Camp NaNoWriMo Achievement Unlocked: Night Owl Status Restored!

I take it back, NaNoWriMo.org! I’m not sure if you fixed the problem or if it fixed itself, but this time all it took was two more updates between 10PM and midnight over the past two days to get rid of that hideous mid-day flamingo and replace it with the more sensible, refined character of

My Camp NaNoWriMo Project

I’ve struggled for nearly a month over what I would make my Camp NaNoWriMo project this year, assuming I’d even participate, because part of me wanted to work on the novel I’d already started and still am nowhere near finishing, and part of me wanted to leave that on the back burner and just begin

Medieval Monday: The Green Valley in February — Allison D. Reid

Today’s post is actually a video that I really think you’re going to enjoy! It’s half an hour long, but well worth the time to watch! A small group of historians and archaeologists restored and brought back to life an abandoned village in Wales, re-creating over an entire year what life was like in the […]

J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Secret Vice” and My Secret Love: Thoughts on Dimitra Fimi and Andrew Higgins’ Critical Edition of A Secret Vice: Tolkien on Invented Language — A Pilgrim in Narnia

A Secret Vice by J.R.R. Tolkien My rating: 5 of 5 stars It was the fall of 2001. I was rereading The Lord of the Rings in anticipation of the film, which I was sure would be screened even in our rural, mountainside Japanese town. One afternoon, I was killing time at our church, a […]

Of god or (hu)man? — Author Scott Austin Tirrell

I’ve heard that there are two types of writers in the world. Those that map everything out and those that let the story guide them. When I was younger and king of the world, my rule transferred to my writing. I saw myself as a great architect and schemer planning the beginning, middle, and end […]

Medieval Monday: The Labors of November — Allison D. Reid

The Anglo Saxons referred to November as the “blood month,” because it was time to begin slaughtering those animals which would not be kept through the winter. The traditional time for butchering animals was Martinmas (November 11th), though the butchering and processing of meat could continue through January depending on the weather. While some meat […]

Medieval Monday: Fire! Fire! — Allison D. Reid

Fire was crucial to survival in the Middle Ages. With electricity and gas-powered devices still far into the future, open flame was the most common source of heat for cooking, industry, and protection against the cold. Fires were a bit more difficult to set in an era before matches, particularly if everything was wet. Fire-steels, […]

Medieval Bills of Exchange — A Writer’s Perspective

Last week there was a question in the comments from Ellen Hawley who wanted to know how the innkeepers who stored and organised the transport of goods on behalf of merchants were paid by those merchants. I touched on this subject a bit when we were looking at how ransoms for prisoners of war were […]

“Just Enough Light: Some Thoughts on Fantasy and Literature,” the 2021 Tolkien Lecture by Guy Gavriel Kay — A Pilgrim in Narnia

I was pleased last week to watch the 8th annual J.R.R Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature, an annual lecture on fantasy literature held at Pembroke College, Oxford, this year broadcast online. The Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature was established in 2013 at Pembroke College, Oxford, where J.R.R. Tolkien worked for twenty years as a professor […]

Worldbuilding for Fantasy Writers and Gamemasters, Part X

THE RISE AND FALL OF EMPIRES At the mention of the word “empire” no one would fault you if the first thing that sprang to mind was the Roman one. After all, that’s arguably the most famous empire of all, at least in the Western world. But it wasn’t the first, and it certainly wasn’t