Dungeon Master Growth Patterns

            Those who have been following my blog for a while will have noticed how much Dungeons & Dragons has become a part of my life in the past few years. In that time, I’ve been part of about fourteen different games, and I’m currently involved in five active games. During this time, I’ve been both a player and a Dungeon Master, but what has captured my attention today is the rise of new DMs and how they follow roughly the same growth pattern that I went through.

            Most people starting out as a Dungeon Master (though not all) have played the game before, so they have a pretty good idea of how it works on the players’ side of the table. They know that it’s a challenge to switch to being behind the DM’s screen, where they essentially have to create and control an entire world – much like a writer does, only a writer doesn’t need to account for the craziness that players come up with.

            The first game the new DM runs isn’t bad (with a good group of players, it’s very hard to have bad D&D), but it isn’t quite where they want it to be. Often the plotline railroads the players – that is to say, there’s pretty much only one way for the players to go, and one way for them to solve problems. This isn’t ideal in a game that revolves around the decisions made by players, but it’s also extremely understandable – because allowing players complete freedom takes a lot of thinking on your feet, and that takes practice.

            That first game usually falls apart within the first few sessions, but the new DM doesn’t give up. They learned a lot in those games, few though they were. The next game they run is significantly better. They’ve learned to prepare for players doing crazy things, and so they adapt their new game for that. This game goes much better, but it still isn’t perfect. The rails are still there, and still noticeable, and the DM runs into two similar problems: the players don’t catch on to what they were certain was obvious, so they need to improvise huge hints; and the players respond to things in ways previously unanticipated. Once again, the game usually falls apart at this point – but the DM has learned even more.

            Now comes the time for over-preparedness. The new DM has realized that players are wild and uncontrollable, and so the solution is to have a plan for everything. A massive world begins getting built, populated with interesting people and things. Histories and mythologies are created, as well as multiple dungeons and ways to attract the players to them. It becomes overwhelming, and at some point the DM realizes that if they keep this up, they’ll never get to play again – and so they take a leap of faith and start the game with what they’ve prepared.

            This time, the game goes very differently. Instead of the players going in crazy directions and forcing the DM to improvise, they seem to stick to the plot and avoid 90% of the content the DM has painstakingly created. This isn’t out of malice – this is simply because the DM has improved enough that the players feel that they are on the most natural course. The game lasts longer, and now the DM learns and perfects the rest of their skills. Their world is more in-depth, so they find improvising easier when it’s necessary. They get more of a feel for how to run and balance the game. They learn how to anticipate what their players are going to do, and to plan accordingly – but also how to have backup plans for when the players surprise them.

            Finally, DMing begins to come naturally, and less preparation is needed for each game. A lot of work still goes into running the game, but it becomes easier and more natural – as does coming up with things on the fly when the player throws a curveball at them.

            This isn’t a precise formula, as different people improve at different speeds. Some people manage to hold together that first game, improving as they go, while others have a few more false starts. However, by and large, this is the basic pattern of learning and growth I’ve observed in multiple new Dungeon Masters, and I find it to be fascinating – because running Dungeons & Dragons isn’t a skill you can learn everything about by being taught, or reading a book. It’s a form of art that you can only learn by doing.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Balanced Learning

            As I’ve been progressing through learning to code, I’ve been working my way through a lot of tutorials. The trouble with tutorials is that, while they’re great for showing you how to do certain things, a lot of your time is spent following along and just copying the work you’re already being shown. Yes, you’re usually being told why you’re doing each of the steps, but when your goal is learning, how do you know if you’re actually retaining that information?

            It’s a challenging prospect, especially if you pick things up fairly quickly, to figure out if you’re actually learning. Being self-taught, there (usually) aren’t any tests to take, so I have to find a way to measure my own success. So, the first method I came up with for proving to myself I was actually learning was to skip ahead of the tutorial. I’d pause in the middle of an instruction to finish writing the code the way I though it should be – it was very rewarding when I got it right, and when it was wrong I felt I’d learned more – because I now had a comparison of two different ways of approaching a problem, and that gave me more information than simply being told how to do it right.

            More recently, I moved on to playing with designing some of my own projects. This is very challenging because, unlike tutorials, there’s nothing there to teach the right way to do things, and unlike with proper tests, there’s no way of knowing if you even have the skills to accomplish what you want. I knew this going in, but I found one additional unexpected challenge – my own desire to learn.

            The important thing to know about programming is that there is a lot of code that has already been written – either built into the language, or that other people have written for their own projects. Just about anything you want to do, someone has either done, or has done something similar enough that you can make minor changes to their code to make it work.

            But, I want to learn and prove to myself that I can figure out how to solve the problems on my own. Yet, there’s no reason I should re-invent the wheel, especially when it’s already built into the language, just so I can say I did it. On the other hand, it’s an excellent exercise for testing my capabilities.

            In the end, it comes down to finding a balance between using what’s available and writing my own functionalities. The important part, after all, is getting the code effectively and efficiently written – and it’s just as important to learn how to look up code for things I don’t know how to do as it is to learn how to do it myself.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Roondar Nackle

            Meet Roondar Nackle. He is a forest gnome with some magical talent who enjoys nothing more than watching corpses decay. It may seem like an odd hobby, but for someone who may live up to five hundred years, taking a year or so to observe the process of a body turning to dirt seems totally reasonable.

            It’s probably a good thing that he’s more interested in the dead than the living, because the living tend to have no idea how to deal with him. It would be better if he was morbid and morose, because his constant enthusiasm and excitement when talking about corpses is rather unsettling. He tends to get a lot of vacant and confused looks, though those that know him well have discovered that the best way to avoid his decomposition lectures is to point him in the direction of a dead animal they saw recently.

            Roondar is a character I made for playing in a D&D campaign that, sadly, didn’t last that long. However, I’ve recently joined another game that is allowing me to play him again – my hope is that this time, I’ll be able to explore him to his full potential. However, this isn’t really a blog about D&D; this is about that picture up there.

            About a year and a half ago, I decided to start working on several tasks every day to improve skills that I wanted to develop. One of said skills was drawing. I used to thoroughly enjoy drawing as a child, but at some point I felt my skills had reached a plateau and – that plateau not being particularly high, I stopped. However, I never stopped wishing I could draw – so, at last I decided that what I lacked in talent, I would try to make up for with practice and skill.

            I wasn’t certain I would get anywhere with it, but I knew I’d never find out if I didn’t try. So, I started working on drawing exercises. Every single day, I spent some time drawing, constantly moving on to the next task and training my hand to actually draw what I wanted it to. I very rarely attempted anything outside of the various drawing tutorials or exercises I found.

            When I resurrected Roondar for a new D&D campaign, I decided it was time to attempt an original piece – no model, no tutorial, just something straight from my imagination to paper. It took some work, and I still had to reference some of my earlier exercises for proportions and such, but I at last completed something that I was happy enough with that I was willing to share – and I was delighted to see that my efforts had finally paid off.

            Roondar here is the result of a year and a half of drawing daily – only spending between 10 and 45 minutes on each of those days. Looking at how little time that is in the grand scheme of things, I’m quite happy with how far my drawing skills have come. Soon I’ll have to stop claiming that I can’t draw.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Interpreting Reflections

            Art holds a mirror up to the world. It takes what the artist sees in the world, changes around a bit, then shows the artist’s interpretation of the world to those who view, read, hear, and even taste or smell it. Sometimes it’s merely a reflection for the sake of entertainment, and other times it has deeper meanings – bordering on educational. It’s one of the great things about art, as combining entertainment with education is the most effective way to teach – and, being open to interpretation, art allows people to come to their own conclusions. Yet, sometimes I wonder if we artists reflect too much.

            When artists set out to create deep, meaningful interpretations of the world that allow them to share their ideas and revelations with others, they take the elements of the world they want to showcase and make them very prominent in their work. The idea is often to say, “Hey, look at this! Does it remind you of anything?” and then proceed to show the observer why it is good, bad, or sometimes just to get them thinking about it. It is a marvelous form of education, but sometimes we have to stop to consider... What exactly are we teaching?

            Back in highschool, an English class assignment was to examine the lyrics of a song and interpret the meaning of it. One of my classmates chose a song that I was amazed the teacher even allowed to have the lyrics shown for his presentation. However, as he went through the song, he was representing it as a satire – a commentary on a particular type of lifestyle rather than, as it appeared to me, bragging and lauding said lifestyle. Until then, it never would have occurred to me that the song was satirical – and that’s where we hit a major flaw.

            What happens when something is intended to be satire, and people interpret it as real? What happens when commentary is interpreted as praise? What happens when metaphor is taken to be literal? What happens when an artist is just making art and people are convinced it’s full of deep meanings?

            What ends up being learned isn’t always what was intended – and learning wasn’t even necessarily intended in the first place. However, learning is what humans do constantly – we take in our surroundings and interpret and learn from them. We don’t even know we’re doing it half the time. We just keep absorbing and absorbing....

            So, when an artist presents to us the world as it is, highlighting the flaws, some people will see what the artist is saying and learn from it – maybe even help the world to change and grow. Others may see it and simply disagree, while others will miss the point entirely. Often what will happen is that people will see it as just a straight up statement of “This is how it is!” which they will take to mean it’s normal, which is the most dangerous view of all.

            By showing the world as it is, artists can inadvertently reinforce the very flaws they seek to highlight. The art reflects the world, and the world – upon seeing its reflection – says, “This is how it should be,” or perhaps, “This is how it is, and there’s nothing to be done about it.” Then the art is no longer teaching us about the flaws in the world; it is teaching us to make all the same mistakes of the past.

            It makes me wonder what the difference would be if there was a dramatic shift in art – from reflecting the world as it is, to reflecting the world as it could be. What changes might be wrought in our society if, rather than displaying and normalising how everything is, art showed us how the world could be? I suppose it’s possible that it could do nothing. On the other hand, it might make all the difference in the world.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Learn to Code

            Today I want to tell you about a wonderful resource I came across for learning how to program: code.org . As those of you who are regulars around here know, I’ve been teaching myself to code for a little over a year now – and it’s been going well, with the one hiccup that I eventually run out of material on the website I’m learning from, and have to find another.

            Then a hashtag caught my attention on Twitter that was something about an hour of code. I did some research, and discovered that it was part of a movement for encouraging students to learn programming. I was enthralled, so I looked into it some more and found my way to this website that offered tons of lessons on coding – all for free. And so, my education continued.

            As technology becomes more and more prominent in the world, it’s becoming more important for people to understand how it works. Sure, it does what we want it to (at least, most of the time), but how does the technology actually accomplish this? Even a rudimentary understanding of coding is helpful in understanding what’s going on behind the screen, making it easier to deal with those infuriating times when the technology just won’t work properly.

            So, why not pop by code.org and learn a little about programming? Not only is it extremely good knowledge to have, but it’s fun, too! And it isn’t nearly as hard as you think. Really! Anyone can code.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

2017

            Egadz, is it that time again already? The years certainly seem to be getting faster as they rush past. And what an eventful year it’s been.

            The year started off with rats, then went on to form new friendships, have lots of Dungeons & Dragons (including a 12 hour marathon for Cystic Fibrosis), and drew to an exciting close as I started a YouTube channel.

            Alongside all of that, I started a project – well, more of a system of goals, really – at the beginning of last year, and it has lasted all the way until now. While I haven’t mentioned it before, I’ve hinted at parts of it.

            Essentially, I noticed that the best way to get myself to do something is to do it every single day. It’s part challenge and part... well, part that once I get on a streak, I really don’t want to break it. For example, I have written every single day for coming up of seven years now. Imagine how horrible it would be if I missed a day and had to start over again!

            And now I’ve expanded that list. Since the beginning of last year, I have also read and exercised every day. On top of that, I’ve also worked every day on learning two new skills: drawing and coding – both with fair success. And I’ve been practicing piano as well, which more along the lines of continuing learning a skill I’d given up on several years ago (because I’d never worked hard enough at it. To be fair, this one I didn’t do every day, but only because a piano wasn’t available on my vacation).

            To keep track of all of this, I’ve made a spreadsheet with Google Sheets with little boxes that I check off every day when I complete a task. I even have a colour-code for “rating” how well I felt I performed on that task for the day. Pretty neat, I think, and overall a huge success! So, as a New Year’s gift to all those out there seeking to set goals for 2018, I’m giving you this idea, that you might do with it as you see fit.

            With that, I wish you all a Happy New Year! May this one be better than the last.

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Failure to Win

            We live in a very competitive world. Or, rather, the world is competitive because we’re brought up to be competitive. Win! we’re told. Get out there, do your best, become your best, and win!

            It’s a mentality we either pick up through osmosis, or is outright given to us. When we play a game, our goal is to win. When we play a sport, our goal is to win. When we go to war, our goal is to win.

            Yes, you may say, winning is good. Winning is how you get ahead in life, how you show you’re the best. However, says I, when the focus is on winning, the more valuable part of any conflict is lost.

            Have you ever been playing a game or sport and found yourself despairing because you had no chance to win? Have you ever given up on a puzzle or a problem because it was so frustrating, and you just couldn’t figure it out? Have you ever found yourself in the middle of an argument where you’ve realized you’re wrong, but you keep arguing your point because you have to win?

            Have you ever paused to consider why it is we challenge ourselves to puzzles, why we compete in games?

            ....

            Back when I started highschool, before I fell in with the group of friends I came to spend all my time with, I spent my lunches playing chess. Not as part of the chess club, mind you – I actually stopped playing when that formed. No, I played chess with a specific friend that I met outside French class on my first day of school.

            Now, this friend, to the best of my knowledge, was a genuine genius. I was no match for him at all – he knew all kinds of famous chess plays and I can’t even begin to guess how many moves he planned ahead. I lost every single game. Yet, every lunch hour, there I was – playing a new game. And, slowly but surely, I got better at chess. Much better, because every time I lost, I learned something. Then, one day, I came thiiiiis close to winning...! And the bell rang for end of lunch. But we both agreed that I probably would have one this time, something that delighted us both. I had become quite the strategist.

            Years later, at my grandparents’ house, my brother and I were playing an old strategy game from my dad’s childhood. I quickly analyzed the game and, after a couple rounds, developed a strategy I believed to be unbeatable (I even figured out the one way to counter it, and how to prepare for and counter that counter). I defeated my brother in every round of the game, but at the end, he still wanted to play again. He kept trying different strategies, and I kept winning. Finally, I asked him why he kept wanting to play when he couldn’t beat me. I’ll never forget what he said:

            “You’ve learned only one way to win. I’ve learned twenty ways how not to win.”

            Even more years later, around the end of highschool, I got a strategy game called Khet – basically chess with lasers and mirrors. Once again, I soon came up with a strategy that was nearly unbeatable. I took challenger after challenger, and only rarely lost. But, when I did lose, I discovered that I enjoyed it! In fact, I enjoyed losing more than winning. And I couldn’t even allow myself to lose to get that enjoyment – because the fun came from trying my hardest and learning where I went wrong. The joy came from facing a challenge and growing from it.

            Now, my examples are all from strategy games, but the same applies across everything in life – from a Sudoku puzzle to searching for a job to running a business. Puzzles and games challenge us for the purpose of helping us grow, and we learn far more form losing than from winning. Life will always throw challenges at us, and when we fail we have the opportunity to learn what we did wrong and fix it for the next time.

            Our competitive society puts the emphasis on winning, rather than overcoming the challenge. But have you ever played a game where you were guaranteed to win? Was it fun? The fun doesn’t come from winning, the fun comes from the challenge.

            As a society, we need to shift our focus away from winning. Yes, winning should still be the goal – what’s the point if you don’t try your best? – but the reward should be the challenge.

            Think of how great the world would be if everyone stopped caring about winning, and started caring about the process of overcoming the challenge.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Language and Code

            So, back in the fall I decided I wanted to learn programming. It wasn’t the first time I decided this – I’ve long had an interest in making my own video games and such – but this time I actually went ahead and did it.

            I started with a few free phone apps, but quickly came across a slight problem – most of the apps were teaching me a programming language without really explain how to code. It all seemed to assume I had a pre-existing knowledge of coding and programming terminology and, as such, I had to extrapolate a lot of information from context.

            When I came to the end of the free lessons in the best of these apps (it didn’t even tell me which programming language I was learning – I believe it was either Java or Javascript), I decided to look for something that taught a bit better. To refine my search, I decided to look for a specific language tutorial rather than casting my line out and seeing what I caught – my thought being that if I could find something that taught well enough, the terminology and skills could transfer to other programming languages.

            I decided to lean C programming, as my research revealed it to be one of the core programming languages. My search soon popped up with this site for C++, an upgraded form of C. Within the first few lessons, I knew I’d come to the right place. Rather than just telling me how to code, it goes into detail about how programming works, so I actually understand what I’m being taught to do. There’s even a review from a university professor saying this free online textbook is the best programming textbook he’s ever seen.

            So, now I’m buzzing along, learning to code and loving it – it comes naturally to me and feels like one of the things my brain was designed for. I’m not very advanced yet, mind you, but I’m getting there and making a list of programs to write once I have the skill.

            For now, though, I thought I’d share with you one of the things I find the most interesting about programming. It’s one of the things that inspired the thought process of, oh, three blog posts ago – how everything is broken into smaller pieces.

            You see, a programming language is just that – a language. It has certain words you use to combine together that tell the computer to do something. A line of code is like a sentence – only it ends with a semi-colon rather than a period. Code is broken into paragraphs called functions that look something like this:

Type of function and its name()

{

            Lines of code that give the computer its instructions;

            Just for appearances, we should have multiple lines;

            After all, a single sentence paragraph is boring;

            Also, there are usually more numbers;

}

            A program as made up of a bunch of functions (among other things) and they work together through logical progressions to make whatever the program is for happen. Just like how words, sentences and paragraphs fit together to tell a story.

            It makes so much sense, yet it never occurred to me that that was how it would work. When you think about it, the familiar structure makes it easier for programmers learn the new language. Plus, as with everything else in life, it means that if something is too big to accomplish, it can be done by breaking it down into smaller, more manageable, pieces.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

The Journey of the Outsider

            Something I’ve noticed is that a lot of stories – especially in fantasy – are about outsiders. The main characters tend to come from places where they’ve been cloistered off from the rest of the world, if not from an entirely different world all together.

            I’ve realized that at least part of the reason the reason these outsiders make such good main characters is because of how much it helps the author display the world. It limits the character’s knowledge and, as a result, allows the reader to learn about the world as the character does. That farmer living in a secluded village has a lot more to learn than a well educated scholar who is already immersed in the world.

            As readers, we are more forgiving to be told about a world if we’re learning along with the character. We don’t like the story being interrupted so we can be lectured about the world. If it’s the character who is learning, it’s then part of the story. We’re also more willing to accept mistakes the character may make out of ignorance, because we know everything that they know. It doesn’t matter if it’s common knowledge in the world – we didn’t learn it, so it is acceptable that the character also lacks this knowledge.

            Imagine how different the story would have been if Harry Potter had been raised within the wizarding world instead of with muggles. Or if Ron or any other wizard born character had the lead role. All the things that had our imaginations staring around in wonder and delight would have been every hay hum-drum to the main character. Instead of rubbernecking his way along Diagon Alley, pointing out all the wondrous shops, it would have been like a stroll in the shopping mall. We would have been lucky to have our attention drawn to the Nimbus 2000. All the magic would have been sapped out of the world because it was so normal to the character.

            Would Narnia had been so fantastic to someone who grew up there? Would a journey across Middle Earth have been so incredible if hobbits weren’t so reclusive?

            The reader is an adventurer, traipsing into an unknown world. Were we going there ourselves, we would want an experienced guide who knew the place. We aren’t, though. We are following along the experiences of our guide. If we want to experience the new world for ourselves, we need our guide to look upon it with the same wide-eyed wonder as we would.

            The journey of the outsider brings a new level of depth to a story. It’s no wonder we see so much of it.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Ageing Time

            Woah, is it August already? How did that happen? I could’ve sworn it was barely July. I guess it’s true when they say time goes faster the older you get. It seems a bit too fast for someone my age, though.

            It makes me think back to my days in school, when each day dragged on and on. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I disliked school, but I always found it tedious. I enjoyed learning, but the information I was taught was spread out over too much time. I always felt that everything covered over the course of a school year could’ve been taught to me in a month or two.

            Then, there’s all the time that was spent reviewing what was taught in previous years. True, it was necessary to a point, but I always felt I was being re-taught what I already knew when all I needed were a few key points.

            I look back at all those years now and think, what a waste. I know that I learned a lot of valuable things – my love of reading and writing was greatly nurtured by school – but, at the same time... I feel like I learned far too little for the time spent. Especially with how much longer the days felt.

            The absolute worst part, though, is the skill I became most proficient in. The skill of how to do nothing.

            Either because I finished my in-class work early or because my brain wasn’t feeling up to it at the time so I was leaving it for homework (this was quite common in the heat of summer, during the two allergy seasons that hit me or if I had a cold in the winter), there were times in school when there was simply nothing to do. Everyone was supposed to be working, so we weren’t allowed to talk (not that I was much of a talker). So, I learned the art of doing nothing.

            If my brain was feeling functional, I could spend the time thinking – the favourite pass-time of an introspective child. If not, well... it was simply a trick of looking like I was working while waiting for the class to end.

            I almost feel like this is something intentionally taught in school. The other side of looking at it is “how to pass the time when there is no work to do” which is, sadly, directly applicable to the workplace. It’s almost as if we are intentionally taught how to waste time.

            Then we get older and time goes faster. We’re proficient at wasting time, but there no longer seems to be time to waste. We base all our perceptions of time off how long those days in the school room were and we wonder how much we could get done if we had that much time and energy again.

            Whereas a day used to be a long time, soon it becomes short. Then a week becomes our definition of a short amount of time. Not long after that, months go flying by as if they were only one week long.

            Before long, a year is thought of as a short span of time.

            I watch all this time zipping past and wonder how fast time will pass for me in another decade. More than that, though, I look back to my years in school and wonder why I was forced to waste so much of my most valuable time.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Amazing Children

            Every now and then, usually while selling my wares at shows, I encounter children who amaze me with how smart and mature they are for their age. This weekend at ConBravo! I actually met two separate ones, each somewhere between the ages of seven and ten.

            The first came into my booth with one of her friends and they were admiring my various chainmaille products. The friend picked up a bracelet and exclaimed upon the price. This girl turned to her friend and admonished, “Don’t say that; they put a lot of hard work into what they make.” The friend then promptly assured me that she had only been expressing disappointment that she didn’t have enough money for the bracelet.

            This exchange astounded me, because I often get people (adults) who comment on how much various items cost – simply because they don’t understand the difference between something handmade and something mass produced in a factory. Yet, here was a child, obviously quite capable of making that distinction and aware enough to notice it.

            After this, it was incredible to have something similar happen a second time. Another girl, younger than the first, came to my booth, exclaiming on how beautiful everything was. The chainmaille shirt I had on display (it would be a full length dress on her) particularly caught her eye. She said it must have taken a lot of work and asked how much time it had taken and how many rings were in it. Then she started guessing at the price, saying “150, no, 200 dollars!” (obviously a large amount, especially to someone so young.) When I corrected her to $650, she, without hesitation, looked me in the eye and said, “It’s worth it.”

            To come across two children in the same show who are so aware of such things was something I thought impossible. It got me thinking, though, about how adults view children. We tend to assume that since they are smaller and younger than us, they still have a lot to learn. Following that thought, we often underestimate their knowledge and their ability to understand things.

            It makes me wonder how much our society holds children back from their potential. Not all of them, of course – everyone learns at different speeds – but it seems to me we group them into little boxes based on their ages and decide how much they are ready to know. It’s possible that, exposed to more information, they could learn far more. That’s what children are, after all – learning machines. The more information we give them, the more they absorb. Too often, I think, we decide they aren’t ready for things because they’re so young. Yet, there are eight-year-olds out there smarter and more mature than many people who have been deemed “adults”.

            I think it’s time to stop underestimating and talking down to children. If we allow them all the information they want and help them to learn at their own speed (rather than pushing them too hard in directions they aren’t interested or slowing them down because they “aren’t ready”), treating them as equals rather than inferiors, imagine what they could grow up to be.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

World Building is Fun

            I think one of the most important traits in an author is a love of knowledge. Why? Because we have to know the oddest things so we can make our books realistic. Some of the most obscure things come up.

            Recently I’ve been doing a lot of world building, getting a very detailed portion of my world developed for a series I’m planning. My research taught me all kinds of things, like you can raise 100 pigs on the same amount of land you need for one cow (free grazing – about 5 acres, in case you’re curious), that dinosaurs only lived about 30 years, and that there are vast stretches of underground, water-filled caves that are the only sources of fresh water in some parts of the world.

            I saw a quote once (and can’t find who said it) that an author must be an expert on everything. When Terry Pratchett wrote The Amazing Morris and his Educated Rodents, he said that by the time he was done, he knew more about rats than anyone would ever want to know.

You might wonder why what seem like minor details matter so much, especially in fiction. Couldn’t we just make it up? Well, yes, we could. But then, along comes an expert in horses to tell us that horses treated the way they are in the book would die from being ridden too hard. This is a bad thing on two fronts – first, it conveys inaccurate information to people and it’s amazing how easily people believe what they read. The second is that it ruins the realism of the book for anyone with that knowledge of horses – which is terrible. Fiction is meant for people to enjoy, after all.

            So, an important part of the writing process becomes research into the oddest things. I can only imagine how often mystery writers worry what people would think if they could see all their Google searches related to how to kill people. It takes less than a pound of pressure to cut skin.

            With all the bitty details needed, enjoying learning becomes mandatory. Otherwise, writing becomes tedious work – and, really, why bother writing if you don’t enjoy it? I’m lucky in that I’ve always loved learning. On the flip side, my research skills are lacking, so it takes me a while to find what I’m looking for, but I tend to pick up a few extra tidbits along the way. I gain lots of new information, then add it to my arsenal for developing believable worlds, stories and characters.

            World building is fun!

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

So You Want to be a Writer?

            There are two tips that you will come across repeatedly while doing research on writing, usually in conjunction with each other: read a lot and write a lot. More than anything, these are the two things that will shape all writers.

            The later is self-explanatory. “Write a lot” walks hand in hand with “practice makes perfect”. No one in the world can just sit down and write a perfect book the first time. Like any art, it takes time to learn not only skills, but how to tap into your innate talents and develop your unique voice.

            I, myself, am amazed at the drastic improvement I see in my own writing. Each time I complete a book, I find it hard to believe I wrote the previous one. A more tangible example is the best-selling author Terry Pratchett. All you have to do is read The Colour of Magic and compare it to any of his later titles. It’s hard to believe they were written by the same person.

            As for reading a lot, it seems to be obvious, yet at the same time it can often feel counter-productive. During the creative process, our brains naturally regurgitate what they've absorbed and it sometimes feels like we’re accidentally imitating someone else’s work. It does happen to a certain extent; I remember reading Christopher Paolini’s Eragon for the first time and being able to pick out some of his favourite authors (I looked it up later to be sure I was right). However, imitation is the first step in learning. When learning to speak, we imitate sounds before we understand the meanings of words. When learning to write, we learn the letters prior to understanding how they’re used.

            The benefits of reading when you’re a writer are endless. It’s important to know what else is out there, plus it’s a great source of inspiration. More than that, though, it is how writers learn and improve. As you begin reading books as author, you learn to look at them a new way. You take a step back from simply enjoying yourself and analyse deeper. If you find yourself drawn into a book, you ask yourself, why? What has this author done to affect me so? You look more closely at the characters to see how they’re made to seem realistic, at the plot to see how it progresses and twists, at the words to increase your vocabulary, and at the style to see what you like and dislike.

            Much of the time, the learning is on a subconscious level. Other times, you find yourself searching for the secret that makes a good book so good.

            I've recently started reading Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series and I came across something I've never seen before (or, at least, never noticed). A lot of authors build tension by keeping secrets from the reader. What’s that lurking in the shadows? Where is the villain? Who is the villain? Jordan did the opposite: he gave, what I felt, was too much information. It wasn't quite enough to tell exactly who the traitorous allies of the protagonists were, but it was enough to make me reasonably certain – while still leaving just enough doubt. It wasn't until characters were trustingly being led into what I was sure was a trap that I realized what he’d done. He’d given me enough information to guess the truth, but held back enough that I had to read on to be certain.

            And so, my repertoire of writing tricks grow, and I become a better author through reading. For those others out there aspiring to be writers, I shall reiterate the advice you will hear over and over again. Read lots. Write lots. You’ll amaze yourself at how much you improve.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Teaching D&D

            I always enjoy watching people learning to play Dungeons & Dragons for the first time – which is what I was doing tonight. A friend of mine works in a store that is going to start running the official Wizards of the Coast gaming sessions and tonight, in preparation, he was running a game for new players. He asked me (as an experienced player) to come along to help advise the new players.

            The important thing to know about D&D is that it’s a storytelling game, specifically designed to give the players as much freedom as possible. As such, it can be a little complicated to learn – but the hardest thing to learn, I feel, is that you’re allowed to think outside the box and bend the rules to suite your needs.

            The best story I have to describe this involves a game I was playing that was run by the same friend. I had encountered a door that, to get through it, my character had to will himself through – becoming part of the door before passing through. So, I asked that, if my character could will himself to become part of the door, couldn't he also will the door to be part of him? After looking shocked for a moment, my friend agreed. My character absorbed the door and walked around, able to manifest a door at will.

            That’s the sort of game D&D is – anything goes and, in a society built around such solid rules, that’s a hard thing to learn. This group of players did a splendid job, however. At first, they stuck to the mechanics of the game, but while they were in a room with what sounded like an army coming after them, they became more and more creative in finding ways to secure the area. They started with trying to wedge a knife under the door to keep it shut and eventually tried using an ice spell to freeze the doors together.

            The best part is I hardly had to suggest anything. All the players picked up the game quickly and flowed right into it. A lot of credit needs to be given to me friend running the game – he taught the basics and prepared brilliantly for working with new players (if I ever teach a new group again, I’ll take a leaf out of his book). The end result was everyone had fun and there are now a bunch of new people hooked on D&D.

            I bet we could get a lot more outside-the-box thinkers in the world if more people played D&D. Maybe we should teach it in schools. Ah, if only I were the ruler of the world...

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Communication

            I had a thought today. Well, okay, so I have thoughts every day, but this one stood out as one I’d like to share.

            Whenever we are communicating with others, we are functioning under the false assumption that they can understand us. The reason I say it is false is because all words have slightly different meanings to each person.

            For example, the word “yell”, defined as “to say something very loudly especially because you’re angry, surprised, or are trying to get someone’s attention”, inherently has multiple meaning. Yet, to each individual person the word has a different connotation. To some people, a yell is inherently negative, while to others it’s entirely neutral. Some people even use it to describe speaking angrily, even without the volume mentioned in the definition.

            The reason for this is really quite simple: it all depends on the context the word was used in when the person learned it, as well as the exact definition they assigned to the word for themselves. You see, no matter how hard we try, we can’t accurately teach what a word means, because we teach the word using other words. The result is that even someone learning words directly from a dictionary assigns their own understanding of the word to their own definition of the word.

            In the end, we can’t actually accurately communicate with each other. We can get a decent idea of what someone means when they say, “I'm happy”, “This sandwich tastes good”, or “Are people actually able to communicate?” but we can’t know exactly what they mean if we don’t know their personal definition for all the words they used.

            It’s often a minute difference in definition, but because of this, I've heard people having arguments where they were both saying exactly the same thing, only in different ways. Other times, people get upset because their definition of a word has a negative connotation while the speaker’s has a positive one.

            We can only ever do the best with what we have – obviously there’s no way to sync everyone’s definitions. It’s an important thing to keep in mind when communicating, though. Do your words mean the same to you as they do to your listener/reader?

            Did you understand any of that?

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Workshopping with Homeschoolers

            Last Monday I had a delightful experience. My wife and I taught a chainmaille workshop for a homeschooling group.

            When I was first asked to run this workshop, I asked the mother who’d suggested the idea to have the kids look through my website to pick projects they’d like to learn. The reply I got was that they wanted to learn the techniques and be allowed to make what they wanted after that.

            This, in itself, was a bit of a challenge, since it’s hard to plan for such an unstructured lesson – particularly for materials. However, I also understood the benefit of allowing the children free reign with what they created.

            So I went and I taught a group of eight (including one of the mothers and the curator of the museum we were at) the basics, then stuck around to teach more to those who wanted to learn more patterns and help the others with what they were making on their own. It was a wonderful time – it felt like I was there having fun with a group of friends. It was also great to teach people so eager to learn.

            What impressed me most, however, was the only member of the group who didn't really take to the craft. He struggled with the pattern, but still gave it a good try. Instead of throwing a fit, like many kids his age would (and I could see the emotions that would accompany that written on his face), he tried his best and gave up when it became too frustrating.

            In response to this, where many mothers would scold him and tell him to keep trying, his mother thanked him for giving it a try and doing his best and gave no objection to him returning to playing with Lego (what they’d been doing before the workshop).

            I think this demonstrates one of the major advantages to homeschooling – there is a much greater level of respect and understanding between the parents and their children, since they spend so much more time together. Children are also encouraged to learn and ask questions, but not forced to learn if they don’t want to, which makes them more willing to learn. They even enjoy it! Whereas children in the school system usually rebel and take a great dislike for learning.

            I wonder if there is something our educational system can learn from this. Perhaps there’s away to teach children in large groups while respecting who they are instead of trying to change them to fit the system. It might even make a friendlier society at large.

            Oh, did I mention how polite homeschooled children are? At the end of the workshop, that same boy who had trouble learning made a point of coming up to me and thanking me for coming to teach. I'm looking forward to my next workshop with the group very much.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.