​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.

So, DCC book 3, The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook. 
This is by far one of the most confusing books I’ve ever read, but the amazing thing is, I don’t care. I’ve listened to this book probably going on 10 times at this point, and I still only maybe halfway understand the mechanics of it.
​
But that’s kind of the point, and it’s what I’m going to focus on for this review.

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. They say art is amazing because everyone experiences and interprets it differently. Those sayings could not be more true that when you inspect the Iron Tangle. So, a little context, without getting spoilery. This floor of the dungeon has its own unique theme, one that in story context they say is ambitious and unlike anything done before. 

Trains. A massive network of trains and train stations. Doesn’t sound so bad, right? Well, if you’ve ever navigated a metropolitan mass transit system, you’re maybe prepared for like 10% of what this floor has to offer. The Tangle is exactly what it is named: a tangle. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of train lines and a ridiculous number of train stations. Monsters ride the rails. Some trains only go on one-way trips. Some are on looped tracks. The characters have a whole thing going on most of the book trying to figure out where they want to go and then how to even get to where they want to be. It’s a total mindfuck to try and sort out and… Dinniman doesn’t care, in the best way.

He’s managed to write an entire book set in a place no one really understands. At least, no reader does. The point of a lot of the setup is that the layout makes sense to people in the DCC greater universe because it’s based on the context of things they’re familiar with but we simple Earthlings aren’t. We haven’t been exposed to a lot of the everyday technology, culture, and possibilities of the universe in the book series. We literally lack the context needed to interpret the art of this floor of the dungeon.

And that is what makes me, as a writer, admire what Dinniman has done. Not only has he created something completely alien, he has gotten across that it makes sense to aliens but not to us. The book actually has a disclaimer saying it’s really best not to try to understand the Iron Tangle.

It’s like a masterclass in bullshitting, when you get right down and think about it. I mean, to be totally honest, fiction writers/storytellers are nothing but professional bullshitters. I say that as a novelist and collaborative storyteller (read: tabletop RPG Game Master.) The whole job is to make up entertaining or poignant bullshit and make it look intentional. 

I don’t know if that’s something Dinniman really set out to do, or if he lucked into it, or what. Whatever the reason for the Iron Tangle being the affront to Earth logic the way it is, he did a great job bringing the characters along to understand their surroundings while still making it a challenge for the reader to make much sense out of it. It doesn’t help we pretty much cannot have a visual representation of it, mostly due to scale and a piece of huge context we get about it late in the book. The key to cracking it, so to speak. I’m sure someone, somewhere could make a real valid visual of it, but I absolutely would never take that kind of thing on myself.

This is a book where you really do just sort of need to let the setting wash over you. Everything else Dinniman has established so far in the series is still present and still at the forefront. The people are first and foremost. Their relationships, arcs, their fallings out, it’s all there. A lot of great interpersonal drama happens this book, and not always involving the characters you think will be involved.

It’s not even my least favorite DCC book, despite the confusion inherent in the level itself. Maybe it’s my inability to actually visualize stuff in my mind anyway that lets me brush off the frustration of trying to imagine the Tangle. Maybe not. Either way, always a good read or listen, this one. 

2026 came out swinging, and I wasn’t able to get a lot done on writing because… well, I’ve already talked about it. The Chain Nerd is taking some major priority. That said, here’s where we are as of the beginning of February:
​
D&D Single Adventure - I’m going to pull this from the list. As much as I want it to be a priority, it can’t be right now. I may pick on it sometimes as I get the drive. If I finish it, you’ll know.

Short Story (working title “Recalled”) - No updates this month. Still at around 1800 words. Crap.

Criminal From Birth sequel - Still with editor. I need to light a fire under their butt.

LitRPG book (working title Subscription Life) - THIS IS WHERE THINGS GET EXCITING! I HAVE A FINISHED OUTLINE!

Okay, let me clarify. I have the first draft of a finished outline. What I figured out in the last few chapters adds a new layer of information I’ll need to seed in the first 1/3 or so of the book, so I’m updating the outline to make sure the flow of that story arc, but this is much easier work than straight blank outlining.

First outline draft: 56 chapters (up 21 from last month)

(Hopefully) final outline: 21 chapters (YES, I DID 42 CHAPTERS TOTAL)

This goes pretty quick since I’m just updating the info I already have. It’s more like editing. But once this is done (hopefully this month) I get to start WRITING THE BOOK!
​

This week's free post is... another of those where I just sort of talk. There have been some rather insane new developments in a portion of my life that I did not expect, though I did hope for it. Just not this soon or this suddenly.

It's regarding The Chain Nerd, the chainmail crafting business I've been at with my best friend Erin for going on 11 years.

Long story short, there are opportunities coming up starting this year that... are going to have a major impact on my schedule. Thanks to some amazing connections, networking, and our own stubborn work ethics, we are more than doubling the number of conventions we're vending at this year. In fact, we're going to more conventions this year than we have from 2023-2025 COMBINED. And these are not all small conventions, either. We'll be at 6-7 larger conventions, and any one of them are larger than most others we do... combined.

This is a massive shot in the arm for us, with the possibility of contracted appearances in upcoming years.

This is a big deal.

As a result, a lot of my time is now going to be devoted to managing The Chain Nerd's inventory, and since everything we make is hand-made, it means a lot more hours with pliers in my hands, rather than at a keyboard.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not giving up writing. Not now that I finally got it back.

What it does mean is that... things may slow down here a bit. I don't want it to, but my life is adjusting to a lot right now, and while I want to keep every juggling ball aloft, I am only one man with two arms. Some of the projects I've been working on, like my D&D one-shots, might be shelved for the foreseeable future, just because that's needing to take a backseat. I plan to focus on my next novel and try to whip out short or flash fiction as the inspiration takes, but I cannot make any promises. Honestly, the free blog posts are one of the bigger annoyances of this but... I don't want to stop doing those either.

In other words, I'm not going anywhere, but... I may be a bit strained. I'll communicate as much as I can, and I absolutely am floored by all the support from my friends, fans, and family.

Keep reading, and I'll be weaving and writing.

This sort of question comes up a lot in writing groups and discussions. The answer is simple, but pretty much always the same.
​
Write. Just write.

It seems so trite and unhelpful. But it really is that simple. Like any skill, it takes time and practice to get any good, and with writing, that’s literally just making words.

Just write.

You’re going to make mistakes. Everything at every level, from the sentence structure to the meta analysis of the plot, is gonna suck. But you can’t let that stop you. It’s the same for every skill you want to learn. It’s going to start rough and ugly. It’s going to be messy. It’ll not make sense, there will be plot holes. You’ll reuse phrases and overuse words and retell the same thing in different ways and reword the same concept and go over the same details until it’s overdone. You’ll put details on the wrong things and underemphasize what’s important.

But you’ll learn from those things.

Just write.

There’s no point in worrying about agents, publishing deals, or royalties until something’s actually written. Even editing isn’t something you can worry about until you have words on a page.

Just write.

Sure, there’s plenty else to do. Study writing. Read widely.

But nothing is going to come from your desire to tell a story unless you’re actually doing the work.

Just.

Write.

I’ve talked about some of my favorite books before and what they taught me. At this point, I don’t know that I can honestly say I have a favorite author. I’ve read too widely at this point to be able to single out an individual and say they’re my favorite. I’m more likely to focus on one technique or skill and say they do this thing well.

So I suppose that’s what I’ll focus on here. A few authors I like and what they do well. Because all these things they do well are what inspire me to upgrade my own writing skills. So here are a few authors I admire and what I admire them for. Keep in mind these opinions are my own and I neither can nor will excuse any bullshit they pull or believe on a personal level. This is just about the writing.

Robin Hobb - Endings. Holy HELL can Hobb write endings that are satisfying. And I mean that for books and for whole series. I’ve read the Soldier Son trilogy multiple times, and each book is so well contained but the whole series is wrapped up well, too. And then there’s the expansive multiseries series The Realm of the Elderlings. Not only are each book and each series wrapped well, but the final ending to the whole epic is just… epic. I cried so hard, so emotionally sated that I almost couldn’t handle it. Hobb makes it bittersweet but easy to accept the goodbyes readers say to characters, especially ones we’ve traveled with across years and many many books. I’d kill to be able to write an ending one-tenth as satisfying.
​
That said, the beginnings aren’t as gripping. Many of them start very slow and take some settling into. But once in, if you’re not hooked, then please don’t force your way through. Every book isn’t for every reader. That’s why we have variety. But if you want a good ending, go for a Hobb book.

Matt Dinniman - Okay, to be fair, I’ve only ready his Dungeon Crawler Carl series so far, but I do have others in mind to read eventually. But from DCC, I can say this man is great at having things happening behind the scenes and revealing them in fantastic ways. He very much keeps in mind that “onscreen” characters aren’t the only ones with agency, and he makes forgetting it your problem. Anything that seems to come out of nowhere has inciting seeds ages ago that you just dismissed because it didn’t directly affect what you were seeing as a reader, especially if it’s through the eyes of your POV character. Dinniman is great at keeping you informed of the small details of things as you need to know them.

I guess I’m also going to mention a small personal gripe I have with each author, so here we go. And oh, is this a total nitpick on my part. So trivial it annoys me that I’m annoyed by it. Dinniman as a couple technical word choices that I can’t help but notice and get a tiny spike of annoyance at the repeated use of the word. The main one is the word “upon.” He uses it instead of the more simple “on” a lot more than anyone else I know. And it seems… so out of character for the narrator, Carl, to use that so much. Similarly, he uses “as” phrases really often. I haven’t gone and one any sort of analysis of how often Dinniman does both these things, but it’s enough that I’ve noticed them both. Might not have noticed if it weren’t for listening to the audiobooks, but yeah, I’ve noticed. Like I said, tiny gripes.

Stephen King - I mean, obviously, he had to be in this list, right? Put simply, King has some great ideas and expands on them well. His beginnings are a lot more gripping than Hobbs’s, that’s for certain. His first line for The Gunslinger is often touted as like the quintessential, simple, gripping first line. That said, once King gets to a certain point, all sense of direction and conclusion just sort of… stop. Often, it’s not until the very last few pages of the book. I’ve read a number of King’s books and… I’m just never satisfied with the endings. So I guess for him, the gripe goes hand-in-hand with my praise. The man has fantastic ideas and really ramps up the conflict to dangerous levels. But it’s always felt to me like he can’t dig his way back out and just… ends things because he’s done trying. 

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.
​
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.
​
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.