#AtoZChallenge, Day 3: Corvix Clan

On April 4, 2016April 1, 2016 By Luther M. SilerIn Writing1 Comment

The Corvix Clan is a clan of goblins, based on Arradon, many of whose members work at the resort owned by Rhundi Tavh’re’muil. Goblins are similar in appearance to gnomes, although goblins are a bit smaller and generally eschew wearing clothing in favor of their natural covering of fur. Goblins are also strongly clan-based and rarely allow their personal names to be used outside of clan members. Rhundi’s resort employs at least a dozen members of the Corvix clan, since the Corvix gnome who speaks with Rhundi at the beginning of the short story The Contract identifies herself as Twelfth Corvix.

My theme for this year’s A to Z challenge is my series The Benevolence Archives. You can learn more about the series by going to the Amazon page for Volume 1 here or add it to a Goodreads shelf here.

Previously: Benevolence.

#WeekendCoffeeShare: Spring Break Edition

On April 3, 2016 By Luther M. SilerIn Geek, Stories7 Comments

coffee2

If– if— we were having coffee, I would be ever so glad to be having coffee with you. So. Very. Glad. Because, presumably, having a weekend cup of coffee would mean that I was out in public and having a Conversation with an Adult, which is a thing that has been incredibly rare lately. Don’t get me wrong– I love my wife and my parents, but other than the three of them I think the last time I had a conversation with another grown-up who wasn’t some sort of employee at a place where I was buying something was last Saturday. If I restrict it to specifically social settings, I might have to go back to C2E2, which was, what, two weeks ago?

In other news, I’ve survived the first week of my son’s Spring Break, and there’s another week to go, and then a four-day period where my wife is in Boston for work stuff and I don’t even have her around. I’ve never been to Boston, and I’m insanely jealous. If I’m still remotely human come April 13, I want some sort of award. Also, I have jury duty on the 12th. So … yeah.

Anyway. Have you been watching Daredevil? I’ve liked the second season a hell of a lot more than the first, mostly because replacing the show’s terrible rendition of the Kingpin with Elektra and the Punisher has been an impressive upgrade. I won’t spoil anything just yet, but I am very much in the minority in that I think D’Onofrio’s portrayal of the Kingpin was/is awful, and the less of him around the better. We’ve watched through to the final episode, which we’ll watch tonight, and then I somehow have to spend the next 24 hours avoiding Walking Dead spoilers until we can watch the finale of that Monday night.

I’m showing signs of finally moving out of the Lexapro haze, too, which is good; I’m currently about six days ahead on the A to Z Challenge, and I hope to get much farther ahead today. It’s been about a month since I started taking it, which is supposedly about as long as you need to get used to the side effects. I’m very ready to be done with being unmotivated and exhausted all the time, so that’s all sorts of good news.

So, yeah. That’s me. How’re you?

#AtoZChallenge, Day 2: Brazel

On April 2, 2016April 1, 2016 By Luther M. SilerIn Writing2 Comments

Brazel is one of the three main characters of the Benevolence Archives series. He is a male gnome, married to Rhundi Tavh’re’muil (male gnomes do not typically have surnames) and frequently partnering with the halfogre Grond in their adventures across known space. Brazel and Rhundi have fourteen children.

As a gnome, Brazel is short, standing only about 1.3 meters tall. Gnomes are covered in fur, and Brazel’s is a fairly standard medium brown in color. He is picky about his clothing, with expensive tastes, and has learned to be a fairly talented tailor after years of tearing his clothes during missions. He is the pilot of the Nameless, and is a skilled mechanic, half-decent hacker, and an excellent pickpocket. He favors concealed weaponry and prefers to talk his way through difficulty rather than fight– although the constant presence of a halfogre at his side certainly helps him convince others to take him seriously.

Brazel has occasionally been accused of having a bad temper. This is not a fair statement and the fact that many of the people who have repeated this accusation have found themselves shot soon afterward is unrelated.

Previously: Arradon.

#AtoZChallenge, Day 1: Arradon

On April 1, 2016April 1, 2016 By Luther M. SilerIn Writing4 Comments

Arradon is the home planet of Rhundi, Brazel and Grond, the main characters of the Benevolence Archives series. Arradon is a terrestrial planet on the outskirts of gnomespace, featuring a typical variety of biomes but best-known for a region of hot springs that have made the planet a popular tourist destination. Rhundi owns one of Arradon’s most extensive and popular resorts, which serves as the base for the main characters.

My theme for this year’s A to Z Challenge is my series The Benevolence Archives. You can learn more about the series by going to the Amazon page for Volume 1 here or add it to a Goodreads shelf here.

On my activities so far today

On March 31, 2016March 31, 2016 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy7 Comments

I got up a bit earlier than usual because I needed to have a blood draw this morning and since it had to be fasting I wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. I have the veins of a heroin addict; generally whenever I need to have blood drawn for any reason it will take multiple nurses and multiple sticks with the needle in various places before it works, regardless of the experience or talent level of the nurses involved. When I was hospitalized the second time in October I actually lost track of how many people it took before someone successfully got an IV in me; my record at the local phlebotomy joint is six sticks and three nurses.

In between sticks two and three this morning, I passed out. Second time that has happened, and I don’t recommend it. The nurses get real bossy when it happens, for starters, hollering about sitting up and keeping your eyes open and uncrossing your feet and breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth and all sorts of it would be inconvenient if you died here sorts of things. Just let me sleep! I wanna sleeeeep. But I did not die, and the third stick– in the back of my hand, where I’m going to start insisting they start— finally actually successfully drew blood.

True fact: I am legally unable to donate blood, due to a false positive hepatitis B test in college. I do not and have never had hepatitis, but apparently once you have even a false positive they blacklist you. Which is fine, because given my issues with getting blood out of my veins donating blood is not a method of charity I’m going to be partial to anyway, but it’s nice to have an actual excuse other than “I have no veins, and my arms are made of jelly.”

At any rate, I’m hoping the rest of the day improves.

Oh right this needs a title

On March 30, 2016 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy3 Comments

So far, Spring Break has consisted of a lot of Transformers cartoons interspersed with occasional attempts to teach the boy to read and preparing a neverending succession of grilled cheese sandwiches. He’s actually getting pretty decent with a list of basic sight words; we’ll see if I can get him up to Dostoyevsky in the week and a half remaining before school starts again. Probably not, but goals are a good thing.

Outside of that and stressing the fuck out about the job market, though, there’s not been much else. I’m growing rather unpleasantly tired of my own bullshit, and am in that stage of bored where I can think of a dozen things I ought to be doing (not least among which would be getting something done on the A to Z challenge, which starts Friday) but being so unmotivated that I’m simply noting that they’re still out there and moving on with continuing to do not a whole lot. Last year my A to Z posts were completely done by now. I have them all scheduled but not a single one written yet.

I am sure that this is at least as exciting to read about as it is to live through.

I have just noticed that the keyboard in that picture is facing the wrong way, and it’s really getting on my nerves.

…yeah, that’s what I’ve got. Gonna take the boy to the comic shop and maybe try to get a short story finished this afternoon. We’ll see.

I got nothing today

On March 29, 2016 By Luther M. SilerIn Music1 Comment

…it’s Tuesday, so have a Macklemore video.

Yeah. That’s right. Tuesdays are for Macklemore now. This is the world we live in.

SPRRIIIING BREEEAAAAAAAAAAAK!!!!!

On March 28, 2016 By Luther M. SilerIn Parenting5 Comments

Is it a sign of something wrong with me that I Google the words “spring break” to find an image for this post and the first thing to come to mind is Jesus Christ, am I glad I never had anything to do with that? Because that’s totally what just happened.

Anyway: I’m unemployed, so depending on how you chose to look at it I either don’t get a Spring Break or every day in March and April is Spring Break.

The boy does, though. In fact, he gets two weeks somehow, the longest Spring Break I’ve ever heard of. So my current jobless status actually kinda works out for us, since the next two weeks can be Daddy Time and we don’t have to scramble to figure out what to do with him.

So far, after three hours of Spring Break, he has built a fort out of couch cushions and I have taken a shower. So we’re living it up over here.

Anybody want to give any suggestions for what to do with a four-year-old for the next two weeks? Other than mainline superhero cartoons, I mean.