Blogs

The Practical Guide to Becoming a Great GM

This is one heck of a tome. Guy Sclanders has a wonderful YouTube Channel that goes into a lot of topics beyond his books as well. Aside from being a professional artist, game master and author, he's also on our team as a fellow gay creator. There are some really nice techniques described in this book about giving the bad guy goals and motivations. I think this can help us as writers as well, writing it down and when the muse causes us to deviate, the villain will have t

October 29, 2022

Ultimate Guide to Alchemy, Crafting & Enchanting

Ultimate Guide to Alchemy, Crafting & Enchanting by Nord Games is one of the many Role Playing Game resources that I have in my library. I love world building. One of the keys to making a world functional for stories is to have the actions and reactions of the world follow rules. They may not be rules you tell your readers about. But if pulling the level makes the door open, then the doors should open when you pull the lever... or a surprise should occur. Books like this one, I

October 28, 2022

The Urban Setting Thesaurus

The Urban Setting Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman & Becca Publisi is another book in their excellent series of Thesaurus books. This one, obviously, focuses on locations you'd find in an urban setting. Like the Rural version we covered yesterday, this one may not be used as often as some of the other books in the series. It is, however, an excellent resource to have in your library. Like the Rural book, this gives you ways to engage all the senses in different places. They also include

October 27, 2022

Rural Setting Thesaurus

The Rural Setting Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglist is another book writer's should have in their reference library. This one, as the name suggests, covers common rural areas. This one is especially handy for people that mostly spend time in cities and need to describe a country location with more details than you'd get from looking at a picture of barn. Like the other books in the series, this book gives you something for all the senses to add that little extra depth to yo

October 26, 2022

The Emotion Thesaurus

I have been doing some deep diving on different aspects of writing for awhile now. There are a number of books in the series from Angele Ackerman & Becca Puglisi. I have posted a couple so far, but here is "The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression". I have the entire series and there is a ton of great content in here. Unless you are a bit obsessed with deep diving, this is not a book you'll read from cover to cover. It is, however, a great reference book for engagin

October 24, 2022

Movies

Oblivion

This was an interesting spin on sci-fi. The special effects and visuals were really good. I have added the 4k Blu-Ray to my library. If you haven't seen it and you like sci-fi and some action, check it out. It's been out long enough that you should be able to find it on one of those streaming services.

Myr in Movies

October 22, 2022

Movies

Dune Movie 2021

Please no one tell @Cia, but I still have not read Frank Herbert's Dune. Though I have seen 2021 Dune movie starring Timothée Chalamet. I enjoyed the visuals a lot in this movie. It can been a bit slow at times, but it was nice to disconnect and just enjoy it. They made one hell of a big set up... I hope all the changes at going on a Discovery/Warner Bros doesn't ruin a sequel for this.

Myr in Movies

October 21, 2022

The Conflict Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Obstacles, Adversaries, and Inner Struggles (Vol 2)

Well, the last one was Vol 1, so Vol 2 should not be a surprise. I've taken the picture myself of the book on my desk. The X Thesaurus series of books continues with Conflicts Volume 2. This is a continuation of various conflicts you come across and all the ins and outs of that conflict. Like volume 1, this book helps you make sure your conflicts are well-rounded and engage the senses and emotions. Like all the other books in this series, it adds to your writer's toolkit. It's wor

October 20, 2022

The Conflict Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Obstacles, Adversaries, and Inner Struggles (Vol 1)

The Conflict Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Obstacles, Adversaries, and Inner Struggles (Volume 1) (Writers Helping Writers Series) by Becca Puglisi and Angela Ackerman. I have been doing a fair bit of reading on various aspects of writing. This entire series of books is worth a read and having on your shelf if you are trying to enhance your writing skills. Each one of the books focuses on as aspect of writing. This one is on Conflicts. The book gives a high level conflict type and then

October 18, 2022

grief

Does The Pain Ever Go Away?

The title of this blog asks the question, but you will probably ask what pain am I talking about. I'm talking about the pain of loss and grief, losing someone who is close and means a great deal to you. It doesn't matter who you are, in time it is something that we all experience. Many of us have already experienced it, some of us are yet to experience it, it is not something any of us can escape. You may ask what is the significance of this blog, why bring this up now? Well I'll tell you a

Mancunian in grief

September 30, 2022

Book review

Book Review: Three Ex Presidents and James Franco by John Buchanan

It is 2008 and John, an Irish university student, is spending a year at an American liberal arts college. During that year he forms three very different relationships with three very different young men—the radically gay Jake, Eric the straight jock whose life is turned upside down when he is shot, and Brendon, his former best friend from Ireland. Also during that year he will be involved in a shooting, cause a scandal at a historical monument, meet an ex-president and be complimented by a risin

Drew Payne in Book review

September 27, 2022

"His Story"

Does the pain stop when the abuse does? My new novella, His Story, asks this question by following six, different events from one man’s life, a man who survived ex-gay/conversion therapy. Though this may sound a depressing read, there is a hopeful ending, and it discussed a subject not often found in literature, how do you survive abuse and start living again. It is available here, on Smashwords, as an eBook only, but is free to download, or you can pay whatever you want to.

Drew Payne in Writing

September 2, 2022

Book review

Book Review: The Machine Stops by EM Forster

It is the future and all humans live underground, each person having their own room, which they never leave. All their needs – food, drink, hygiene, medication and even sleep – are provided for them automatically from machinery within the room’s walls and ceiling. They communicate with other people without leaving their rooms, via a metal disk on which the other people’s faces are projected. They have a book that contains all required knowledge, which is being constantly updated. This world is a

Drew Payne in Book review

September 1, 2022

cancer woes

Cancer sucks!

I tend to take to the blogs section to whinge, so here goes. I have been living with cancer for almost four years now (well, four years since diagnosis, but it was obviously invading various parts of my body before then.) Long story short - diagnosed stage 4 December 24th 2018. Great Christmas present. Treatment (chemo and radiotherapy) started early in 2019, knocked me for 6 and the spinal damage left me unable to walk more than a few paces and having to use the kind of gadgets normal

Mawgrim in cancer woes

August 24, 2022

Book review

Book Review: Miss Marple's Final Cases by Agatha Christie

Miss Marple is probably the most famous female detective in English literature, she was certainly an original character when she first appeared in print, using psychology and character observation rather than searching for physical clues to solve crimes. This collection of stories was published posthumously after Christie’s death and brings together the remaining Miss Marple short stories that hadn’t been published in book form before, plus two supernatural stories that didn’t feature Miss

Drew Payne in Book review

August 23, 2022

With Pride, July 2019

Something New Every Year (July 2019) The other Saturday, I did something I’d never done before. At my age, it isn’t often I get to do something as new as this, but the other Saturday I marched in the London Pride March openly as a nurse. I’ve marched in the Pride March many times before, with friends, with LGBT organisations, but never before openly as a nurse. This year, a group of staff in my Trust’s LGBT Network organised to take part in the London Pride March and we had

August 20, 2022

With Pride, January 2017

And Some Things Change and Some Things Remain the Same (January 2017) I started to come out when I was nineteen, more than thirty years ago, and nearly overnight I lost almost all of my friends; I was ostracised just for being gay. It was a shocking experience that has left a lasting impact on me. Today, I am married to my husband Martin and work as a community nurse in North London. Everyone at work knows my husband and no one has a problem with him, I have almost forgotten the l

August 20, 2022

With Pride, August 2015

Do Unhealthy Attitudes Ever Change? (August 2015) During my first year of nurse training (twenty-five years ago) I ran into a wall of homophobia. I was told by some of my vocal colleagues that I only wanted to be a nurse to see naked men, that all gay men deserved AIDS, that I was a danger to children, and that God could heal me and make me “normal”. I endured it because it was 1990 and homophobia was what I expected as a gay man. It's now 2015 and our society has changed so much

August 20, 2022

With Pride, January 2015

A Safe Place for All? (January 2015) Freddie Mercury died from AIDS in November 1991. I was a student nurse at the time. One of my colleagues told me that he “deserved it” because of his “lifestyle”. I exploded faced with her homophobia, but I was turned on by others who supported her, saying their views were right because they wanted to be parents and any parent would want to protect their sons from the likes of Freddie Mercury. And I was wrong, they said, because I was defending some

August 20, 2022

With Pride, July 2008

Marching with Pride (July 2008) On Saturday (5th July 2008) it was London LGBT Pride and, with bright sunny weather, my partner and I had a wonderful day there. The highlight, as always, was the Pride March. People were laughing and smiling, enjoying walking through central London together and openly. The march was headed by groups representing many of our uniformed and emergency services. First came lesbian, gay and bisexual members of the navy, army and RAF, all in their

August 20, 2022

The next six blogs form a short series, which I have called “With Pride” because they were all originally comments pieces, on LGBT rights and healthcare, published in the Nursing Standard magazine, and I am proud of having written them. For nearly fifteen years, on and off, I have written comment pieces for Nursing Standard and a lot of them were on LGBT healthcare. These pieces chart changes in attitudes, but they also had recurring themes and one was responding to a very disturbing piece