of month and went straight to trivia. So here is the…
Taken about two in the afternoon between slightly more intense rain.
Taken around noon after I got home from doing one of my three required swipes at the office.
The first RPG I bought this year was 2300 AD at Bundle of Holding. This is an old Game Designer’s Workshop game originally called Traveller…
The first game I played this year was Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition. This was a continuation of a game I’ve been in since mid-2020…
Monday, we covered the combat portion of The Fantasy Trip in its microgame incarnation, Melee. Yesterday, we covered it’s basic magic system in the microgame…
Today is day two of The Fantasy Trip. The series began with Metagaming’s Microgame 3, Melee in 1977. It continued a year later with Wizard,…
I’m on the road for the next few days. I won’t have a lot of time so I’m moving to a much simpler system. For…
Generic Extended Character Generation System is a variant for Classic Traveller written by James Jensen. I discovered it over a decade ago, and it is…
Given we died in character creation yesterday, let’s try to do advanced character generation again, but opening it to any of the five official versions.…
Today, we’ll continue with classic Traveller. I’ll admit, this was not my original plan, but I remembered two things as I got out the old…
Today I’m making another Traveller character. After the original boxed set, there were several official and otherwise expansions to character creation. Books 4-7 created a…
Yesterday, I noted when I first got into RPGs I was much more a science fiction reader and watcher than a fantasy reader. That would…
Yesterday I generated a character from my first edition of Dungeons & Dragons, the wonderful blue book by Dr. John Eric Holmes. It is not…
Now that we’ve started at the hobby’s beginning, let’s move on to my beginning in the hobby. My first copy of Dungeons & Dragons was…
I can’t think of a better place to start a 31-Day Character Creation Challenge for RPGs than with the first RPG. Welcome to three classes…
So I went to trivia tonight. There was exactly zero political talk from the host. I did over here and complaining to someone who was…
Tomorrow I face a choice, to go to trivia or not. Doesn’t sound big, and it isn’t, but I think it is an example of…
Right now I’m looking to start a new game. My plan is to run it at Tin Roof Cantina in Atlanta, Georgia on Thursdays after…
I was introduced in 1977. There are two memories and one activity which could have been the first inkling. First, I remember hearing Uncle Jeff…
I will give the kind of answer I think this is aiming to elicit in a minute, but first I want to give what I…
My nieces and younger nephew. My oldest nephew and brother-in-law have played D&D online and in person with me. Technically, my younger nephew sat in,…
I have been reading How to Be an Artist by Jerry Saltz. It is one of my two bathroom readers. The other is How to…
Last week I headed into the office on Friday. I’ve been fortunate that we only returned to the office post COVID last week. The only…
The picture heading up this post was taken back on the fifth. Z moved back to Georgia last month and these abandoned gas pumps and…
I quit writing fiction in February. Actually, I quit more than writing. I quit writing related MeWe groups, at least two Discord channels, and my…
One thing people noticed about the New England Patriots in the Brady/Belicheck era was how even in the last five minutes with a two touchdown…
Today I am at the twenty-percent point of #75HARD. Normally I would reflect at one-quarter of the way, but seventy-five is divisible by five, not…
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the…
I am going to do #75HARD. Actually, I’m going to do #LIFEHARD starting the day after LibertyCon. Both are about mental toughness, not physical fitness…
Today is the Sunday after the Elevation of the Holy Cross Today’s Epistle reading is The Epistle of Paul to the Galatians (2:16-20) Today’s Gospel…
Way back in 1982 in El Paso Texas in a bookstore that disappeared only months later I bought a book I’d only heard about in…
Blast from the Past, 2009-02-08 This is a world without a sense of creation: While the one faith of man (The Church of the Holy Succession)looks…
(Blast from the past 2008-11-28) And so we have a name for the new old school campaign. Tomorrow’s long post [[the planned post for 2008-11-29…
What if, for the hell of it, someone paid a black magician to let all the demons out of Hell for just one night?
Then, what if they didn’t go back? In fact, what if the result was a judgment day won by the Devil?
If I think of weapons in RPGs, my first thought is my favorite character story. In the early 80s, I played in an AD&D game…
I am an awful tactician. While this delights my players, it makes today’s topic very hard. You would think for someone who started as a…
It was the best of maps; it was the worst of maps. They were a pair of maps in a set of books that would…
The first time I encountered the word scenario, I was not yet a roleplayer. I was barely a hex and chit wargamer. The scenarios in…
I first became interested in Richard H. Fay’s short stories due to comparisons to two different authors. I didn’t know the exact titles at the…
D4: All Murderous Symbols Are Not Equal The symbol of the fifth-worst mass murder in history is verboten. The symbol used by both the individual…
Long ago, Jeff Rients wrote about the genre of Dungeons & Dragons. He described it as, “You play Conan, I play Gandalf. We team up…
I’ve written a lot about The Bradbury Challenge, especially the writing side of it, but I have not written much about what I’ve read. I…
I came up with one answer off the top of my head, but figured I’d put a more complete list from my bookshelves here. Killashandra…
I would like every hour of my life to be new, though connected to the ones that have passed. No day of celebration with its…
Sometimes life conspires to give you something to talk about. Earlier this week, I had the exchange below on Twitter. Beyond Mr. Garach liking the…
I had ordered some comics; Spiderwoman #1 is the chief one I remember, from Mile High Comics. As a result, I wound up on their…
The feature picture was taken on my return drive from my last trip to see Z. I’ve meant to take it for several trips now…
A couple of months ago, BleedingFool.com published an article about a blacklist taking shape in the world of comics. This blacklist was the second one…
I first read “The Beast-Jewel of Mars” in a collection of Leigh Brackett Mars stories, The Coming of the Terrans. While I enjoyed all the…
I’ve been reading old pulp stories, mainly by E. Hoffman Price. A few of them are spicy stories. That was the term for them. Yesterday’s…
I have mentioned here, and on Twitter, my daily reading but have not described anything in detail. The only part I have discussed is the…
It’s fun, ridiculous, and about cats. Cat Lady is a card game where the players take the role of cat ladies. The game takes pains…
This weekend I ran across the rare writing tweet I could answer. While Mr. Nevair was happy with my answer, I thought others might get…
I think I am misdefining a genre. At the very least either I’m looking at the seam between two genres or reading one a bit…
For over a week, most of the stories I have read as part of my daily reading have been by E. Hoffman Price. Among them…
Today is Cinco de Mayo, another double number day and thus time to review my Groundhog Day Resolutions. First, my efforts to become a calendar…
My daily reading has three parts. There is the Bradbury Challenge reading of one essay, one poem, and one short story every day. I read…
I’m back for the rest of A-Z after an eye issue interfered with post last week. While back, I’m not back to my topic of…
I had for a bit thought about blogging about quiet, but the day has been long with work and a bad eye (doctor’s appointment tomorrow),…
In her essay, “Why I Write,” Joan Didion says that writing is an imposition on the privacy of the reader. Specifically, she says, “there’s no…
Where do you write? That might seem like a simple question to answer: at home, at work, wherever I can are obvious answers. For me,…
Yesterday I discussed how marketing in indie publishing is strictly the province of the author. The major marketing tool is the mailing list, and the…
One thing I hear people saying scare them off of indie publishing is the need to do marketing. Indie publishers do need to do marketing,…
Lester Dent was a great author of the pulp era. His first published story in September 1929. His last published novel was in February 1959,…
is a rough letter. For days all I could think of was knowledge. I finally resorted to using a scrabble reference site for words starting…
Each of those characters embodies one or more things I want to talk about. A shortlist of those things could include gender roles and their relationship to sexual dimorphism in humanity, Orthodox Christianity, immigration, the Southwestern United States, the for purpose in life, my fears of aging, my fears of retiring, atonement and forgiveness, and a personal sense of moral worth or lack thereof.
Queen Takes Knight remains 80% finished. By the time I was writing it, I had started to drift away from the S&M world. As I gained distance, the passion for writing the first good F/m erotica or porn faded. The novel itself was less erotica; it had never really been porn and more a detective novel with three graphic sex scenes that advanced the plot. The graphic details could be cut without losing the story.
So H is for haunting, the artistic pinnacle of the writer. It is a writer’s imperishable fame.
It also has allowed me to understand why I haven’t liked a Hugo winner in over a decade, but reread books like The Coming of the Horseclans and The Man Who Never Missed. While fantasy and science-fiction reality genre, they are action novels in terms of content. Not everything I love is action, but a good deal of it is.
When someone sets out to become a self-supporting indie author there is a lot of discussion of finances. Discussions about being debt-free, having a healthy…
I have wondered if this is a mistake. I have considered experimenting with retyping in my process. Could marking up a written manuscript and, instead of doing the edits in your word processor or text editor of choice, typing it fresh from the beginning serve as a useful step in language polishing?
There is a term for a comfortable living made by appealing directly to customers with some kind of gatekeeper, be they editors or employers. That word is freedom.
It might not seem like it, but this is actually my best resolution progress in years. I have made two reflections in a row. This indicates mindfulness and commitment I did not have in 2020 or 2019. That alone is a positive step. I think at this rate the two new identities will be firmly in place by 12/12. The big question is will writing be refreshed and move forward towards my “retire to a final career of writing fiction on 2026/05/10” goal.
That was a few days ago. This city discussion in Dael Kingsmill’s video on witches is in D&D prompted the comments. At the time I was once again reminded of how average my game soon to me. I generally do not think of myself as a creative person yet I want to move on to a final career in a very creative feel.
Writing a blog twice a week on gaming taught me a lot about getting out of my way and letting the words flow. Writing blog posts about gaming and storytelling have helped me find my voice. I already reject style choices in ProWriting Aid and Grammarly because “that’s not how I say things.”
For the challenge, I’m writing about learning to write fiction. At least, that is how I initially framed it. A more detailed answer is I’m…
Having done so well with my attempt to post every day in March, I’m going to join the April A-Z blogging challenge. I’ve attempted in…
I am all for making it a national holiday for several reasons. The least of the reasons is a “practical” one. Federal holidays seem clumped around the dead of winter much more than summer. The main reason is more philosophical. Juneteenth represents a crucial point on the national journey of the United States.
You’d think that would be obvious. So, while assembling an APC on the breadboard Friday, did I make sure I had one?
As you know, the usurpers of authority in these United States, Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, have continued to act as warlords in the east of our fair country. As a result, lawlessness reigns in Texas and Louisiana, and, most heinous of all, the conman who tried to ruin the Emperor himself, William T. Sherman, a Lieutenant of Lincoln, is remaking himself as a butcher in Georgia. The Emperor has determined the time is ripe to end the war not with arms, but with well-placed words and actions. As of today, you are all commissioned as the first agents of His Majesty’s Secret Service. Within the hour you will get your orders to various parts of the Realm, with instructions on whom to contact to re-establish Imperial Order in key locations from Boston to New Orleans. Once secure, you will join forces to arrest Lincoln, Davis, and their associations, most especially Sherman, and return them to San Francisco to receive the Emperor’s justice.
That got me thinking, I could build almost everything in that video with items I had on hand. The only limitation was I did not have enough 100K potentiometers for the Baby 8 sequencer. I might not have exact resister or capacitor values, although I doubt that, but even if I don’t have the right ones you can get close. A quick order to Amazon could solve the potentiometer problem. Thus was the “Atari Punk Modular” born.
Twenty-nine days have passed since Groundhog Day and we’ve come to March 3rd. It is time to review my Groundhog Day resolutions. A quick refresher, this year I decided to focus on three identities and the habits you would associate with them. I’ll look at them in order from least successful to most so far.
I’m not saying I’m any kind of hardcore roleplayer. On the classic “Real Men, Real Roleplayers, Real Loonies, Real Munchkins” categorization, I’m probably half Real Man and half Real Loonie. What I will say is that the model of that wonderful parody and its descendants doesn’t stray too far from how I’ve seen nearly every style of roleplaying I’ve encountered in over 40 years of the hobby.
Having to write every day, about something, just to get a blog post, might be what I need to break the damn. I have a longer, more traditional blog post in first draft for tomorrow. Wednesday, of course, will be my Groundhog Day resolutions update. Beyond that, there isn’t a plan beyond having at least a few hundred words about something up every day at 6 pm here in Georgia.
First of all, I have decided to go with the Eurorack format. The biggest reason is if I’d like to add professional modules, Eurorack is where the action is. There are Eurorack versions of the classic Wiard 300 series modules. Maths is one of the most talked-about modules out there. With some power conversions, the PAiA 9700 series can be used. This was the principal factor in pointing me towards Eurorack.
Powell’s had the chance to show the protesters what the real signal would be like. They could have spent the labor to put up a display and invited Ngo to sign books. They could have accepted the cost of the broken window and the free publicity of protests. They could have risked the inevitable arson attempt. They could have been everything independent booksellers claim to be.
So, inviting luck, writing, and using a calendar seem like a pretty ambitious year. Come back on March 3rd to see how I’m doing.
I would like to use the first VCO from The Preferred Circuits Handbook from Elekcronotes, but it is not a simple build. I may use the simpler All Circuits oscillator, which is similar in design but has fewer outputs. I have also considered the Look Mum No Computer oscillator, based on the CEM3440 chip. I need something tunable I can build in about three hours.
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night…
How can you not love a conspiracy setting whose first published adventure had the elevator pitch of “What if you woke up one morning and accidentally found that part of your life was missing? And found someone was willing to kill to keep you from getting it back? Kill you, that is…”
I am not sure I am quite ready for the mosh pit, but the Masquerade is listing shows again. On March eighth they’ll be hosting Swallow the Sun, Infected Rain, and Tómarúm. I intend to be at the show and on the floor. Samples from the bands are interspersed throughout the post.
Today is my birthday. Usually, I don’t bother noting that on the blog. But I have blogged in a few weeks and today’s a pretty…
Today’s samizdat is an excerpt from Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22 that serves as an excellent stand-alone parable about how such insane judgments take hold and how one person can end them in two words.
This week for Samizdat we have the real thing. Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote this essay in 1974. It circulated in Moscow among disidents. It is dated February 12. The same day he was arrested, again, and exiled from the USSR.
I do not want to live in a world where samizdat is the only way to learn things not in the official story. USA Today, Twitter, and Facebook either have never heard the term or think that world is a good one. They have the ability to make it so. In that case, I’ll publish it.
This week is Black Tape for a Blue Girl. I saw them live while Sam and Lisa were still married. Lisa was very pregnant. My biggest memory of that show was the DJ set after and Elysabeth Grant dancing in the crowd with the rest of us.
Time for another round of sharing. This time it is the opening to a short story I’m aiming to finish this week. The story was inspired by reading the complete collection of Elmore Leonard westerns and a favorite 60s folk song.
My father died at 73. I will be 54 in five weeks. If I live as long as him, I have twenty years left.
I came close to finishing up a new story whose working title is “The Trap”. It is science fiction horror in the same broad setting as ”The Visions of Cireb”. I am working towards having enough stories set in the growing Portuguese space empire to select the best for a collection of 6–8 stories whose length is 40,000 to 60,000 words.
So, here we are, a quarter of the way through The Illiad and we have characters I can support. I know the fate of all the major characters well beyond The Illiad for those who survive. Currently, it seems only Hector, his wife and son, and Helen whose fates are undeserved.
The idea was for 30 days to use a small set of sources picked according to Jeff Rient’s “Alchemical Proposal” to create an RPG setting from scratch. I never finished it, but I think I did make a few very creative elements. This is one of my favorites.
Writing 500 words only to learn I was wrong is one of the two substantial rewards of blogging. In writing an essay on a schedule, every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday, in my case I am forced to clarify my thoughts. I am also forced to stop when something new enters my thoughts and decide if it is worth clarifying.
It has been a long week. I got a first draft of a new short, “Fire Flowers”, completed. It is my second Leo and Zoe story. I also started working through the first draft of “Family Sword”, a short whose first draft I finished back in April. I am considering it for inclusion in the October newsletter, so if you’re interested in free short fiction subscribe now.
That is why I’m working on craft more than on getting items up and for sale. The Visions of Cireb is up. Putting it up was a huge milestone in terms of committing to the field, but now it is time to learn my craft, to learn my fundamentals.
For some reason today day I thought about horse racing. I think it was because I was listening to The Motivation Myth again as I was leaving Pennsylvania to drive to Georgia.
Today is the the Sunday after the Elevation of the Holy Cross and the feast day of Greatmartyr Eustathius Placidas, with his wife and children,…
That is just a sample of Homer’s descriptive violence. If you write historical fiction or fantasy and want to upgrade your descriptions of fighting, do yourself a favor and read a good poetic translation of The Illiad if you haven’t already. I know it is improving my writing. I think it will improve yours.
Looking back, I went off the rails, but I still think it’s worth sharing. The story is a side of Navy life you don’t see in the movies.
Twenty years ago I didn’t understand why The Sopranos was such a big deal. When my roommate became a fan of Breaking Bad and Sons of Anarchy I didn’t get it. Breaking Bad as a classic tragedy, the downfall of a good man due to a fatal flaw, could have been interesting as a movie or short series focused on the tragedy. When it became, like the other two, a celebration of someone who wasn’t even an anti-hero, but a likable villain, I think the potential was lost.
This past week was Star Trek day. I wrote about Star Trek in terms of genre and ownership, but Overlord DVD really captured what Star Trek means to so many of us.
Yet, to me, raised in an Anglo-Saxon descended culture, all I can see is a horrible king fighting with a man-child of a hero.
I am also thinking of doing so not just for work for my employer, but when I sit down to write or do any business related to blogging. Perhaps the uniform for that should be different, but clothes for writing might be the trigger that works for me.
In the Lord’s Prayer Christians ask God to “forgive us our tresAnd forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive them that trespass against us.” It is not an injunction for blanket forgiveness, but to forgive us as we forgive others. Newhouse’s forgiveness was not an unconditional thing given without thought. It was a thoughtful thing given after atonement.
That’s great if they cover something you wanted, but what if you want to build something else. Psi-Wars is a worked example of creating such a framework for your specific campaign idea.
On the Discordian Calendar this is a Pungenday and is the 29th day of the season Bureaucracy. I am tempted to say the Discordian calendar is off this year and the season of Bureaucracy is now on its 174th day.
But I’m also on vacation in Pigeon Forge, Tennesse. Today’s highlight was tubing down the Little River. Beyond the joy of being in the water and just lazing for two hours, I also got to break in my official old cat man swim trunks in the featured image.
When I am working on something, I’m going to give the bottom of the piece as much attention as the top. A lot of the…
Even if you don’t read the whole book, seek out “By His Bootstraps” which may be the ur snarled time travel story. The first part of “The Year of the Jackpot”, like the parts of Heinlein’s Future History that describe the Crazy Years, hits too close to home. It did before 2020, but now it is a harder hit. “The Menace from Earth” inspired part of the background to J. Daniel Sawyer’s Hadrian’s Flight.
New feature, in addition to videos and song, why not share a book. I am a writer, even if I’m just an obscure S-list one.
It’s the fifth of the month and that means the newsletter is out. What did you think about Chamomile’s story? Do you have any hints…
I am a fan of excellent Timothy Hutton and Maury Chaykin led, troupe centered A Nero Wolfe Mystery series. While I cannot imagine anyone by Chaykin in the role of Wolfe, this unbought pilot for 1959 series starring William Shanter as Archie Goodwin left me curious as to how he would have done in the role in the long haul.
However, one of the key concepts of owning something is the right to make profitable use of the property. While Paramount has this in a legal sense, in a practical sense I think that right is impeded by social forces the law cannot touch.
This is half of why I hate the phrase, “it’s just a cat”. You would not say “it’s just your sister”. “It’s just your wife” would never cross someone’s lips.
This letter/diary was written four years and a month before my birth, but I feel a strong kinship with the writer.
I do not believe in science. In the modern age that is admitting to being uneducated and irrational. This shows how little the modern age…
I knew the sensation from the Forgettings I had done. Forgettings are a must for an alchemist. You have room for only so many memories before the mix and start to still your sanity. Any alchemist who finds the Stone or the Exilir has to learn rituals of forgetting.
Today is the fifth Sunday after Pentecost and the Fifths Sunday of Matthew. It is the feast day of Holy Martyrs Proclus and Hilary of…
It seems like Matt was a good colleague and perhaps even a friend. I wish that was more valuable in your world than him never signaling something you disagreed with in public. I wish it had at least had enough value for you to bring your concerns to Matt in private instead of airing them in a way which has poisoned not only your relationship with Matt, but with the entire staff.
Clearly the crew of the Enterprise had acted with compassion and duty towards their friend. They also had a sense of honor and duty to the Federation. A man of duty and honor does not flee from his crimes but stands trial for them and fights for his vindication and receives his punishment.
Today is the Fourth Sunday of Matthew. It is the feast day of Venerable Athanasius of Athos. Today’s Epistle is the Epistle of St. Paul…
I listening to Sophia’s video, where she discusses how she would have no more right to change a game they complainers created that matched their desires and expectations, I was reminded of this post.
But this, this is even worse than malice. This is losing a friend to someone’s greed, so shallow as to think aiding in the death and disappearance of an average women with average wealth is worth what she can recover in cash.
I would not say they cannot create, although I will say they have less faith in their ability to create than the artists and patrons who created the statues they set out to destroy. If they consider the destruction of these statues as more important than any statue they might create to counter the first they are granting the first greater power.
She gave up the chance to answer my question, because it was sincere. I wanted to know if we were discussing assault in general terms, sexual assault broadly, or sexual assault of player characters. I asked about the last of those, figuring if it was not the case we would at least get some clarity on where the discussion was.
What is defeat? Is defeat merely losing or is it something deeper? Does the difference, if any, define inform possible wise peace requirements to place on a defeated enemy.
Welcome to the return, later in the day than usual, return of Sunday Reading. It is a short list today, but a goal for March is returning to a full set of Pythagorean solids every week.
We know things that validate our position is not only correct, but correct in a way that makes us better than those who hold other positions.
Whatever I was thinking, I’m in it now. Either I’ll look like a fool and having nothing or I’ll look like a fool with a very bad first book.
Two weeks ago, I made a post about starting my Groundhog Day resolutions planning. After looking at areas in my life to consider, I pointed out back in December I started a list of processes I might focus on this year. Today, we’ll look at that list and see where it fits in the six areas to which I had narrowed my thinking.
Today is the Twenty-ninth Sunday after Pentecost and the Twelfth Sunday of Luke. It is the feast day of Venerable Makarios the Great of Egypt, the Anchorite.
Slaying a Tyrant starts off with the titular tyrant and shows his disregard for the norms of his culture. Isn’t that the nature of a tyrant? A ruler, no matter how absolute his power, that stays within the bounds, formal or informal, placed on his power is not a tyrant. One who breaks no formal law, but who violates informal norms, often is a tyrant.
Specifically, I want my Groundhog Day goals to be about measuring processes I want to have in place, or in the case of bad habits, processes I want to ease off my routine.
A Once and Future Love was my first time travel romance. Based on it, it will not be my last, nor will it be my last book by Anne Kelleher. It had three big strengths separate from the things that have kept me reading romance on and off.
This post has a rare style, called a “paragrapher” that stems from the introduction to my latest essay collection.
Carella wrote two supplements before moving on from Palladium. The first, Between the Shadows introduced that standard of all urban fantasy, and most fantasy, fiction and games, a dream plane. This particular version is called The Dreamscape.
In the end, however, the Mr. Hyde side of Palladium on the subject of generosity hurts the company more than anyone. Sharing my conversions and materials on the web might get me feedback to make them better. People coming across those conversions and materials, however, might be inspired to buy Palladium books by those derivative works.
This reward for engaging the world being baked into the system is one reason Palladium’s system, for all its warts, appeals to me. Want a super powered hero at level one, then play a Glitterboy or a Knight of the Cosmic Forge. You’ll be a big boy on most blocks, but there will still be other blocks that no matter how much you level up the crazy powers on your character sheet will not be the sole solution there.
I hope I’ve given you a glimpse into the unique things about Palladium that keep me coming back, especially those comic sensibilities and old-school DIY mentality. At the same time, I hope you have a glimpse into what often leads attempts to play Palladium games to fall apart.
The final, and biggest, first is the first Palladium RPG, The Mechanoid Invasion. It is a very cheap comic book sized book printed on newsprint.
On July 4th, 1976, I was nine. The whole year had been consumed by the Bicentennial Celebration. There was the Freedom Train touring the country, though it did not pass close to me. I first saw 1776 on television that year. I would not see it again until a few years ago when I purchased it on BluRay.
From the world of politics and journalism is a lesson that no one is above genre expectations. In writing about it there is also a lesson that to essai is to often not come to the conclusions you thought you would when you started.
I don’t have one. I’m writing this in the older meaning of essay as a verb: “to make an attempt at; try.” I try to find a proposal here, but I find myself still trapped in Einstein’s warning. I cannot get beyond political ideas about moving money around.
The odd thing about celebrating the 75th anniversary of D-Day by doing what you did on D-Day, parachuting into Normandy, is it is easier at 97 than 22. You get to do it in day light and without people trying to kill you.
With the VoxAdpocalypseon YouTube yesterday I canceled my YouTube Premium subscription. It will be effective as of my next billing date. In one of the…
It’s the fifth of the month and that means the newsletter is out. Feel free to comment on the newsletter’s content or whatever is tickling your fancy today.
Even with that in mind, though, I see no reason to reject the 10,000 step rule. Unlike the bad advice on carbs which lead to unstable blood sugars and encourage over eating, the 10,000 step rule doesn’t harm you. It gives you a target that can be achieved with not too much effort even if you have a desk job. Taking a walk at lunch to the Fed and back gets me over half the steps I need. It also resets me for the second half of the work day and gets me a small amount of sun. A little vitamin D creation never hurt anyone after all.
Today we are all over the place. From amazing cultural photography to to animals big and small to a defense of language, enjoy your Sunday reading.
Now, the state is not something you see in lobsters. The state, government, is not even something you can observe among other primates to the best of my knowledge. Yes, primate bands have an elite and a hierarchy. Chimps, at least, enforce the borders of a band’s territory. However, this is closer to human clans than the state.
I love to read such tales. I wish there were more of them.
I had a very hard time writing this week. I missed Thursday’s blog and would have missed Tuesday’s post if it hadn’t been for Mary Spender this week. Her Tuesday Talk this week, which I listened to on my Tuesday lunch walk got me moving.
The section on mentors is up front and shorter. The section on influences is about nine times as long as the one on mentors. One reason according to the author is not everyone gets to have an intentional mentor, but we all learn from those around us and who came before us.
Only a small roll this week, so use it in a roll-under game and not for damage.
The playlist began with my first sprint inspired by Chris Fox’s book. I used the Tenggar Cavalry radio station on Spotify. That day I saved the first few songs. Now I add as I’m listening to something and think it fits the book somehow.
I talked about self-help books last week. I even mentioned the book in question was Organize Tomorrow Today. In case anyone cares, I have been…
Good morning. Today is the third Sunday of Pascha, the Sunday of the Myrrh-bearing Women, Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus.
If you ask an Alex Jones fan who runs the world, the answer will probably be the chemical companies who are turning the frogs gay.
I was going to use this blog post to teach what I considered the most important point of the first four principles. I am always reminded of Dr. Richard Feynman’s remark about
Fermi-Dirac statistics, “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t reduce it to the freshman level. That means we don’t really understand it ”. Sure, a blog post will lack the back and forth that teaching one on one to somebody which helps clarify the topic to you. Yet, the authors mention, even emphasize, that back and forth, as a key to learning by teaching.
Still, Pulp Fiction has issues as a story. As a film it is a good film with some great scenes and beautiful direction, Where it fails is as a cohesive story.
In the end, Pulp Fiction is too stylized, which is a Tarantino tradition. Susan Sontag says in ”On Style” overly stylized art cannot be great art. I agree.
I tend to refer to the two categories as white collar and blue collar writers. One works at a leisurely pace that could be considered an air conditioned writer’s room. The other toils to make their 2,000 plus words per needed to keep up their multiple books per year pace.
That thing is a barbershop. I genuinely miss a good, old fashioned, barbershop.
Welcome to the second Sunday in April 2019. For my friends in Western churches, I hope you have a fruitful Holy Week. Those of us in Eastern churches have another week left before Holy Week.
Don’t be evil would seem to be an excellent motto. It is a good motto from the standpoint of public relations. That is until people realize you have abrogated to yourself the right to decide what evil is.
Nope, I’m talking about why here it is Tuesday afternoon and I don’t have a Tuesday blog post started. Like any activity writing comes with plenty of excuses not to do it. Perhaps only exercise comes with me.
Welcome to your Sunday Reading. Starting with this month’s newsletter, Sunday Reading will also go to those on the mailing list. Friday’s newsletter contained both…
Of course, you are free to discuss anything, it doesn’t have to be from the newsletter, because this is an open thread.
When you refuse to write something because the character or the outcome is from a viewpoint you fear you are cutting off an entire sphere of solutions. That leads to giving up on great stories.
I do not believe as a reader I am culpable for the moral behavior of an author no matter how much I enjoy their work. It is not a sign of depravity to continue enjoy something I enjoyed prior to this knowledge.
The last Sunday in March is here, and it appears the lion is roaring one last time. Today at noon was over 20 degrees cooler…
We try to hide, but as the rock cried out, there is no hiding place. We celebrated his ideas even as we excused his being an ass.
Do you “fucking love science”? I see the tag line all the time I am often. I am not alone in this. One of the questions I ask myself when I read the post having this line is, “who does the author think is the most important person in revealing the heliocentric nature of the solar system.”
D4: Things That Make You Say ‘Duh’ I know someone with PTSD. If you do any basic research you’ll know trigger warnings are highly specific…
Writing is a muscle. If you train it, it gets stronger. If you use it, it stays useful. If you don’t use it, it atrophies.…
In John Galt’s speech, which I did read every word of the first time I read Atlas Shrugged, he says “A is A. A thing…
D4: Treat your players well Don’t spoil them with too much treasure, but don’t make them wait until level 10 for a +1 sword. More…
The best superhero material being produced today is not in comics. There are good comics. I am really enjoying Silencer which combines an interesting new…
After work, I will be flying out of town for a long weekend. I have three concerns about traveling. First is the TSA work slowdown…
It is a new world for writers of fiction. With the introduction of the Amazon Kindle and Amazon Direct Publishing, the gatekeepers of publishing big…
D4: The Gernsback Continuum Strikes Back Not being satisfied with landing rockets on a fiery tale as God and Heinlein intended, SpaceX is building the…
I have blogged about the HPD–12, my PDP–8 Clone Project. I have had a bunch of thoughts about other retro and homebrew computers. An incomplete…
One typical piece of advice for writers is to understand and respect the conventions of the genre they are writing in. Yes, that includes you…
It is the twelfth day of the twelfth month and thus time for the final review of those goals I set myself on the second…
D4: Devoted, to Competence, to Friends There are two things I admire very much, competence and loyalty. David Mamet remembers a friend who embodied both.…
It is uneven and, if I decide to do it, will need a lot of work, but it is done. Most important, I written 30…
Cats will be cats and cats will be cruel Cats can be callous, and cats can be cool Cats will be cats, remember these words…
The last day I was at or above par for the NaNoWriMo word count was November 3. That is, until this past Sunday. As I…
I had not planned on doing NaNoWriMothis year. I did not plan a story. I did not outline. I did not even have a coherent…
I missed four months of Groundhog Day review. The last was back in April. At that point, I was struggling with two of my three…
This was first posted on an earlier version of this blog on May 13, 2017. I am re-running it because it is relevant to the…
The lovely Sarah Hoyt and her co-author Kevin Anderson have won this: for writing this: For those who can’t read the inscription it is the…
This past month I cut the cord. While I subscribe to Netflix and it is both Z and C’s primary form of television my viewing…
I have three principle references, with a possible fourth, for the HPD–12 project. One is the primary reference Ben Eater mentions. The second is a…
When I wrote my celebration of Ben Eater’s breadboard computer I said I have notes for two different directions to extend it. I do, but…
I am sinning against one of my own principles. It isn’t the most passionate principle. It has provided a few rants over the years. As…
Over the past couple of weeks, I have been obsessed with a YouTube play list by Ben Eater. In it, he describes building a simple…
Stones of Silence is a recent book by Peter Grant. It is the the first book of a trilogy he released monthly starting in May,…
My mind takes weird passage ways. I was reading the text portion of The Segovia Scales this morning as I intend to add them to…
D4: Story in a Flash As promised way back in But I Want to Write here is a link to the story on writing flash…
Last week in my Groundhog Day update I said, “I had planned a more thorough discussion, especially of my failure to get any traction on…
**Posted on the Prior Version of this Blog: 2017-03-21** Hi, my name is Herb and I am a perfectionist. Prefectionism is very expensive. The price…
D4: Restarting the Atomic Age I grew up reading a lot of 50s and 60s science fiction which had dates in the Year Atomic or…
It is time for the second review of my Groundhog Day Resolutions. I had planned a more thorough discussion, especially of my failure to get…
The two pictures at the top of this post were sent by me to my partners this past Friday. The one on the left, the…
D4: Pandora’s Gun D6: DIY Aluminum Lower Receiver I’m not a fan of the 3D printed firearms, but not because they do not work. I…
The first volume I completed during my Bradbury Challenge was A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor. I chose it because of…
Lost Daughter of the Amazons, 3,994 words is finished. Correction, when I print in Scrivener and open the RTF file I have 5465 excluding title,…
Welcome back to Sunday Reading. It has been on a break but we are back. D4: Two Way Quantum Communication While interesting this doesn’t defeat…
Note: This should have posted yesterday but did not. It is March Third and time for the first review of my Groundhog Day Resolutions. First I’ll…
No story was finished during the week ending Saturday, February 10, 2018. There should be a title and word count for Saturday, February 17, 2018.
Today is Groundhog Day or as I used to call it in my past Engineroom Lower Level Day. Today, the midwatch engineroom lower level watchstander…
I figured I’d cross post my vignette from the According to Hoyt prompt. Her body language conveyed it. After all, if you were looking for…
D4: Get Out of Jail Cards While I agree with the assessment on the cards I would say two things. To some degree officers doing…
As I’ve long said if members of the super mommy, Christian mommy, or lifestyle submissives begin to adopt something you know the other two communities…
A common trope when someone defends themselves against charges of racism, sexism, homophobia, or any of the other legion of sins we are all (unless…
D4: The King is Dead, Gentlemen Whether I’m still the active king of Romania or not, it is still my duty to look after my…
And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you…
D4: Sounds like bullsh*t An Austin band decides Autotune isn’t misused enough and makes a ruined version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. I tried to…
What is success in writing? I got to thinking about that when a friend posted an article about new writing awards and said, “This is…
You would think writer’s block only applies to fiction. Apparently it does not. The same advice should apply to blogger writer’s block as fictional writer’s…
D4: Groundhog Day Resolutions It is the end of the first week of the year. Have you already failed on one or more resolutions? David Seah…
The regular thread on newsletter days to discuss the newsletter or whatever tickles your fancy.
For a variety of reason I’m returning to WordPress. Some older stories will be returned over the next few days. If you have stories you…
Hi, my name is Herb and I am a perfectionist. Perfectionism is very expensive. The price you pay to be a perfectionist is you can…
You Don’t Live Your Facebook
Published by Herb on 2021-05-12In letters, we can reform without practice, beg without humiliation, snip and shape embarrassing experiences to the measure of our own desires – this is…