My latest idea for a story centers around how magic items are created in a fantasy setting. The enchanter effectively tells the item what its purpose is. Those capable of the craft can hear an echo of that purpose when holding the item. [Male character] is so good at his craft that the king only…
Have you ever noticed that witches in stories have little cottages out in the woods away from everyone? The implication is that they stay away from villages that might turn against them. But what if it has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with geography. Specifically, what if witches are like Jaguars…
Someone said “Affleck, you the bomb in phantoms, yo!” which is a timeless quote. I actually saw Phantoms, forever ago, when it came to home video. But I couldn’t remember anything about it, so I went to YouTube and watched the trailer. I still don’t remember anything about it (other than—at the time—thinking that Affleck…
Legacy games are all the rage in the board game world at the moment. My Tuesday group has already completed Seafall and Gloomhave and are 7/12 through Charterstone. I even have my own that I worked on over Christmas that I hope to devote more time to if work wasn’t trying to kill me (believe…
Last night I had a Cloud Atlas-level of complexity to my dream. It was amazing! So much so that I did not make the effort to try and remember it while I was sleeping (I’m a lucid dreamer) because I didn’t want to miss anything. Actors I recognized were Liam Neeson, Nathan Fillion, Paul Dano,…
My wife and I are big fans of the Starz original series, Black Sails. She’s never read Treasure Island nor played Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag (which we’ll count as research for purposes of this show 😉 ), so it’s all new to her. But seeing Flint, Silver, and Billy Bones all together is wicked exciting.…
Like most geeks, I hopped on board the 2004 Battlestar Galactica sensation. Like fewer, I was still a stalwart fan of the original series. And perhaps on my own, I still prefer the original to the reboot. The original series was what it was and it did what it was very well. The reboot showed…
I tell Liz Poole all the time that I’m never going to write Urban Fantasy. But an opening line while I was driving from physical therapy gave me an idea for a character that turned an espionage thriller plot I had been ruminating on into a genuine urban fantasy. The original espionage was inspired by…
I was reading the sample of Melinda Lo’s ASH and she wrote something that struck me as odd. The main character’s mom is dead and her father lights a candle that burns for three days. Now candles aren’t made to last that long, and that got me thinking. What if creating one’s own funeral candle…