Worldbuilding: Curses!

How do you break a curse?

Note, this is a valid question for SF as well as fantasy. Human nature being what it is, people will still curse each other and victims have to deal with the effects. Even if it’s “only” in your mind, it can still kill you, and will always make life more difficult.

On Writing: Looking for the Right Rock

If you’re looking to lay a church foundation stone, granite is the way to go. If you want to make lithographic prints, look for fine-grained slate. And if you want to go old school and chip out arrowheads and scrapers, you want flint. They’re all rocks; not better, not worse. But they’re very different rocks.

On Writing: Mental Crop Rotation

You’re facing a blank page, or even a written-on page, and your brain decides Nope, Not Doing This. So then what?

On Writing: The Research Cycle of Argh

If you write, there’s an unexpected hazard to watching subbed foreign shows, movies, or what have you. The cycle goes something like this.

1) Watch Show of Awesomeness. (Enchanting Phantom, The Killer is Also Romantic, The Three Musketeers (Korean series), The Scholar Who Walks the Night, so many others.)

Worldbuilding: By Any Other Name

Your world should have moments where the characters can stop and smell the roses. No, literally. Roses are awesome.

Not just for romance, though that’s the common image.

Movie Review: the Cursed Plate

The Cursed Plate: Dish Mansion of Hell’s Bancho. I’d give this a 4.5 stars out of 5, for delightfully spooky Halloween-type fare that’s not too gory. I will, however, add the caveat that there is Values Dissonance, and if you’re not familiar with some of the basic workings of bushi morality in the Tokugawa Era, this may not be your cup of tea. The bushi code could be extremely harsh. The conflict between human feelings and duty and obligation is a classic theme that Japanese creatives revisit again and again, and boy howdy does it kick in here.

Colors Fic Snippet: Outfoxed

So, extraordinary illnesses require extraordinary measures. In this bit Jason just got some Bad News. Now he’s going to get some weird news….

On Writing: Fangs vs. Tails

So if you were dropped in as the protagonist in a paranormal romance isekai, which would you rather deal with? Vampires or fox spirits?

Worldbuilding: To Dress Your Mermaids

Okay, one of the nifty things about mermaids is how many different versions there are in myths across the world; from things that are more like simian sharks to haunters of sacred wells.

Worldbuilding: Folk Wisdom Counts

I managed to snag Foxfire 3 out of a local library. It has a significant section on ginseng in the Appalachians, both hunting it wild and growing it.