My writing buddies know that I agonize about writing from the viewpoints of characters that are not me. I constantly question whether I have the right to write about a Jewish character who isn’t Reconstructionist or at least Conservative. But Reconstructionist Judaism is a tiny percent of Jews, who are a tiny percent of the…
Genre Isn’t Destiny
One of my friends has strong opinions about genre and gender. That’s fine. We all are entitled to our own particular taste in fiction. We can have friendly debates about the best genre or the best book in a genre. As long as it’s all in good fun, no harm comes to anyone. But best…
Happy Rosh Hashanah!
The Jewish New Year begins in just a few days and I’m blessed with a newly renovated house and special visitors for the holiday. Because I want my visitors to experience the renovation fresh, I won’t be posting photos until after they’ve seen it. But I also didn’t want to leave you without my warmest…
Of Miracles and Messes
A friend of mine wishes that people would talk more about the things that are not going well in their lives, the projects they don’t finish, the messiness of their houses, their failures to please others. It started me thinking. I prefer to present a happy face to the world, partially because I fear that…
Renovation Update and Bestsellers
We continue on with our renovation. One of the absolute gems we picked out for this house is a compass rose wooden medallion that will be placed in the antechamber floor just in front of our bedroom. Because it shows the cardinal directions, we had to make sure that North faced North. To make that…
Designing Games for Everyone
A friend explained to me that in Habitica it was really important to him to not waste mana destroying a ‘boss’ but to do it perfectly so that the amount of mana expended is exactly equal to the amount of mana needed. I found this a bit mystifying. First, because we get more mana every…
Fear Takes a Sunlit Beach Vacation with Amelia’s Friends
I’ve finally been given the go-ahead by Steve to tell you about our newest project (just published). It is a Call of Cthulhu RPG adventure called Amelia’s Friends published through DrivethruRPG’s Miskatonic Repository. Set on a mysterious South Pacific island, the adventure includes two maps, several handouts, pregenerated characters and an outline for a side…
Renovation Progress Videos
It’s been an exciting and seriously deadline-driven period this month. Steve Jackson’s latest Kickstarter has one of our adventures featured. Check it out! Seriously, it’s a great deal if you enjoy RPGs. This contains three magazines with a ton of content that you can use in your campaigns and it’s just $6. I will have…
At the Broken Places
We’ve been traveling while the house is being renovated. We’re back in Albuquerque now, but just for a bit and then we’re on to Santa Fe, one of the world’s most wonderful cities. Meanwhile the house continues to be renovated. It’s been a challenge to do artwork on the road without my lovely big monitor…
Crestone, Colorado: Shangri-La of the Rockies
Some things feel serendipitous. While our house is being renovated, we had to find a place to stay that would allow us to write comfortably because we have deadlines. We decided that a Airbnb would be the right choice. We drew a little radius on the map to choose a place about halfway between Albuquerque…