On Nostalgia as Substitute for Writing Characters

 I somewhat considered not doing Saturday Notes this past few weeks, because I’ve been so busy with YALLFest, National Novel Writing Month, and Thanksgiving. At the same time, I’m also desperately hoping to reach 50 Saturday Notes this year, and for that I need to fill out the next few weeks.

So! Note this week. Because I read a book about education this week, I started writing a Note about that, but the fact is that I have nothing valuable to say about the subject other than school sucks and so does the education system in this country.

Stakes in Fiction

 I am back from YALLFest! And I am behind on everything except my word count for National Novel Writing Month. I need to post a movie review, write and post another one, read some more, and on top of everything I am feeling a bit under the weather. I should be fine by Thanksgiving, but I’d very much like to feel better now, D’Arvit.

Anyhow, at least I’m re-reading The Aeronaut’s Windlass, and I’ve forgotten what great fun it is!

On Saints (in Fiction)

 When you read this, I will be at YALLFest going to panels and such, so I went ahead and wrote this before the weekend. I realized, right after I got this idea last weekend, that it would have been suitable for the Saturday after All Saints Day, but it didn’t occur to me then. Oh, well.

In other news, I’ve finished the “Curse of the Pharaohs” expansion for Assassin’s Creed: Origins, and so I’ll have to decide in a bit what the next game will be. I have a few options. And for whatever reason, I’ve been thinking a lot about Skyrim lately…

The Problems of Tie-Ins

 National Novel Writing Month has begun! Which means every evening I’m rushing home to fill out my word count for the day, despite being absolutely terrible at writing a Plot. The difficulty is getting characters to do things I find interesting, without them being stupid. Which is harder than it looks! I often come up with Plot ideas and then say, “Wait a minute, the characters would have to be stupid for that to happen/to allow that to happen.” You can’t just string cool things together! That’s how you get a bad book, or maybe a hilarious one.

Anyhow Across the Spider-Verse should be on Netflix right now, and both Paolini’s Murtagh and Butcher’s Olympian Affair are going to be out in bookstores on Tuesday, which is quite exciting. And a week from now is YALLFest! I don’t know if I will have a Saturday Note up then.