Our paladin friend and I were off grinding Argent Dawn faction last night when he apparently hit a creative streak. I now have about three pages of T-shirt ideas from him–mostly tabletop roleplaying oriented, with a few Warcraft. I think this should keep us in new designs for the next few months! The first is the “Bad Dungeon Day” design:

Shirts, mugs, prints, more!

Let me tell you, it’s a challenge keeping up with him when he’s on a roll. There I was, furiously scribbling down T-shirt slogans while chasing him around Gharron’s Whithering beating up spectres and banshees. Typically we’d kill something, he’d spout off another idea, I’d stop to write it down, and by the time I caught up with him again he had the next mob down to half-health. Adventure! Excitement!

Anyway, apparently we sold enough volume to warrant getting a consult with someone in Cafepress’ Top Shop program, so I need to email them sometime today. Certainly I could use some advice, I’m sure, given that I’ve never done this kind of thing before now.

I’m reading my way through Peter Bowerman’s Well-Fed Self-Publisher for review at the moment. It just so happens that I recently bought the “Complete Idiot’s Guide to Self-Publishing” to satisfy my own curiosity, so I’ll see if I can get both read this week before reviewing either–that way I can better compare and contrast the advice in each. Worst case it might delay me to next week.

Technorati Tags: cafe press, cafepress.com, gamers, gaming, reviews, roleplaying, rpgs, t-shirts, writers, writing

Last week I reviewed Jerry Jenkins’ Writing for the Soul. Jerry Jenkins is the author of the Christian fiction “Left Behind” novels.

Now, I’m not religious, and I really don’t like it when I feel that someone’s pushing their religion at me. I happen to think that there are a lot of negatives about organized religion throughout history. However, I do not believe that religion is inherently bad–it serves a valuable purpose in many people’s lives. Like most other tools, it can be used for great good or great evil (and has been). I also respect people’s right to follow whatever set of religious beliefs works for them–whether that’s a major religion, a minor religion, or none at all.

When I read and review a book, I strive to remain as objective as possible. What is the ostensible purpose of the book, and how well does it fulfill that purpose? The simple title “Writing for the Soul” makes it clear this book has an inspirational bent. Nearly anyone who picks it up is going to know (or find out by reading the description) that the author wrote the “Left Behind” novels, so they’re going to understand that said inspirational bent will have a Christian background. My job as a reviewer is to decide, within that framework, is it a good book? My job also is to decide: is IT a good book, irrespective of what I might think of the “Left Behind” novels or any other work the author has done?

I believe it is. I haven’t read the Left Behind novels (which I have been told are quite preachy; if that’s the case, I doubt I’d enjoy them), and to my mind the issue of whether this is a good writing book is totally different from whether those are good novels. “Writing for the Soul” is articulate, well-thought-out, and interesting. Jenkins has been a writer, editor, and publisher for decades, with a great deal of experience in the Christian market in particular, and he provides advice from those perspectives, couched partially in memoir and partially in instruction. I found the book to be an enjoyable read; obviously someone who isn’t at all interested in inspirational writing or who knee-jerk dislikes Christianity probably won’t want to read it–that should be obvious from the subject alone.

So it’s interesting to me that when I posted my review on a site where people tend to comment on reviews, it got quite a few responses that are difficult not to interpret as a knee-jerk negative reaction simply based on the author’s religion. One person said she thought the Left Behind novels were dreck, so she was completely skeptical of my having said this was a good book. Well, the novels might indeed be dreck in her opinion, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that they’ve sold so brilliantly–that argues that the author is indeed quite savvy, and if anything would pique my interest in his advice rather than making me skeptical. Another person basically said that there was no way to know that he hadn’t just ripped off someone else’s book–uh, wait a minute, when were reviewers supposed to start baseline assuming that authors were plagiarists? (That one particularly flummoxed me.)

Another person said they felt that if you stripped out all of my commentary on inspirational material, religion, etc., that I hadn’t said much about what made the book different from other writing books, particularly regarding the author’s writing style or the nature of his advice. Well, I feel that’s a little like saying, “if you strip out everything you said about what makes the book different, you didn’t say anything about what makes the book different.” (And, going back to re-read my review, because I’m certainly willing to entertain the idea that I forgot to mention something, I did indeed say quite a bit about the author’s writing style. However, since his style is strongly intertwined with his religion, his memoir’s-eye view on things, and his writing for the inspirational market, I guess the commenter stripped that out with “the Left Behind stuff”.) I did add some more examples of the type of advice he gives, since two people asked for that; hopefully that’ll help folks.

Before you think I’m coming down on folks who don’t like being preached at or whatever, or who aren’t religious, remember–I’m not religious and don’t like being preached at either. However, I really don’t see much difference between folks who have knee-jerk reactions based on their faith and folks who have knee-jerk reactions based on their lack of faith. It’s the same sort of “I’m right and folks who believe otherwise must be bad” kind of mentality. To my mind, you can’t really get mad at folks who push their religions at others if you’re going to turn around and push your lack of religion at others–it’s the same sort of thing. I never felt, while I was reading “Writing for the Soul,” that I was being treated like some sort of lesser person for not believing in the author’s religion, and that kind of respect is what I look for when I read material written from a religious viewpoint.

Whenever I find myself tempted to react in a knee-jerk fashion to something overtly religious, I remind myself of my neighbor; she’s a Christian minister. I don’t agree with many of her viewpoints on various ideological things, but I adore her as a person. She never pushes her religion at me or makes me feel like she looks down on me for not believing. She never preaches at me, although we sometimes discuss issues that she feels strongly about. And she’s just the sweetest, kindest lady I’ve had the good fortune to live next to. If I had dismissed her or looked down on her because of her strong religious convictions, it would have been my loss.

Technorati Tags: religion, writing

I’m not generally a party person. I don’t like to drink and I’m not incredibly sociable, so hanging around with a bunch of people I don’t know all that well who’re all getting drunk is really not my idea of a fun time. I’m also not terribly good at costumes, so Halloween parties are doubly difficult. This year, however, I let myself get talked into going to a costume party being held by some friends in Virginia, largely because they’re very cool people and I actually feel utterly comfortable with the idea of doing something social with them. Not to mention I trust them to throw a party that’ll be anything but a bunch of drunk people being loud.

So, Saturday my husband and I got all dressed up (that was rather fun–I picked up some pseudo-garb, which is to say not at all historically accurate but damned cool-looking, at the Ren Faire this year, so I wore that) and went to the party. My husband actually came up with a very cool costume. I managed to find an old cloak I’d made (of very nice crushed black velvet–good quality, not the cheap shiny stuff) that was big enough that it fit him. We printed out a photo of a runestone from Wikipedia and used black greasepaint to copy lines of runes all over his exposed skin and dressed him in dark clothing. You see, this is the same family we play D&D with, and in that game there is of course a particular evil wizard. My husband decided that this wizard is a forgetful sort who tends to misplace his spellbook a lot, so he brought it to life so that it wouldn’t get lost again. His costume, therefore, was a spellbook in human form. Our DM, who was one of the party’s hosts, has of course informed us that this will come back to haunt us. I don’t doubt it!

The hosts had an awesome sense for how to pace a party, and they know lots of very cool people, so we had a blast. We met some great folks, spent time with friends, won a couple of prizes in various entertaining and silly games, and came home all buzzed on a sugar high and tons of fun.

We don’t tend to do a lot of decorating for holidays, but we have our “witch flying face-first into the door” decoration that we’ll put out mostly so kids know to actually knock on our door for Halloween. We got plenty of candy; it’s always better to have too much than too little, so we usually end up with extra. Toward the end of the night we end up handing out fists full of candy. We get oddly polite kids here who try to take only one or two candies even when you tell them to take lots, so I just started grabbing as much as I could in one hand and dropping it into their bags myself last year.

Halloween is cool because you have a license to be creative (the whole costume thing) and indulge. Even when I wasn’t allowed to eat anything artificial as a kid (special diet because of having ADHD) my mother let me have Halloween candy. One day out of the year doesn’t rot your teeth or ruin your health, after all. Which is why I can’t understand articles like this. That author is someone who truly doesn’t understand the point of Halloween. Not to mention doesn’t understand a lot of other things about Halloween. They recommend hand-making and packaging treats for kids, for example. Given the number of stories I’ve heard of slightly “off” people making “treats” that included anything from bad-tasting ingredients (mustard or tabasco in cookies) to ingredients that could make a kid sick (laxatives, for example), I’d NEVER let a child eat anything they got from a stranger that wasn’t pre-packaged, and I wager most parents would throw such things away. Besides, given the number of kids with odd allergies out there, you don’t want to risk someone having an allergic reaction to your cookies.

Then there are the suggestions like this one:

Spend your time, energy and money on the decorations as the treat. Turn your front yard or porch into a wonderland that kids will marvel at. Use light and sound to greatest effect. Tell visiting kids that the display is their treat; it had better be good though, or you’ll be in for a trick!

“It had better be good” nothing. You’re in for an egging at best if you pull something like that. If you want to make the display the “treat” fine, but then go inside, turn off the porch light and inside lights, and don’t answer the door–let folks enjoy the display on their way past rather than rubbing their noses in the fact that you think your decorating skills are far better than the candy they were expecting.

Really, if you’re that opposed to giving out candy, just don’t participate in trick-or-treating. There’s no need to waste a bunch of stuff that’s going to get thrown away at best, or dumped on folks’ lawns at worst.

By the way, check out the related FARK comment thread for many entertaining Halloween trick-or-treat stories.

Technorati Tags: Halloween, Trick-or-Treat

I’ve posted my review of Jerry B. Jenkins’ Writing for the Soul. It’s a great book regardless of your religious leanings, so I highly recommend it. Next up: Peter Bowerman’s “The Well-Fed Self-Publisher.” I should also review the PCGen program soon now that I’ve been playing with it for a while.

Technorati Tags: Jerry Jenkins, reviews, write, writers, writing

As evidenced by my many web articles on writing, as well as all of my reviews of books for writers, I have some strong opinions on the field. Recently I got into an interesting discussion with web comic author Ananth Panagariya (of Applegeeks) regarding publishability vs. marketability and similar issues. Several interesting topics came up, and I kind of wanted to collect my thoughts on them here. You can visit the page above to see the discussion in its original form or to read the snippet of fiction that started the discussion. Who knows; maybe I’ll turn these into longer articles for the writing pages.

Technorati Tags: Applegeeks, fiction, publishing, write, writers, writing

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When it comes to medical issues, I’m just plain weird. Take those antibiotic allergies. One allergist says they aren’t anaphylactic so they aren’t dangerous; she also says it shouldn’t take nearly a week to react; other doctors say if there’s any swelling at all it’s dangerous…

I finally have a possible answer. Apparently there are a few people who react not to the antibiotics, but to the virus. There’s a possibility that all of those times I was reacting to strep or whatever I had, not to antibiotics at all. Of course there’s no way to test allergies to those antibiotics, so there’s no way to know for sure.

The good news is, a reaction like the one I had this weekend is apparently almost certainly a contact dermatitis, NOT a food allergy. YAY! No avoiding corn, corn chips, corn syrup, cornstarch, etc. The hard part is figuring out what on earth I might have reacted to, since my skin is so sensitive that I avoid contact with just about everything when it comes to my face. It took a long time, but I did finally come up with one possibility that makes a lot of sense. We started going to the gym regularly again recently. When we’re there we sweat a lot, and I use one of their handy little towels that they provide to dry my face. Everywhere I reacted was a place I used the towel to clean my face. At home we use perfume- and dye-free detergent; I’m guessing they use whatever’s cheap.

I don’t know for sure that’s it, but it makes a lot of sense. My fingers are crossed, because it’s a hell of a lot easier to bring my own towel to the gym than it is to avoid corn products! *sounds of much cheering and scooping of ice cream*

Technorati Tags: allergies, health, eczema, sensitive skin

I do not subscribe to the belief that video games are inherently bad, addictive, and so on. I believe that like any other tool, they have the potential to be used well or poorly. However, because of the ways in which they’re enjoyable, they tend to tempt addictive personalities–much in the way that some folks get addicted to playing solitaire at work, drinking alcohol, web-surfing, or whatever. It doesn’t make solitaire, alcohol, or web-surfing “evil”, but if you have a problem with addictive behavior you should be careful around things you find addictive. It isn’t the fault of a video game if someone plays it to excess and ignores the important things in their life–it means that person has an addiction problem and needs to deal with it.

Technorati Tags: gamers, games, gaming, psychology, addiction, Warcraft, World of Warcraft

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I should perhaps explain that my allergic reactions are a tad… odd.

Generally speaking, it is assumed by medical personnel that if you have any sort of facial swelling associated with an allergic reaction, then you’re most likely having an anaphylactic reaction–which means a danger of going into anaphylactic shock. That’s the sort of thing that folks allergic to peanuts or bee stings carry around epi-pen injections for.

However, anaphylactic reactions tend to be swift, fairly sudden things. They don’t happen slowly.

Naturally, I don’t follow these rules. I have reactions that develop over several days but involve swelling around the eyes. So the doctors are never sure whether to treat it as an anaphylactic reaction or not. In theory the slow nature of these reactions means that while they suck, they probably aren’t dangerous. In practice, it is possible for such a reaction to become dangerous, so doctors don’t like to take any chances. I guess that’s how I managed to get an appointment with the allergist the ER staff recommended on less than 24 hours’ notice. I think all I had to do was say “facial swelling” and I got one of the “reserved for serious problems” slots. So, tomorrow at 8:30 am I go in to fill out paperwork and then see my new allergist.

See, I have lots of experience with this type of reaction. I get it almost every time I take a new antibiotic. I just don’t usually get it with food.

Anyway, I’ve always loved the whole “high intelligence/low wisdom” saying from roleplaying. You know, folks who are so brilliant they could probably blow up the world (or at least a small portion of it), and don’t have the common sense not to. I’ve known a lot of people who fit this mold, particularly when I was going to and working at MIT. So naturally, I couldn’t help making a design for it. Embrace your deadliness!

High Intelligence, Low Wisdom
Shirts, mugs, more!

Technorati Tags: allergies, roleplaying

It’s about time we had something like AvidID–a microchip your vet can implant in your pet that carries a unique ID number on it. For a one-time registration fee (with a small fee for changing your info when you move) you register your pet’s ID number. If your pet ever gets loose and picked up by a shelter or brought to a vet, they scan the microchip, pull up your contact information, and get your pets back to you.

How awesome is that?

Our cats are indoor cats. The odds that they’ll ever need this are slim. But I don’t want to take that chance–how do I know they won’t slip outside sometime and get lost? To me it’s worth it to do this for them. Sure, there’s still plenty of stuff that can go wrong if they get out, but at least I know that if someone takes them to a shelter or vet they’ll find their way home. One of our cats is already chipped, and the other will be chipped when she gets her teeth cleaned at the end of next month.

Technorati Tags: animals, cat health, cats

I managed to write my review of Alison Kent’s The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing Erotic Romance largely before the anti-allergy meds kicked in. But if you see anything that looks odd, particularly toward the end, please do tell me!

In allergy news, it’s looking more and more like I’ve become sensitized to corn, of all things. Now, just to make it clear how annoying this really is, I should explain that my reaction worsened a bit again this morning, and my current guess is that it’s because I had dessert last night–ice cream with cool whip. That doesn’t seem related to a corn allergy, huh? Well, the second ingredient in the cool whip and the fourth in the ice cream were–have you guessed it yet?–corn syrup.

Yes, corn syrup.

I even noticed this morning that there’s corn syrup in the fat free half and half I put in my coffee. ARGH.

My current hope is that if I lay off the corn long enough–which at this point is going to mean eating virtually no pre-made foods and not going out to eat–I might at least get back to the point where I can have things like corn chips or corn syrup in moderation. After all, when it comes to food allergies, mine don’t tend to be all-or-nothing; I just tend to get sensitized when I have too much of something (it’s just never been this bad before).

At least it wasn’t wheat. That would have sucked a lot worse.

So, this morning I took my benadryl, atarax, zantac, and prednisone (three antihistamines and a steroid) and rushed to get my review written before the doped-up feeling sank in. Blargh.

Technorati Tags: Alison Kent, allergies, book reviews, books, erotic romance, erotica, romance, writers, writing