Sometimes things happen, and you need to take a step back. Dial things down. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Minimize. Marie Condo. It's been one of those times for me, slimming down to 1 blog post a week, and podcast every other week as I work through grieving for yet another loss. This won't last forever, but I want to make sure all you precious Inklings know that this is something that everyone needs sometimes. When you're down to 50% energy, expecting yourself to continue at 100%

Every fall/winter I start thinking about cold-weather recipes. Soups, casseroles, spiced cider, the whole shebang. These are all comfort foods for me. And this year, with so much stress in every direction, comfort foods are needed. The question is, of course, how can I make comfort food with an absolute minimum of stress/planning/effort, since there are so many other things that need my attention? The answer has several steps, but I can guarantee this will make your kitchen m

I'd like to reassure you that I'm not going to write about the "state of the nation" or my opinions on riots or police or anything else. Rather, I'd like to talk about how people react to politics and why (in general) I just stay out of it. To start, there's this thing sometimes called "tribalism" which is the human habit of arranging ourselves in teams or groups that agree on certain topics. You can see this most prominently in sports and politics, where "our team" is good a

I'm sure most of you have figured out by now that writing is a bit like breathing for me. I can stop, and that's something that I even have to do sometimes, but going without for too long is... detrimental to my overall health and wellbeing. This is part of the reason that I have a blog. It forces me to keep writing and thus boosts my sanity by that necessary 10% even when I don't have the motivation to do ANYTHING. (A two-week hiatus was not healthy for me. I don't want to d

In this age of digital friends, long-distance families, and online gaming, I think at this point we have all been a part of an online friend group at some point. Beyond that, I think it's a pretty good bet that at least most of us have either been part of or witnessed group drama online, which can be all sorts of Not Fun. In case it wasn't already quite clear, I can confirm that yes, there was a spot of group drama in one of the Discord servers I devote my time to. And yes, i

There's something to be said for someone who, in spite of being tired or busy or distracted, still finds the time and oomph to get writing done. There's a lot of stuff going on in the world today. More than just a lot of stuff - there's a lot of frightening, unsettling, and sometimes disgusting stuff going on in the world, and those that pay attention to the news are depressed, jaded, and/or numb to the whole mess. There are a lot of things to be said for such a person, actua

I find it worrisome that so many members of our little family here don't feel free to be proud of themselves, or even take it a step further and say they have nothing to be proud of. Excuse me, WHAT? This is a toxic mindset that's promoted by modern societies in many forms. You can see it in literature, popular media, even in music - the character that's shy and uncertain and thinks they're not good at anything while all their friends think they're super talented and cool. Th

There's a silly thing in the world of Tech Support that we call "Tech Aura." This is how we explain what happens (very consistently) when someone tries to show us a problem they've been dealing with - it suddenly stops being a problem. That error message that appears every time you open this app? Doesn't show up when Computer Guy is looking over your shoulder. That loading icon that sticks around forever and won't let you proceed to the next page? Loading times are reduced to

Just as a warning, some of what I'm about to say may com across as moralistic and superior, and I want to say that's not what I'm trying to get at. It's taken me years to figure out this thing that people have been telling me for a decade or more. But that's the thing - there's a difference between knowing a thing and really understanding it. And now, I understand. Let me explain what I mean. When I was in college, I had a very close friend who, for reasons unknown to me, had

For those of you that don't know what a "bujo" is, let me start off with a pseudo-definition for you. The simplest explanation is that "bujo" is short for "bullet journal." Strangely enough, people who tend to want a journal they can format for themselves have lots of overlap with people that use hashtags and post pretty pictures on the internet. This is why if you search for #bujo on most social media platforms, you will be shamed for your disorganized life when you were hop

This was a concept introduced to me some time ago - back in college, I think. I didn't disregard it, per say, but I did choose not to change my habits much. My room stayed cluttered, my work space remained stressful, and I continued to use my desk as a dump spot for anything that didn't already have a home. But I did realize and utilize the fact that I was more productive in studying and writing when I wasn't in my room, so I would move to the library whenever I needed to get

Last week I wrote about some of the things I'd learned from being confined at home for two weeks. There's more that I've learned before but that this has reminded me of quite thoroughly. I need the reminder every year or so, otherwise I forget about all the things that I thought I'd put down in long-term memory. In short: If I don't take a day to myself once a week, then I end up feeling overworked, overwhelmed, and completely unrested. So weird, right? It's almost like... if

Have you ever been in a situation where you're just hanging out (maybe not even with your friends, but hanging out in general) and you discover you've become that guy? Sometimes it's "the guy that tells jokes no one else gets." Sometimes it's "the guy that shares trivia no one else cares about." But when I'm that guy, I get this feeling that I'm out of place. I'm not in the group I should be with. I've somehow lost my tribe. Even if I was having a magnificent time before that

I don't know if this is just my weird reaction to being embarrassed or in an unfamiliar situation. I honestly have no clue. When I was very young, my mother frown at me when I didn't act like everyone was my best friend. She'd tell me "You don't have a shy bone in your body." I think this was at least in part because those "unfamiliar people" were people I'd met before, but I have a terrible memory for linking who someone is with how they look, so... there's some wiggle room

Of NaNoWriMo, of course. I'm not done with my book, not even close but I knew that this year wasn't going to be a "winning" year for NaNo. 50,000 words in 30 days is a marvelous goal, and the majority of Novembers I can pull it off with only a little sleep deprivation and a solid helping of stress. This year, however, was not one of those years. The cost in sanity to reach that goal was far too high, so I let it go before the project even properly got started, and prioritized

I don't know how many of you deal with Adult ADHD, or ADHD symptoms. I know it's more common than I thought, and that it's usually considered a kid problem that adults don't have to deal with. For years, I had coping mechanisms in place so firmly that I didn't even realize this was still a problem for me. It is, though, and that can make things really hard on a day when I want to get a lot of writing done. Say, like... during NaNoWriMo. This year, I've been struggling more th

As a writer, distractions are part and parcel with the rest of the craziness that goes on in my head. Just in the last year, I've overhauled the worldbuilding for a two-year project, then dropped it because I wasn't even sure what story I was supposed to be telling anymore (I really should just get back on that bandwagon and hash it out the old fashioned way - by writing it). Then I worldbuild two other settings for different stories, ended up smashing them together into a dy

I'd like to apologize for the inconsistency of recent posts. When one of my coworkers had a baby last month, I started taking over a lot of her hours, which made for long, tiring days and unforeseen schedule changes. Now that I have a better handle on what the schedule looks like, I'll have better footing for keeping up with the blog. That said, expect to see only 2 posts per week until next month, when my hours should go more or less back to normal. In the meantime, here's a

I think it's fairly safe to say that at one point or another, we have all had a To Be Read list. Sometimes this is as short-lived as a brief thought about books you would like to read. Other times, it's as long-lived as a list you started in primary school and have continued to add to and read from for many years. They come in all lengths, shapes, and formats, and can be both the thing that makes you proud and the thing that makes you feel guilty (sometimes both at once). So

Some of you who have been around for a while may be aware that I struggle sometimes with passing judgment on others - especially on people whom I perceive as being not as talented as myself - which can lead to feelings of superiority and a condescending attitude. It spirals into a dark pit of nastiness from there, but it's something that I've been working on for some time. This week, I had a... moment of weakness, shall we say, while listening to someone else speak. But after