Rob’s Update: Happy Holidays

Week of 16 – 23 December

Greetings all

Tonight, my sweetie, her spawn, and I head down to Mom’s for Christmas.

Last year was Dad’s last Christmas, and this one will be different than any other I’ve known. Oddly, I am looking forward to this one much more than last, though. We knew as we unwrapped presents this was Dad’s last, so driving down I was filled with frustration and sadness. Dad made his passing as easy as we could have hoped, but that didn’t make it fun.

This year, we’ll miss having him around, though man, he told some awkward stories near the end. Talk about having no filter. But he got what he wanted from Santa Claus, enough time to say goodbye but no more than needed so he could be out of his pain.

The negatives of his sickness weighed everything down last year, but this year I’m filled with so much more optimism. I’ve got lots of irons in the fire, and I need to finish some, but it’s awesome that I’m getting asked to write these things. My home life is much more relaxing, at least when the kitten isn’t galumphing around, even though my move is extending to far longer than I hoped. 2018 promises to be one of my best years ever.

I hope all of you get good presents. If you deserve coal, I even hope you get top-flight anthracite.

Happy Holidays, everyone.

Quote of the Week

“I’m a physicist, and we have something called Moore’s Law, which says computer power doubles every 18 months. So every Christmas, we more or less assume that our toys and appliances are more or less twice as powerful as the previous Christmas.”
– Michio Kaku

News and Works in Progress

  • A new short story requested to get out quick. I should be done early in January.
  • Brief Is My Flame, in the 30s, even though I’ve been lazy

Recent Blog Posts and Wiki Additions

  • Nothing new to add, but that’s because I’ve been focusing on something else…

Upcoming Events

Spotlight

As you probably already know, Heather Dale is one of my favorite voices. If you have only one album of Christmas songs, my suggestion would be this: http://heatherdale.com/product-category/this-endris-night/

Good King Wenceslaus is on my playlist year round.

Let me know if you have any suggestions on the website, this email, or cool story ideas at rob@robhowell.org. Especially let me know of suggestions you have for the Spotlight section.

Have a great week, everyone.

Rob Howell
Author of the Shijuren-series of novels

Currently Available Works

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Rob’s Update: Love Alters Not

Week of 19 November – 2 December

Greetings all. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Mine was wonderful in many ways. My sweetie and I cooked together and ate great food.

We also bought Zombie Munchkin and Mansions of Madness, which of course we played both. Munchkin is always fun, of course, so no surprise there.

Mansions of Madness, though, is a fantastic combination of technology and board gaming. The game is built around the app, which randomizes all sorts of things and exposes clues here and there as the players find them. It scales up and down to reflect the number of players in the game. Really neat design.

Also, it’s a collaborative game and perfect for a family to play together. In other words, it’s a game where all the players are on the same side trying to solve the mystery. I should say, it’s usually a collaborative game. It’s based around H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu stories, so characters can not only be killed by the monsters, they can also be driven mad. And when they’re driven mad, the players might end up having different victory conditions.

Yes, I won the game, all by myself, by knifing my proto-incipient step-daughter. Go Me! And my insanity 😀

The only thing that would have made Thanksgiving better was if I hadn’t gotten a nasty cough and cold. When I wasn’t cooking or playing a game, I was mostly a slug. I didn’t do much, though I pushed through a little writing.

I did have a chance to record a couple of episodes of Write Pack Radio. You can find us at https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/write-pack-radio/id870221780?mt=2 and http://www.blogtalkradio.com/writepackradio. On Sunday the 10th, we’ll discuss the differences between writing fiction and non-fiction. On the 17th, we’ll talk about making characters.

Quote of the Week

Today I am in Kansas City, where I am officiating the wedding of some friends this afternoon. I based the ceremony around one of Shakespeare’s most quoted sonnets, so it seems right to quote from that sonnet today. Congratulations, Nicholas and Margaret.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.

– Shakespeare, Sonnet 116

News and Works in Progress

  • Brief Is My Flame. Making progress. Treachery, deceit, war, and an ancient horror are on the docket for today.

Recent Blog Posts and Wiki Additions

Upcoming Events

Spotlight

One of the other Write Pack members is Brad R. Cook. He writes a lot of steampunk, and I enjoy hearing his takes during our discussions. You can find his work at: https://www.amazon.com/Brad-R.-Cook/e/B01EQZ7GEM/.

Let me know if you have any suggestions on the website, this email, or cool story ideas at rob@robhowell.org. Especially let me know of suggestions you have for the Spotlight section.

Have a great week, everyone.
Rob Howell
Author of the Shijuren-series of novels

Website: www.robhowell.org
Blog: www.robhowell.org/blog
Shijuren Wiki: http://www.shijuren.org/World+of+Shijuren+Home
Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/robhowell.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Rhodri2112

Currently Available Works

A Lake Most Deep (Edward, Book 1)
The Eyes of a Doll (Edward, Book 2)
Where Now the Rider (Edward, Book 3)
I Am a Wondrous Thing (The Kreisens, Book 1)
Brief Is My Flame (The Kreisens, Book 2) Forthcoming 2017
None Call Me Mother (The Kreisens, Book 3) Forthcoming 2018

Weekly Update Archive

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