Okay, you can call this a cop-out if you want, but it's my last free post of the year, so I'm saying what I want.

Be kind to yourself for the rest of the year. Use these last few days as a way to practice being kinder to yourself in 2026. You're worth the same grace you give everyone else. 

Take a moment for yourself. Examine your real feelings. Excuse things you do that annoy yourself, or seek ways to change the habits and cope with the stress inherent to being you. None of us knows all of what anyone else deals with, and that's okay. We can be gentle with ourselves and one another, and we'll all be better for it.

So please, love yourself as the last thing you do this year and the first you do next year. I love you. For no other reason than you're you.

There’s a whole lot of variety in my naming conventions, and sometimes, it varies depending on the story world I’m creating. I was working on a project (that I still may get back to someday, who knows) where the naming conventions for classes were very distinct. Nobility used nature names as part of their culture, mostly because they were certain in their dominance over the world. So you’d see names like Chrysanthe, Quartz, Cirrus, and Mesa. The commoners didn’t have that arrogance in their naming conventions, so I went with more “traditional” fantasy-style names. I did a lot of what I normally do for fantasy: modify normal names.
​
Modifying more common or normal names in fantasy is pretty standard for me, as I mentioned. It can be as simple as changing a vowel in an existing name: for the main villain in Criminal From Birth, I just changed the e in Brent to an i, and we get Brint. It can be changing a beginning or ending sound. Silas, with a different ending, becomes Silen. Kerry drops the y, becomes Kerr, becomes Cair to make the pronunciation a bit easier to get right when it’s only read. I’ve seen the name Monica in a book changed to Ronica, and it’s beautiful.

There’s also always the Pern version of blending names. It’s the same sort of blending that get used with shipping characters: you just mash the two names together. In Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books, children are most often named a mashup of their parents’ names. So F’lar and Lessa have a son named F’Lessan. Grab your parents’ names and rename yourself. I could be Kenry, Mareth, Manneth, Kary, or even Marketh.

Honestly, those are my favorite ways to name characters: the letter/sound substitutions or name mashups.

I’m also not above just putting my friends in books, either with their actual name or modifying them. And it doesn’t have to be just one change. Hell, go a few steps. Take a name, find a foreign language variation of it, and riff off that. Like, if you have a Henry, turn it to Enrique, and start messing with that. Spell it phonetically. Onrikay. Drop a sound. Rikay. Make it easier to read. Rickay. Change a vowel. Rackay. Suddenly, Henry is unrecognizable, but you have a usable name.

The point is, it’s no holds barred. I’ve seen unusual and unique names on people in real life. Celebrities names their kids all kinds of weird stuff. So find what you like and name your character that. Just… if you’re naming a real person, give that knowledge some consideration. They have to live with the name. It’s not like naming a pet.

I’ll come out upfront and say this is not a first impression of this book. I’ve listened to it MANY times and consider it one of my favorite series.
Ah, Dungeon Crawler Carl. This is an irreverent, humorous-but-heartfelt LitRPG novel that very perfectly fits in with the gamer mentality.
At least in my personal opinion.
It’s cliche to say this, but it really feels like this is a book that was written for me. I’m definitely right smack in the target demographic (nerdy lifelong gamer/reader), but it’s not as niche as that might seem. Seriously. The fan base is vast and varied, but all as passionate about the themes, characters, and memes that make up this fantastic series.
Anyway, this particular book. To sum up, our main character is Carl, a mid-20s man who just broke up with his girlfriend and still has her pampered show cat in his apartment. Everything’s fine until the world ends.
You heard right. Aliens have claim to all the resources on Earth, and the time has come to harvest. However, intergalactic policy states that if a resident of the planet successfully navigates all 18 floors of a dungeon, they can lay claim to the planet and save it.
Enter the Dungeon.
This book covers floors 1 and 2 of the dungeon, bringing readers along with Carl as he learns how the game works and sees how people adjust to literally living in a televised game where magic is real, goblins are addicted to meth, and when you die, you die. I’d love to go into the plot, but to be totally serious, it’s best taken with no expectations to allow the insanity and joy of it all to just wash over you and take you by surprise.
Just know there’s no gratuitous sex, but there is a lot of really strong language, gore, more gore, and MORE GORE. There is sexual innuendo and suggestive stuff, but nothing explicit there. Not for the faint of heart.
Dinniman is a master of the unexpected but logical. Some of the unexpected twists and events seem to hit out of left field, but in retrospect (or a second or millionth read/listen), they are telegraphed well and subtly. Even better, he very deftly introduces the reader to the intricacies of the game along with Carl.
So, I mentioned relistening/rereading. This book is well worth multiple intakes. I probably listen to the series 2-3 times a year since I first discovered it, and I’m always finding something new about it: some new hint, detail, or just straight up something that I missed previously due to a momentary lapse in attention or memory.
I want to discuss the audiobooks primarily, mostly because they are so wonderfully done. The majority of that is at the hands of the narrator, the incredible Jeff Hayes. This man, guys… This man is so spectacular at voices and deliver that it surprises a lot of people to realize he does ALL THE VOICES. With a couple exceptions, Hayes does them all. If he isn’t doing a character, it’s because there was a guest voice actor brought in for someone particular— sometimes to great effect, sometimes not so much coughCriticalDrinkercough
I have not read the paper or ebook versions of this book, though I do own an autographed copy of this one. I’ve only listened to the audio, and it’s a hoot in and of itself. It truly brings the story alive, and that’s not even counting the fact that there are AUDIO IMMERSION TUNNELS happening, where the books are full audio dramas. I’ve heard snippets of those, and they’re one step further into really making the books real.
I plan to do reviews of each book as I work my way through the series again. Naturally, as we progress, the number of times I’ve consumed the later books will be less than the first few. When I first got introduced to the series, I believe book 5 had just been released. So I’ve been around for the releases of books 6 and 7, and am eagerly awaiting book 8. But book 6 I’ve only listened to 3 or 4 times, and book 7 twice. So I’ll be reviewing that after my third listen. Keep your eyes out for my impressions of the books, and seriously, grab a copy. You won’t regret it!

I was very fortunate to have gotten bitten by the writing bug at a fairly early age. I’ve talked about this a bit before. It was early middle school when it happened, so around age 11. By age 12, I was definitely mired in the written word. It was pure fortune that even though my writings were TERRIBLE, I got a lot of good support from the people whose opinions I cared about.
To be fair, at the time, I didn’t really know how bad they were. I read, yes, but I was not introspective, subjective, or anything like that. I was just having fun. And to be completely honest, that’s what writing should be.
It should be fun.
More than anything, that’s what I would (and do) tell children who want to be writers. Both of my goddaughters are artistic in some sense, and both do dabble in some writing. One of the first things I was proudly presented by one of them (a few years ago now, so the author was roughly age 8 or so) was— and I say this affectionately— the most derivative, poorly-written fanfiction I could imagine. The first half or so was pretty much just a written Cliff’s Notes version of the film they were “based off.”
I speak that openly about it because at this point, I know my own early writings were no different. I’ve already posted on this blog about some of the first works I recall: The Kung-Fu Cockroaches being one I particularly have in mind. It was derivative and more poorly-written than I care to claim these days. The support I got for it was encouragement, excitement over having written a thing, though… looking back, of course I never got any good actual feedback. But what do you tell a preteen who has the guts to put themselves out there like that?
The same thing you should tell anyone trying something new: that you know how hard what they’re doing is. You praise the effort, the passion, and the courage to do it. You acknowledge the hard work they’ve put into it, because effort is what’s going to help them improve.
With any skill, you get out what you put into it. You have to invest. For a child, it’s much simpler than trying to actually guide the improvement. Don’t criticize their word choices, plot, characters, any of that. You don’t have to lie about things being good. Praise the effort they put into it. Tell them to keep writing. ASK WHAT THEY PLAN TO WRITE NEXT.
Frankly, this goes for adults, too, and not just in writing. Any skill someone is trying for the first time, just encourage it. It doesn’t have to be super deep encouragement that analyzes what they do. If someone’s playing tennis for the first time, focus on the fun and immediate benefits. Be happy because they’re trying something new, not that they’re not already Pete Sampras or not making money off it. If your mother decides to take an airplane pilot simulation course, don’t shake your head and make it clear you doubt she’ll ever fly a plane.
You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by being positive and supportive. Even if that preteen spends the rest of their life writing and NEVER PUBLISHES ANYTHING, don’t stop encouraging. The sum of our skills is not based on how much money we make off something. It can and should be valued in the joy we get creating or doing a thing.
And if they never want to share them with the greater world, never publish their art, never play a game competitively, that’s not a “waste” or a “pointless practice.”
In short, there really is no reason to not encourage others’ hobbies. And it’s not that hard to be genuine about it. If something makes a person happy, focus on how happy they seem to be doing the thing. You don’t have to like or even approve of what they do, but… don’t be the reason someone stops doing something they enjoy.
Especially if it’s a child.

This being the first of the book reviews I’ve done in quite a while, I suppose I should clarify what my intentions are with them. In the past, I have written book reviews mostly with the intent of supporting author friends. I see no reason why I shouldn’t continue to support authorly friends, so if you have a book you’d like me to read and review for you, please contact me. I will warn that physical reading take a lot longer for me these days. Audio is better, mostly because of time and attention constraints. I have drive time that I can dedicate to listening where I can’t read a physical book while doing that. That’s a good 5 hours a week just listening to books. I also listen while cleaning, eating, cooking, that sort of thing. I can try physical reading again too, so please don’t let that deter you if you want my thoughts on your work.
I digress, as I so often do. What I intend with these book reviews: my own thoughts, such as they may be. Sometimes, it may be a lot of focus on plot and character. It could be on craft, voice, even setting. Knowing me, a lot will just be general thoughts. Anyway, in short, just know that I read widely and enjoy talking about books in general. So expect that from these reviews.
_________________________
This is not a first impression of The Handmaid’s Tale. No, I first listened to this audiobook probably 10-ish years ago. But I just finished a re-listen and it was better than I remember. And I remember liking it a lot then. That said, here are my thoughts on it as it sits fresh on my mind.
Atwood writes beautifully. Simply put, it’s wonderful prose that, at least in my opinion, perfectly encapsulates the protagonist’s mindset. It isn’t until the epilogue that we discover this story was “discovered” as a series of audio cassettes, but that one revelation makes the whole thing make so much more sense to me, from a technical standpoint. The fact that I have absorbed it through audiobook only drives that further home. The delivery of the version I have, read by Claire Danes, truly feels like half of a conversation, like the oral passing down of stories from elder to child a generation or two removed.
That’s what so much of this feels like to me: like a story told, not one written. Obviously I don’t know if Atwood intended that to be its format from the beginning, or if it came along during the process somewhere, but I like to believe it is intended to be heard more than read, in general.
I’m writing this on October 13, 2025 in the United States, and it goes without saying that this book very much hits hard right now. It’s well-documented that Atwood took a lot of inspiration from Orwell’s 1984, another dystopian fascist novel. It’s far too clear to see the parallels in Atwood’s prose and the current living situation of every human demographic other than rich, white, male Evangelical. What’s even more terrifying is that the things Atwood describes not only could happen, they are happening in the U.S. even as I type this. Speaking as someone who falls into a number of minority categories (being trans for one), it really struck my nerves and fears in a way it didn’t ten years ago.
What Atwood really nailed, at least to my listening this time through, is all the small ways so many people break the rules. The intense strictures of everyday life in the Republic of Gilead are no way for people to live. Even those who benefit from the rules know that. Even they: the Commander, Serena Joy, the aunts, they all have their own small breaks that give them more reason to go on. The Commander with something as simple as playing Scrabble, one of the Marthas (I forget which one, Rita maybe) cutting radishes into rosettes and other shapes, all the people with cigarettes, mentions of the black market, all these things build up. They are proof of humanity’s survival and constant desire to be more than a basic nothingness.
Yet somehow, Atwood always managed to capture the sense of hope. Hope buried, lost, found again, shared, kept, coveted, reveled in. Even at its darkest moments, those where the writings and rules of the government of Gilead are at their worst, Offred and other characters demonstrate that they are still people. At their basest, most primal state, they are still people with wants and needs and the drive to find ways to survive and achieve those wants. Something as small as a single match hidden in a bed frame is a symbol of something strong waiting to break free.
I can’t help but compare it to another media tale of “the beforetimes” transitioning to the current horrific situation, told in a horrid way from one sufferer to the next: Valerie’s autobiography in V for Vendetta. The single match being hope, Valerie’s “one inch” being the last thing that cannot be taken from us.
Seeing the country I grew up in turning into a world where threat of my being disappeared is very real makes those small hopes mean a lot more. That one inch of self is critical. That one shred of being unapologetically who you are, in whatever small ways you can, is a valuable way to fight back. It might not be a lot, but then, it might be everything.

This is very much a topic I have a lot of words about, but the thing is, and I will say this in all caps:

THERE ARE NO RULES OF WRITING

Okay, that’s being facetious, but the thing is, writing is an art form, same as other art forms like physical art, digital art, dance, music, all that. I mean, the whole point of art is that it is interpreted in the eyes and heart of each individual. Everyone ingests all arts differently, so there is truly a whole lot of fuzziness in creating art.
That said, there is one big difference between writing (and other spoken media like theatre) that is a limitation, and obviously it’s what I’ve already hinted at: language itself. Naturally, being able to express a thought and have it be understood in language is a great gatekeeper for writing itself. Rather than have this post be a treatise on language (I realized I’m going totally technical-autistic and really getting into the bare bones foundation of language, which is where I don’t want to be), let’s just acknowledge that basic fact and step into actual “writing rules” as they’re called.

Okay, so the “rules of writing fiction” are not a thing like the Ten Commandments or the Terms of Service for your travel blender. There are no prescribed rules, so it’s not easy to find a list. For ease of reference, I’m going to call in some of Stephen King’s Top 20 Rules for Writers. I’m really going to go into just a couple that I have something to really say about.

King: Don’t use passive voice. “Timid writers like passive verbs for the same reason that timid lovers like passive partners. The passive voice is safe. The timid fellow writes “The meeting will be held at seven o’clock” because that somehow says to him, ‘Put it this way and people will believe you really know. ‘Purge this quisling thought! Don’t be a muggle! Throw back your shoulders, stick out your chin, and put that meeting in charge! Write ‘The meeting’s at seven.’ There, by God! Don’t you feel better?”

My take: Okay, the passive voice in general isn’t great, and King makes a good case with his phrasing, but I think it’s seriously oversimplified. There is nothing wrong with the passive voice when used well. Of course, using it well usually involves using it sparingly. But there’s a reason it exists. It can help weaken something further when you already want it to be weakened. Like everything else, it’s another tool, and it’s there to be taken advantage of. But it’s more like a cherry pitter than a cutting board. Some tools you are going to use in every meal (or writing session. I’m making an analogy here.) Some tools you only use in one specific case (like pitting cherries) until you realize it can be used in this one other, somewhat unexpected place (like pitting olives.) When you really need it, you’ll be glad you have it. But most of the time, it’s just an option you can ignore.

King: “The adverb is not your friend. Consider the sentence “He closed the door firmly.” It’s by no means a terrible sentence, but ask yourself if ‘firmly’ really has to be there. What about context? What about all the enlightening (not to say emotionally moving) prose which came before ‘He closed the door firmly’? Shouldn’t this tell us how he closed the door? And if the foregoing prose does tell us, then isn’t ‘firmly’ an extra word? Isn’t it redundant?”

My take: Oh, fuck right off with this nonsense. Adverbs are highly useful, and they are friends. To keep up with the cooking analogy, adverbs are going to be more like cumin or cinnamon. Used right, they absolutely make a dish. Used wrong, it’s pretty obvious. They’re a seasoning, a decoration, not the main part of the meal. But to avoid them is like cutting off a couple fingers. Can you get on without them? Sure, easily. If you have them, though, you prose can be more colorful and powerful without using extra words when one can suffice. They can serve to underline speech or make an action explode. It’s only when they’re shoddily or excessively used that it becomes a problem.

King: Avoid adverbs, especially after “he said” and “she said.” “While to write adverbs is human, to write ‘he said’ or ‘she said’ is divine.”
John Scalzi: Not directly quoted, and he has since updated his stance on it, but he said something along the lines of “You don’t need any dialog tag stronger than ‘said’ unless it’s maybe ‘asked.’”

My take: This is one that I will harp on forever. I bring Scalzi’s name into it because he’s the one I first heard this idea from, and it was he who totally debunked it for me with one particular book. I’ll get to that in a minute.
So, Scalzi’s updated thoughts on it are thus:

In print, having “he said” and “she said” at the end of dialogue makes good sense — it helps direct traffic and pacing. They can get repetitive, but most readers eventually gloss over them — they know they’re there but their brain starts processing them more like punctuation than words. They see them, but they don’t sound them out in their heads.
But in audio, every “he said” and “she said” is spoken out loud by the narrator. I was never more aware of how much I used dialogue tags than I was while listening to one of my audiobooks.

It was through listening to Scalzi’s book Redshirts in audio form that I noticed what he’s mentioned. The audio version is read by Wil Wheaton, and it’s painful how much the word “said” appears in that book. Like Scalzi mentioned, if I’d been reading the book in written form, I would be ignoring most of the “saids.” But Wheaton says every one in the audio form, and it’s horrible listening to these conversations with multiple people, where after every line, Wheaton also has to say “Dahl said,” “Duvall said,” or “Jekins said.” There are a lot of scenes featuring three or more speakers, so there has to be ways to delineate who is saying what, but in this case, “said” isn’t it. Not as a blanket tool.

This rule, as it was interpreted before, is a staple case of (keeping with my cooking analogy) overusing a seasoning in your meal. You’ve oversalted seriously by only using “said.” The meal is edible, but it is not a pleasant experience for anyone. Listening to Redshirts becomes an exercise in not getting annoyed at every instance of the word “said.” If I’m correct, I recall counting only 3 instances of a dialog tag other than “said,” with two of them being “asked.” Whatever the actual count is, it’s awful. Those few non-saids become a breath of fresh air, but it was a problem of the author’s own making in the first place.

In short, use dialog tags. They don’t have to be the adverb-followed ones. Language has a ton of words to choose from. Boomed, belted, shouted, roared, whispered, breathed… they’re all valid and use up a single word, same as said does.

Are they the best choices, just straight substitution? No. But there are a lot of better options than just only using “said.”

King: But don’t obsess over perfect grammar. “Language does not always have to wear a tie and lace-up shoes. The object of fiction isn’t grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story… to make him/her forget, whenever possible, that he/she is reading a story at all.”

My take: I totally agree with this one! Perfect grammar is great as a foundation for language, but people don’t talk this way. Not even self-proclaimed Grammar Nazis speak perfectly 100% of the time. Your characters shouldn’t either, whether in dialog or in description or narration. Perfect grammar gets uncomfortable pretty quickly, like a harness or handcuffs. Don’t start sentences with conjunctions? Yeah, I’ve done that a few times just in this blog post. Don’t end sentences with prepositions? That’s not even an actual grammatical rule in English; it’s just a personal preference (sorry, Mrs. Matlock, but it’s true. Seriously, my late high school Latin teacher was a stickler for this one, and I always disagreed. Miss you, Mrs. Matlock).

Bend the grammar rules all you want, but there’s the line between reader and writer that is always there. As a reader, if I can’t understand your writing, I’m not going to read it. As a writer, I try to make my words accessible, but damn do my thoughts interrupt each other a lot. So there’s a ton of grace to be given and taken on both sides to make a story understandable. It’s finding the balance and walking the line that is most important.
Which is pretty much the whole point I’m making in this post.

I think I’ll leave it here. I’ve only addressed a few writing rules, but I wanted to go into the more technical ones than the subjective ones like “Eliminate Distractions” and “Read Read Read.” 
I guess in conclusion, there are skills to writing to hone, and there are “rules” to writing that every writer needs to prioritize or discard on their own. Even poor techniques can have their place, when used correctly. That’s all practice and learning.
​
Just write. Fail, revise, and write again. Succeed, figure out why, and imitate your own successes. That’s my rule of writing, I guess. Do it, and then do it again.