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Showing posts from July, 2014

How to write Fantasy Check List

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Here is a  How to Write Fantasy Novel  Checklist 1. Writing fantasy-genre sentences takes a lot more work than writing normal sentences. "If thou h'ain't put in the work, then don't deign to twerk!" -Duchess Miley of the Mulletted Four Bears 2. A character can be named many, many times, and any confusion is the reader's fault. Trolls will know a character by one name, dwarves by a different name. Remember nobody is all things to all men. So King Kalsius may be known to the pixies as Clumsy Clodhopper The Man with the Heavy Feet, because of his heavy, metal armor boots. As in: "Hello, Clumsy Clodhopper !" squeaked Mr Babbles. "Shuddup already! I'm a king and I'm trying to impress my mistress here!" 3. Make sure that you have guilds, masters and apprentices, and characters that have occupations in keeping with these guilds and apprenticeships. Master builders need their masonry apprentices, and their sculpture apprentices, and these

What do you do with a Gifted Child? (PART TWO)

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___________ONLINE MAGAZINE   CONTINUED FROM PART ONE After a cab ride from Poighte Regional, we got home. Across the intersection from our house is a Homestore-24. Little Seevers emerged from the cab and snapped out of his catatonia. He didn't want to go home. He ran across the street - two cars collided to avoid the little guy, the afternoon sunlight bouncing off the tips of his Baby Jordan laces - and I had to give chase, waving my apologies to the married couple and the family of four in their cars, more interested in checking themselves for injuries than looking to see where Seevers was going. I caught him and he bit me and kicked me. I had to let him go. Our luggage was still on the sidewalk across the street, so I let him run into the safe environment of Homestore-24, and I sat at the kerbside, watching the suitcases. I phoned his father - he is actually my wife's husband - and I told him to come and help with Little Seevers. I checked my email, correcting ess

What do you do with a Gifted Child? (PART ONE)

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__________________ONLINE MAGAZINE By Melissa Hartley-Smythe Moms get a bad rap. Whether they're leaving their kids in the car for a job interview, or leaving their kids at the kindergarten to get a facial, it doesn't matter: There will always be someone to judge mothers, always with the handcuffs, and the arrests. My little guy Seevers (3) is autistic. We were on a flight home to Poighte (pron. Puffty), New Hampshire from a two-week visit at my parents' in Yubbadoo Creek, Montana. I was already very highly-strung and feeling quite writerly, and emotionally intelligent, because little Seevers was making clear to me that he did not want to get on any damn airplane. He screamed at the Southwest Airlines check-in staff so loud that two desk employees required ear napkins to wipe the blood off. Then, after the manager came over, I had to tweet about the fact that they were not going to let Seevers board before we were finally let on the plane. When we were seated on the plane, i

New to me...

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So I've seen people post articles to their newsfeed and write "With So-and-So", linking to a lookalike's profile. For instance, "Nurse who beat up old people flees court" - and the picture looks like someone you know, so you post the article with the pic of the mean, ugly nurse and it says "Nurse who beat up old people flees court" with Melissa Bloggs - and Melissa's profile is linked, and you can see the ugly nurse does look unflatteringly like Melissa. When the newsfeed from a national newspaper gets in on the act, it's a concern. Sure enough, the two people linked to the article look a little bit and NOTHING like the two people in the photo respectively. But let's make this a meme. Let's encourage our media outlets to do this all the time, for every article that is posted. Some people might say it's mean - but the horse has clearly already bolted. It'd be mean not to!

Dear Facebook...

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Dearest Facebook: Contacts in my email account that is not connected with Facebook have now been added to my list of People You May Know. Can you please explain to me how that happened? What third party app or site did I sign up to, so that this could actually take place? Now my whole system is messed up, Facebook. Those email accounts and everything associated with them were supposed to be separate. If the hitman I hired to kill my wife finds out that I am having an affair with his son, he will probably kill me before he kills her. Facebook, I need that insurance money and I want to live an authentic life! Stop ruining it for people. Your etc, Mr. Et Cetera.

Top ten listicle article: What it do, Sarah Palin? What? It? Do?

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So Sarah Palin has asked the Republicans to impeach Obama over his immigration policy, coz he's allowing illegals to cross the border . This, apparently, gives Republican candidates a choice: 1. Oppose impeachment, and risk the wrath of the far right of the GOP. 2. Be hemmin' and a hawin' and a bippin' and a boppin' over impeachment when asked about it. 3. Support impeachment and annoy the larger GOP. There is a FOURTH way. Any or all of the following can be included in the fourth way. (a) Ignore a private citizen who governed 700,000 people for half a term. (b) Show Sarah Palin two photos, one of PSY, and one of Kim Jong Un. Ask her which of them is the North Korean dictator, and which of them is the South Korean rapper. Then hold her eye and ask: " Aren't they - in fact - the same thing ?" It is the SAME! PERSON! (c) Continue this line of questioning on foreign policy. Ask her "Which of these would you regard as a friend? From the North or the