Second entry in my process notes on developing a murder-mystery weekend! At one friend’s murder mystery party, players could kill each other using in-game weapons. I thought this was a lot of fun, so I wanted to include a similar mechanic in my murder mystery weekend. (Besides, it would help…
So I’m planning a murder mystery weekend this May. Before I say anything about it, let me note: there is nothing in this blog entry that will spoil the game for any of the players or give anyone an unfair advantage. So feel free to keep reading no matter who…
Books YA/MG fiction The Crown of Embers (***** – loved) Glimmer (**** – liked) Hunger: A Gone Novel (*** – enjoyed) Shadowland (*** – enjoyed) Lies: A Gone Novel (*** – enjoyed) Ninth Key (*** – enjoyed) Adult fiction The Tragedy of Arthur (**** – liked) Alif the Unseen (**** – liked) The…
I’m over sacrifice. In fiction, that is. I’m not quite as excited as I used to be about climaxes where Mr. Spock gasps out his last words on the other side of the radioactivity-shielding glass or Harry Potter whips off his Invisibility Cloak in the middle of a Death Eater…
(otherwise entitled: “Grangers in a Strange Land”) The first confession is, I’m not sure if “former” is an accurate description. What’s she trying to do, you’re thinking, make it clear that she’s still smart? Or is she deluded enough to think she’s still a kid? Well, I’m definitely no longer…
Books YA/MG fiction The Girl of Fire and Thorns (***** – loved) Leverage (***** – loved) Adult fiction Whispers Under Ground (***** – loved) The Last Policeman: A Novel (**** – liked) Redshirts (*** – enjoyed) The Surgeon (**** – liked) Adult non-fiction Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy…
(But first… happy birthday, Grace! Yaaaaaay!) Almost every how-to writing book you can find advises would-be writers to read extensively. This is sound advice. Reading a lot of what you want to write helps you to understand it viscerally the same way doing lots of math problems is a different…
… although, for some of them, “sing” might be optimistic. However, most of the cast of Tom Hooper’s cinematic adaptation of Claude-Michel Schönberg and Michel Boublil’s successful musical, Les Misérables, are quite pleasant to hear.
… is now I have to explain how horribly I did with last year’s resolutions.
This year, I feel like there are so many things I learned about myself and the world that I can’t put them all in a list of the most important. And some are kind of personal, so I don’t really want to share them — at least, not in the…