Erotica, fantasy, and horror writer.

Most commented posts

  1. The Worm Ouroboros
    [Reading Challenge 2018]
    — 6 comments
  2. The Wild Lands of the North
    (and a bit about Giants)
    — 4 comments
  3. All Things Charn (Part I) — 4 comments
  4. The Lady of the Green Kirtle (Part I) — 4 comments
  5. Worldbuilding Wednesday 8/30/17: Mundane Fare — 3 comments

Author's posts

The Romantasy Explosion

Since we’re nearing Valentine’s Day, let’s talk about… Romantasy. As implied by the name it’s a mashup of Romance + Fantasy, a subgenre exemplified, perhaps platonically, by Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses series, whose eponymously named first book came out in 2015. Marketed as YA, the fantasy novel was about a …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 2/7/24: Classical Greek Names (Female)

I covered Greek female names before on this site,  in this post about female centaurs. For that I drew on actual, lesser-known names from the myths of Ancient Greece. But since I had researched so much for that, how difficult would be to generate some in a completely random way? So, you need a Greek …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 1/31/24: Shades of Purple

Though the color purple been democratized these days –- almost every mass-produced clothing item and stuffed toy is available in some shade of it –- it was once very rare and restricted to royalty. This was because its dye depended on a rare, arcane ingredient: the slimy secretions of the murex sea snail. For centuries, …

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Passing Obsessions 1-24

Creating Chinese New Year coloring book images in Midjourney. Author Jenny Trout’s’ lengthy recap of Sarah J. Maas’s Faerie fantasy A Court of Thorns and Roses. If you’ve wondered what all the fuss was about, but don’t want to read the book itself, read this instead. Shipping container houses. Face/Off, an original Syfy show about …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 1/17/24: Hawaiian Cocktails (ChatGPT)

On my own, I’ve done a pretty good job of generating imaginary cocktails, including those related to Christmas and Narnia. Since ChatGPT has advanced to the everyman level, why not see what it can do? I used OpenAI’s version, which is free with registration, and the basic prompt was “Give me a list of imaginary …

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2024 Reading Challenge

I haven’t had much success with reading challenges these past years. In 2023, I finished 5 out of 12. In 2022, it was eight out of twelve, with a little cheating: three-quarters. So THIS year, I’m only going to pick six. That’s make it a little easier to chew. 19. Like a novel, only real: …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 1/10/24: Greek Islands

There are over 6,000 islands in the nation of present day Greece, and to the ancient Greeks they must have seemed many times this number. Their entire world was made of islands, and the sea. From myth we know know the prominent ones, like Lesbos, Naxos, Aenea (home of Circe), Ogygia (home of Calypso), Delos, …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 1/3/24: Best of Twittersnips 2023 (Magic Items)

My favorite Twittersnip magic items of the 2023.   2023 Magic Items (Best of) Basket of Adoration: Whatever is put into this large woven basket elicits oohs and aahhs of admiration from viewers, and if it is a living being, the desire to nurture and protect it… no matter what sort of creature it is. …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 12/27/23: Best of Twittersnips 2023 (Spells)

    My favorite Twittersnip spells of the year.   2023 Spells Aflen’s Loosen Whale: Makes a whale void its bowels in the middle of the ocean, releasing any ambergris (or other items) it might have held. Astrological Negation: Nullifies, for a set period of time, the bad aspects of the recipient’s horoscope reading. (If …

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Merry Christmas!