Once again, this is not a first impression of this book. I’ve listened to it MANY times and it’s part of one of my favorite series.
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I don’t think I’ve talked about this yet publicly, but those who know me should be familiar with my thoughts on the second book of a series. Second books are hard, and at least to my perception and experience, a lot of that is because of the nature of story structure. The beginning setup is exciting, the buildup to and crux of the climax are cathartic. But between those two areas, it’s hit or miss on how much excitement you can really manage. There’s a fine balance between boring and keeping things too tense and high-emotion for too long. Make things too exciting early, and you don’t leave yourself anywhere to grow to for the ending, and it becomes disappointing.

Carl’s Doomsday Scenario doesn’t have those problems.

I honestly don’t know how Dinniman does it. This is only book 2 of the series, and it’s just as exciting, fresh, and involved as book 1. The stakes are higher, the micro and macro plots all chug along at good paces, and the character growth is steady but still contained. He’s got a tight rein on the story and character growth, which I almost can’t even fathom. The road map this man must have, even of just the basics of things like abilities and stat growth, must be insane. It’s my understanding that Dinniman is largely a pantser, which I respect immensely. Not planning for me is a huge disaster when it comes to actually finishing projects, so I need a detailed idea about where I’m going, if not also how I’ll get there.

Anyway, a quick shakedown of what this book’s about. Now through the “tutorial” floors of the dungeon, Carl and Donut get to go through the game’s race and class selection before starting the third floor, the first of the regular themed floors. In the dungeon, floors 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18 all share a common overarcing form and storyline, based off an old fable or child’s tale. Floor 3 is the Overcity, and it’s also the first time players are randomly spawned, so it opens up the character list to people from all over the world, not just the geographic location we started in.

The game has gone open world, baby! Even so, each book being its own setting change (yeah, that’s kind of the format of the series, not a spoiler) is a great tool in his belt for this. Each floor is self-contained, so there’s a lot of freshness with the problems of each area, with really only interpersonal issues being what’s carried over. Any floor issues are cast away with the ending of the floor. And there’s still the greater universe outside the dungeon in play, but that’s semi-intangible.

In this book, we also get introduced to quests, elite mobs, a day/night cycle, all kinds of things. New skills, spells, and gear abound.

And yet, Dinniman controls everything to a ridiculous degree. Sure, every single living player has moved far beyond the capabilities of a normal human, but there are still limits to what is possible.

For example, Carl doesn’t really have any good way to ascend or descend unless there are like… stairs or ladders.

That’s something I can really say for Dinniman. He’s great at pointing out small weaknesses and flaws in his characters and making them bigger than they seem to be or even should be.

There’s a lot to learn from Dinniman in this book about pacing, growth, and exploiting the failures and flaws of your characters. And I gotta say, what a climax and denouement to this one!

Let 2026 begin! Here’s where we stood at the end of December.

D&D Single Adventure - Still working on actually getting everything written down.

Short Story (working title “Recalled”) - started this right after Christmas and have a working outline and about 1800 words written. Just need to poke the words more into place and see how it actually turns out.

Criminal From Birth sequel - Still with editor.

LitRPG book (working title Subscription Life) - Chugging along and still enjoying! Not a lot to say other than the outlining is progressing. I may be getting close to wrapping up the outline (probably in another month or two, based on the pace I’ve been going) but there will be a lot of filling in details so I might need to go back over things before I start writing it in earnest.

Current chapters in Draft Point Five: 35 (up 7 from last month)

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.
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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.

It’s been some time since I just chatted away about what life is like, and I realized the other night that I really should. A lot has happened over the summer and fall, so this will probably be all over the place. Even so, there is a lot of immense good to talk about.

I’m going to start with writing, since we’re already here. Obviously that’s still happening. I did just post my project updates a couple weeks ago, so there’s that. Things are happening, but slowly due to only having so much time a day. Words are happening, but I haven’t been able to focus on short fiction or my novel outline like I want, or even get my D&D one-shots written, mostly because I’ve been very busy with D&D preparations lately.

Which brings us to the next thing I wanted to talk about. Dungeons & Dragons. But to talk about that, I need to talk about work for a moment. Back in June, while working at a local convention, I met up with an old friend from high school. Long story short, she offered me a job doing inventory at her small game/hobby shop and running D&D there. Needless to say, I jumped on the opportunity. I’d just finished the month’s work at the TN Renaissance Festival, Joann Fabrics had closed, and I had managed to land a part-time job that would only be a couple hours on weekends, on occasion. That job is working birthday parties at my local climbing gym. So I got some physical outlet and a gym membership free for being an employee, but at most I get 3 parties a week, and that’s nowhere near enough money.

This new offer was for 3-4 days a week, as needed and available, but 10-hour days. So part-time bordering on full-time. Pay’s not great, but it’s better than minimum wage, and it’s in an industry I’m actually interested in. Plus, it’s working for a small business rather than a corporate soul-sucker, which is why I quit my corporate soul-sucking job in February in the first place. This was going to be exhausting and hard for not much pay, but I couldn’t ignore the positives. A steady but casual job, the chance to run D&D for pay, being surrounded by nerd culture, the freedom to chainmail or write my own stuff if things were slow.

It was at the beginning of August that my first D&D party met for the first time. In 20-ish years of playing and GMing, I’d only ever played with friends and only ever homebrew content. I’d never run or played a module. Not to mention I’d played 3.5 edition and would be playing 5e 2024 edition. With strangers. Using a module. So it was the beginning of August that I met my players and helped them make their characters. This would be for an 8-session campaign capped with a PVP battle royale. I’m writing this on Dec 8, so as of this writing, the battle royale happens TOMORROW. I’m so stoked.

But the important thing is, I really got to know and love these players. I grew significantly as a GM and developed a lot of self-confidence about it all. I’m definitely not an encyclopedia of the rules, but as I tell my players, I’m more interested in the mechanics serving the narrative than the other way around. If something’s arguably doable and will make the shared story we’re telling better or more dramatic or exciting, yeah, let’s go for it! Of course, that means if something’s impossible, like hell I’m allowing it. You don’t get to roll death saves if your idiot self jumped in a volcano. No. You’re dead at that point.

It was at the end of October that I started offering one-shot D&D sessions. I’ve had two so far, both very successful! I also got the Daggerheart core set, so I’ll be learning that system and adding that as an offering starting next year sometime.

I’ve also been working on trying to drum up voice acting work. I’ve put out 30 auditions this year, with almost half that just being November and December. No hits yet, but half of them are still open, so I don’t expect to hear back yet. My feelers are always out.

I did, however, land an unpaid but fun writing gig with a project called “Epic the Journey.” We’re expanding on Jorge Rivera-Herrans’s Epic: The Musical. I figured a fun passion project could take up some time, and I love Epic, so it made sense. I’m helping script scenes between the songs, but I also managed to snag a tiny vocal role as one of the suitors, so I’ll take it! It’s something to work on.

On the chainmail front, things have definitely gotten interesting. And not just because the chainmail itself is exploding. It’s what’s around it. My best friend Erin and I have been selling at conventions for some time now, and it’s rough. Not going to lie. We don’t do it to make money. More than anything, it’s just an effort to fund the hobby itself, get us traveling a little, and enjoying conventions. We’d be lucky to do maybe 5 conventions a year, usually just breaking even on them, which is what we wanted.

Well, last November, at a small local con, we met Sean and Lilli. Sean is a tall biker-looking dude. Lilli is a 5-ish foot long ball python. Sean basically said, “Hey you like snakes, right?” and put Lilli around Erin’s shoulders and walked away.

That’s the how the relationship started. So Sean and his wife Mindy run one of only two accredited reptile rescues in the state of TN: Ecto Gecko. They bring snakes and reptiles to conventions to raise money for the rescue, but also to offer education, interaction, and photo ops with the reptiles. Bearded dragons, ball pythons, a 9.5’ Colombian redtail boa, corn snakes, uromastyx, a rock iguana, a sulcata tortoise… they have a lot of animals.

It was at that same convention in June where I got the job offer that Erin really made friends with Sean, Mindy, and the reptiles. The con was slow enough for us that I could handle the chainmail booth, but so busy for Sean and Mindy that they needed the extra hands. Erin spent most of the con helping them out, and that’s how it started. We met up at multiple cons, and Erin would help them out while I ran the chainmail booth.

Sean and Mindy recognized the value in partnership, and now… they’re opening doors for us. They already have, but 2026 is going to be a massive change. Being tied to Ecto Gecko, The Chain Nerd is going to be at more and bigger conventions, right next to the huge draw that are the lizards and snakes. Oh, and Sean also does car work and has a few fandom cars he brings to cons: the Mystery Machine, the Ecto One, and an Umbrella Corp SUV. So we’re by the big draws. At big cons.

Seriously, wait til you see our convention schedule for next year. It’s already head and shoulders more than we’ve ever done, with a lot of cons we never would have imagined being at in the foreseeable future.

Needless to say, I’m busy as hell. Taking downtime has become very crucial to my well-being, since there’s always something to do and to work on. I’m afloat, but working and living hard right now. But damn, I am so much happier than I was a year ago. I regret nothing as far as quitting my old job.

And that’s not even taking into consideration how much my self-image has improved. I’ve gotten confident and happy in myself this year, and it shows. I needed this year. Badly. Thanks for going through it with me.

My first book, Empeddigo. It’s a complete and total mess, but… so was I at the time it came out. It’s been out for a good 15, maybe almost 16 years now. To be fair, I haven’t read it since it came out. So the details here are going to be with 15 years of not touching it. Frankly, I don’t really know if I can recall most of the characters’ names.

That doesn’t mean I can’t speak to mistakes I made while producing the book. As a writer, I’ve very much matured and grown since writing Empeddigo. Look at my works and tell me I’m wrong.

On the book production administration side, I’ve definitely improved, but there is still a long way to go. I still make mistakes when it comes to publishing my novels now. But for Empeddigo:

Mistake 1 - Not editing a lot more. This is really a writer portion of the problem, but the truth is I didn’t do a ton of editing after writing the first draft of Empeddigo. Sure, I did do a second draft, but it was more of a spit-polish than a critical read and edit.

Mistake 2 - Being inexperienced and/or cheap. Granted, this is largely due to inexperience at the time. While I did “hire” a friend to do the cover art for the novel, it’s not the highest quality. The book looks fine, but not great. And that absolutely is not a reflection on him. He was younger than I was and had never done a book cover before. At the same time, I had no funds to hire a proper editor or formatter, once again relying more on friend-favors and that type of thing than hiring someone. To this day, I still am not great at the formatting, but I want to be. I will say I totally screwed up the formatting of Criminal From Birth. But with the sequel likely coming in 2026, maybe I’ll do a format update and re-release for Criminal itself as well.

Mistake 3 - Rushing. To be fair, this really ties in with both the others, but it is what it is. I fell for the hype of finishing a novel during NaNoWriMo. While I wasn’t one to finish the book in November and turn around and try to publish in December or January, I simply didn’t allow myself the time to do things right. In all honesty, this is likely the biggest mistake in itself. But that’s always been a struggle for me: taking my time. I’m working on trying to be better about it, and 2025 A.F. is much better about it than 2010 A.F.

So if you’re working on your first book, the best thing I can say is… don’t be in such a hurry. Take your time. Be nitpicky. The rub is that it’s a whole other pit to fall into, seeking that perfection. Perfection is never going to come. There will always be something to tweak.
So… with my first book, the thing I did right?

I moved on from it. Sure, I did it prematurely. I really should have spent the rest of 2010 cleaning and preparing it before releasing, but… the fact of the matter is I didn’t sink into attachment. I was ready to move to a new project. That’s one huge thing. Sure, you can refine any art project indefinitely, smoothing edges, refining words, polishing for ages… but all that does come with diminishing returns. I wouldn’t have learned so much if I hadn’t moved on to my second book. And third. And more. With each one, I get new lessons, new experience.

I would be beyond shocked if there was an author who didn’t look back at their first book and cringe at something or other. Mistakes are learning experiences. I’m glad I finished Empeddigo and had the nerve to put it out there. If I took the idea now and tried again, would the result be better? Yes, absolutely. In all ways.
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But it wouldn’t be a reflection of who I was 15 years ago. It was the book I needed to write and produce then. I’m proud to have done it. That’s enough.

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!

Uh… where did November go? I got some stuff done, but this month really took a toll on me. In-person D&D has picked up, so a lot of my focus has been there.

D&D Single Adventure - Holy cow, ideas have abounded. I currently, as of now, have scenes outlined for two. Just need to write out the details, do test runs, tweak anything that doesn’t work right, and format before I can release them!

Criminal From Birth sequel - Still with editor.

LitRPG book (working title Subscription Life) - Chugging along and still enjoying! Not a lot to say other than the outlining is progressing.

Current chapters in Draft Point Five: 28 (up 8 from last month)
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I haven’t gotten any flash or short fiction going this month, mostly because a lot of my working time has gone to D&D prep and chainmail.

This is a huge question, but I like to try and keep these posts short, a little heart-to-heart that won’t take up too much of your time. Time’s precious, limited, blah blah blah.

So, the short version:
With my writings, I’m not here to impart any grand wisdom. Whether or not I actually have any to impart is a whole other story. I’ve been around, been through Hell and back a few times, and I’m sure I’ve got some great nuggets to share.

I’m also not really trying to impress anyone with my prose itself. I’ve got plenty to criticize, and I’ll be the first person to say that. Like many, I suffer from a lot of impostor syndrome, insecurity issues, and the constant fear that I’m not good enough. But I still put myself out there, and you can too. (There, your encouragement for the day.)

What I want to do with my writing, with almost everything I do, is to entertain. Like I said, time is short. LIFE is short, and why the Hell should we be suffering through it or just “getting by?” The world and humanity are full of so much life, beauty, wonder, and curiosity that you cannot tell me that we’re meant to let it all exist outside us. I don’t care your belief system, no one should be relegated to a drab life without smiles.

I live to make people smile. No, I don’t write exclusively comedies. I get deep. I go for the gut punch. I aim for tears.

But those are all part of life too.

My words are meant to grant escape. Whatever escape you might need, I hope I can provide it. I don’t need much. A moment of your time for a joke, an afternoon for a story, or days or weeks for a book. I pour myself into my words in hopes that a little piece of me might brighten your life, just for a moment.
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I can honestly not think of a nobler purpose for myself.

Oooh, this one sounds like fun. I have a fair few published works, so let’s just go through the list, shall we?
Empeddigo - This was inspired by two ideas:
The idea of a highly communicable disease used to exert power and control over the mass population.
A genre blend of science fiction and fantasy

The Trials of Hallac - Oh, my epic poem. This was largely inspired by the challenge itself of writing a 5000-line epic poem in 31 days, but my plot and story inspirations were The Odyssey, the thoughts of something similar to the Trials of Hercules, and… Final Fantasy Tactics.

Mere Acquaintances - This was originally referred to as “The Blogject,” because I wanted to write a story that was intended to be released in unedited, first draft form as a serial, sort of an homage to serial published authors like Dickens. I honestly don’t recall exactly how it was inspired, but I always described it as “A bunch of people in a mental institution have multiple personalities. And those personalities are delusional together.”

Starsigns - This novel is one that probably went through the most permutations. It was inspired in large part by Robin Hobb’s Soldier Son Trilogy of novels: Shaman’s Crossing, Forest Mage, and Renegade’s Magic. I loved her premise on birth order being formative for your role in life and wanted my own take on fighting the fate decreed for you. It was originally intended to be much more adult than it was, but I’m quite proud of the final product.

Criminal From Birth - There is no denying that this had a single source of inspiration: the movie Basic, starring John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson. It’s a story told and retold a few times with new details revealed by different tellers, so it keeps changing just how events are reacted to, uncovering the mystery one layer at a time.
I’ll admit I did not pull it off as well as I liked in Criminal, but I’m still pleased with it. Obviously. I mean, I wrote a sequel and will be planning to wrap it up with a third book.
That’s right. I’m not making any promises on timelines, but that’s the long term hope. Book 2 is with my editor, so we’ll see when that gets finished and book 3 happens.

The Deadly Studies - I didn’t have a whole lot of say on inspiration for my novella series, since it’s a spinoff of John G. Walker’s Statford Chronicle series. It’s obviously inspired by a need to fit into the established world of its parent series. By dint of having me write it rather than John himself, it is already set in a Grappin-style flavor, making it a totally different experience than reading any of the Statford books. John says I more than did Luc justice, so I’ll take that with pleasure.
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Subscription: Life (work in progress, working title) - This is my current main project I’m outlining right now, a LitRPG novel that I hope will either be a standalone novel, or at most, a two-book series. A lot depends on how long the outline itself is and how the prose ends up. But this is inspired by the fact I’m a lifelong gamer and have been reading a lot of LitRPG stuff lately. Notably, Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman has been an obsession and huge influence.
S:L is not at all going to be any sort of DCC clone, though. I’m more original than that, at least. And like a lot of other projects that have been started and discarded, no promises that this one will come to fruition. I hope, though.