Challenges
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“Ah, said a nasty little voice in his brain, but the Sorting Hat wanted to put you in Slytherin, don’t you remember?“ “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” by J.K. Rowling One thing about a series featuring main characters through several years is that you can always chalk things up to growing pains. Many…
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Today is, of course, November First, which, in addition to Candy Hangover Recovery, is the start of National Novel Writing Month. I participate every year, though I’ve yet to “win” one. I came incredibly close last year, and I have a great feeling about this year, too, so perhaps this is the year it happens.…
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“Often dismissed by pious Muslims as mere folklore, or falsely condemned as foreign influence, or even blankly denied even in the face of overwhelming evidence, the traces of Zarathustra’s teachings refuse to fade away. In spite of everything, Zarathustra lives.” “In Search of Zarathustra: The First Prophet and the Ideas That Changed the World” by…
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“It wasn’t a case of storming heaven. It was a case of letting heaven storm you.” “The Curse of Chalion” by Lois McMaster Bujold Reading through The Curse of Chalion, a tale about a soldier who finds a second life as a saint and secretary to a cursed princess, I came to a striking revelation:…
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October means a lot of things to many people. It’s the approach of autumn, it’s the time where I’m pretty sure pumpkin spice is legally mandated to infiltrate everything consumable, and it’s all topped off with the spooky fun spectacle that is Halloween. Of course, there’s something very particular that it means to writers: “OHshit,…
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I always love coming across interesting little bit of writerly fun out there. Twitter has been both a source of entertainment and a source of torment for me, but, every so often, one of these pop up that make me grateful I have an account. The Penny Dreadful is doing a neat little Twitter competition…
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Every so often, a thought hits me and it inspires a mild panic in me, and a great desire to have more time to do what I truly love (which is writing, duh). Ever since I pooled together all my short stories of the past decade and put them together to publish Bowlful of Bunnies,…
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“From their inception, therefore, both faiths had to deal with sudden death by disease as one of the conspicuous facts of human life. Consequently, it is not altogether surprising that both religions taught that death was a release from pain, and a blessed avenue of entry upon a delightful afterlife where loved ones would be…