Goal Post: Now To Start My Real Summer Break

Posted on August 17, 2024 by Charles Yallowitz

I made it to summer break, which is bizarre considering it’s mid-August.  Guess that week between the end of the school year and start of the summer session would count, but it didn’t feel like it.  Now, I have 1.5 weeks before I’m back at work . . . I know beggars shouldn’t be choosers, but that still hurts.

The last week of summer session was filled with activity, but nothing was really worth posting about.  All of the kids had fun.  The adults had some fun and I think our sanity survived intact.  Final field trip was to the big mall nearby, which was the smoothest trip all summer.  Even I got to buy a few things, which was great since I learned I had about $50 credit to use at the Lego Store.  Got the two newest botanical sets to continue making my room pretty without needing to water plants.  The week ended with a pizza party picnic that included bubbles (bubble tornados to be specific), attempts at kite flying, and a lemon lime cream cheese pound cake.  Tasted really good.  Anyway, that brought about the end of the work period of the summer and my son finished camp.

For the next week, I’ll have my son and that means a lot of . . . appointments.  He has a bunch of things that have to get done and they can’t be done during the time he’s with his mother.  Just bad timing, so he has 4 appointments.  Monday is fairly shot along with Tuesday and Thursday afternoon.  So, we’re going to try to make the most of what we get, including getting haircuts.  We both need those.

The outings are mostly going to be for Pokemon Go since there are a few single period events and the one going on for the next few days.  Those are easy to factor in since I play now too.  Today is our traditional summer trip to the big zoo, but we’re meeting up with my sister, BIL, and niece this time.  My car was fixed just in time for that, but no real story there since it was maintenance.  Wednesday is a trip with my parents to the New York aquarium for the morning.  Beyond all of that, we might get ‘LOTR: Two Towers’ in using the two butchered afternoons.  My son wants to work on art, so he’ll do that while I work on a writing project.

Speaking of writing, I managed to get all of the hand edits typed into Darwin & the Avenging Elf.  That means I can dive into Darwin & the Demon Game once I get back from Oswego.  I still plan on only doing notebook work.  I’m also borrowing my son’s Chromebook for anime watching when I need a break.  So, I won’t be doing any typing or setting up blogs.  Everything through October is done, but I don’t think I’m going to dive into my November topic list until after the break.  At most, I’ll set up the poetry and teasers posts.  For the most part, I want to get my mind turning towards ‘Phi Beta Files’ and anything that comes after that.

The only other event that happened this week was a negative.  Last weekend, I was out in the heat doing Pokemon Go a bunch.  I hydrated and got indoors before I got too overheated, but it was enough.  So, I started the week fairly tired and it became a long drag to get to Friday.  Other events triggered my anxiety, so I didn’t get to start any of the packing.  Made a list for it and instructions on how to design my son’s Halloween costume, which I might start this week.  Probably should do that since I need his body to get proper measurements.  Kid is turning me more and more into an amateur (and terrible) seamstress.  The worst part about sewing for me is getting the string through the eye hole and those dang helper things never actually help.  At least I know where to get a lot of the parts.

Nothing else to mention about the future since it’s all appointments, outings, some form of art, and packing.  I’m going to have less ‘me’ time in Oswego than I planned, but I don’t mind seeing old friends.  One goal I have is getting up there before this exotic candy shop closes at 9 PM.  It won’t open again until Tuesday and I’ll be on the road by then.  It has flavors of KitKats and Lays chips that are normally only found in China and Japan.  Want to buy a few to snack on that Monday when I’m doing most of my writing.  I’d bring some back for my son, but the ingredients are supposedly in Japanese or Chinese, so I won’t know if he’s allergic to them.

Well, let’s look at the goal list:

  1. Have fun at zoo.
  2. Have fun at aquarium.
  3. Have fun at Beldum Community Day.
  4. Have fun getting haircuts.
  5. Have fun trying to watch ‘LOTR: Two Towers’.
  6. Have fun sewing or tinkering with story ideas.
  7. Get sleep.
  8. Have fun playing Pokemon Go.
  9. Hydrate.
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The Fantasy Orc Stereotypes

Posted on August 16, 2024 by Charles Yallowitz

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Well, we did elves and dwarves.  Always felt orcs were the third fantasy species that showed up all the time.  Sometimes they are simply goblins, but they usually have the same themes.  Definitely big stereotypes with these guys too.  So, what are they?

  1. They are ugly.
  2. They are savage and vicious.
  3. They hate everyone and everything.
  4. They are evil.
  5. They only eat meat.
  6. They are bandits who are out to rape and pillage.
  7. They are stupid.
  8. They smell bad.
  9. They live in harsh landscapes, but leave to attack others.
  10. They are cruel.
  11. They are monsters.
  12. They obey more evil beings.
  13. They have no interest in art or civilization.
  14. They are always dirty.

You get the point.  This is why I changed the orcs in Legends of Windemere to be more than monsters.  I felt like they were always what you see above even if they were thrown into a non-fantsy setting.  I still made the males kind of ugly, but the females are gorgeous with the same strength and prowess as their counterparts.  The idea was a ‘beauty and the beast’ species where looks don’t mean anything to them.  Still had to skew it towards human asthetics to get the point across.  A few stories have come out with orcs as more than violent threats to the prettier species.  Maybe things are changing.

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Trouble Naming your Character, Town, or Tavern? Try a Name Generator.

Posted on August 16, 2024 by Charles Yallowitz

Greetings Storytellers, Diana with you today with a quick post about names. Now and then, I get stuck for a name. I need a ship name (The Devil’s …

Trouble Naming your Character, Town, or Tavern? Try a Name Generator.
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Poetry Day: Look At Us

Posted on August 15, 2024 by Charles Yallowitz

Lego Robin (Also Lego Batman)

(The desire for attention is stronger today than when I wrote this poem.  Sad thing is that it seems to be more financially sound to do this.)

Stupid stunts and sickness
Done in the camera’s eye
And posted without fears
All for a stranger’s cheers
With dignity tossed aside
Clutching to your ignorance

These will come back to roost
At a time you have matured
Forgetting this act is there
Before the world it’s bared
Its return is reassured
Then it will be your noose

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The Fantasy Dwarf Stereotypes

Posted on August 14, 2024 by Charles Yallowitz

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Can’t talk about elves without touching on dwarves.  Let’s just dive into the first one:

  1. Dwarves hates elves and the feeling is mutual.  Right from Tolkien, but misses the fact that Legolas and Gimli became friends.  Many authors just have them hate each other for no reason.  Others create an old feud over land, magic, or an object.  At the very least, you have some mild animosity.  I tried this in my books and it didn’t feel natural at all.  I mean, why would these two species hate each other simply for existing?
  2. They live in the mountains, underground, or caves.  Maybe this comes from Snow White having dwarves who are miners, but they tend to be born from the earth.  This gives them great darkvision and a sense of all things mineral, but it really boxes them into a single biome.  Just like the elves have their forests, dwarves have their mountains.
  3. Beards!  I’m guilty of this too and I really should consider having a few show up without bushy facial hair.  Dwarves have ornaments, braids, and even patterns with their beards.  Even their women have beards at times, which is actually pretty cool since female dwarves don’t get shown a lot.  Also, beards tend to be seen as a source of pride.
  4. Dwarves are short, stocky, and muscular with the strength, stamina, and durablity to match their appearance.  One could say they are the visual opposite of elves, which could add to their feuding.  Authors don’t typically depict dwarves as being agile and fast, but they can go trudging along for hours or even days to make up for their slower speed.  This also gives them a more physical method of combat where they get in your face with brute force.
  5. Platemail and winged helmets, which is why they end up looking like stereotypical Vikings.  Yes, I know Vikings didn’t have the helmets.  Yet, the connection tends to be made, which flows into the next twofer stereotype.
  6. AXES AND ALE!  Dwarves tend to have axes as their weapons and a love of ale.  This seems to be a Viking stereotype too.  It adds to their endurance as well because it shows them rarely getting drunk.  This can lead to them being resistant to poisons or at least making money off drinking games.  Still, authors can take it too far by never giving a dwarf a different weapon or having them drink anything other than ale.  Some will even scoff at the very idea of imbibing another liquid.
  7. Coming straight from Tolkien, we have love of gold and jewels.  Thankfully, this one is becoming less common.  Actually, I think dwarves in old mythology were greedy with wealth too, so sorry to Tolkien.  Even the heroic dwarves will go too far in their pursuit of coins.  This makes them unreliable allies and almost hazardous when the group has more lofty goals.  It means a dwarf will risk their friends and future just to get a couple jewels, which doesn’t paint them in a good light.
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Tertiary Sources: Not Just Tangential Anymore

Posted on August 14, 2024 by Charles Yallowitz

Hello, Story Empire Readers! It’s Liz Gauffreau with you today. Let me start by saying that this is not the post I intended to write. I was going to …

Tertiary Sources: Not Just Tangential Anymore
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Questions 3 and Looking Back at War of Nytefall: Anarchy

Posted on August 13, 2024 by Charles Yallowitz

Cover Art by Alison Hunt

Here we have the penultimate volume of War of Nytefall.  You can tell from the title that things are going to go wrong.  The overall story ending up becoming more complicated than I originally planned too.  Lost took a more central role too because of one of the new characters.  Maybe Anarchy is a good word for this since it was chaos in my mind while juggling everything.

With Xavier and Clyde becoming more active against each other, the vampire civil war is actually moving along.  At the same time, someone is going around killing priests of different temples, which is why a paladin army is being formed.  Clyde is off to solve another mystery and stop the murderers before the Dawn Fangs are exposed before mortal-kind is ready.  Two new recruits don’t make his job any easier since one is a fangirl of his and the other is her boyfriend.  A tale of mystery, intricate plots, boastful paladins, jealousy, and vampires.

Seriously though, Anarchy was going to be a story about youthful energy and impetuousness causing disaster.  That didn’t work very well because it resulted in a bunch of characters coming off as stupid.  So, I had to create a more sinister and intentional underbelly.  This is one of the reasons Lost took a bigger role since I noticed she would be the only one to sense a problem.  Her getting drawn into a rivalry with Luna the Clyde fangirl was a bonus, which helped both characters stand out.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t do the same for Joran (Luna’s boyfriend) who was just too sulky and easily annoyed to get him to be friendly.  So, he kept the youthful arrogance even when he was being taught lessons by his elders.

I can’t really explain a lot about Anarchy without revealing most of the twists.  So, I want to talk about the paladin leader who was going to be a nameless warrior.  I was only going to have him show up a few times to scare off the vampires until he finally faces Clyde and is killed.  There was no personality to him until I reached his first scene and needed to do something.  A friend at work had been asking me to put him in a book, so I came up with Sir Adam of Crego.  It was going to be a purely comical character.  In fact, I wrote a location wrong when he was talking and kept it to give him a habit of saying places incorrectly.  Of course, I couldn’t be mean to the guy, so he did turn out to be a physical threat and a cunning warrior.  I was happy with how he came out since he was another last minute addition like Eighty and Kira Grasdon.

Would I change anything?  As I said, I really wish I could have done more with Joran since I needed him for the plot to work.  He simply couldn’t establish a decent personality.  Part of it could have been that he was supposed to be mild compared to Luna’s energy and excitement.  Having Lost around him didn’t help since that’s another character who claims attention in every scene.  Yet, he couldn’t even overshadow Titus for a moment when they shared a scene.  Guess there are always some characters who get put in these situations since such people exist in real life.  At least I gave Joran a few good fight scenes, which I guess was his main purpose.

Question time!

  1. Is it natural for leaders to have doubts?
  2. Do you think immortals should stay hidden or reveal themselves to the world?
  3. What do you look for in a penultimate volume of a series?
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The Fantasy Elf Stereotypes

Posted on August 12, 2024 by Charles Yallowitz

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I was thinking about fantasy stereotypes a while back.  Naturally, my mind went to elves and how they are typically depicted the same way in fantasy.  The above meme notes a lot of what people think, which primarily comes from Tolkien.  He set the standard that we use, so most authors don’t want to stray from it.  I’m not going to talk about reinventing elves though.  Easy to do if you try and many have done it successfully.  So, what are the stereotypes?

  1. Elves are always depicted as beautiful and elegant.  Their hair used to be only blonde, but that was expanded while retaining the beauty.  They are typically seen as the most beautiful of the species.  This is combined with a natural refinement and grace, which makes them nobility even if they aren’t actually nobles.
  2. They always live in forests and in tune with nature.  I think this stems from the elves before Tolkien being more like a type of fairy.  Coming from Britain, they probably went with the most common biome.  That would be forests, which is where elves tend to be dropped even today.  It leads to them having amazing cities in the trees with barriers that prevent outsiders.
  3. Masters of magic as the meme says.  It isn’t like humans who study hard and get a few spells when young.  Elves tend to come in with more power because they are able to spend centuries studying.  Some worlds even have it that the elves were the ones who first had magic and taught it to humans.  It makes them closer to the source, which is why they are considered magical creatures more often than other fantasy species.
  4. Elves are masters at archery . . . It’s all because of Legolas.  Some might be good with swords, but you’ll find your non-protagonist elves tend to be archers.  This is connected to the habit of giving them enhanced senses and reflexes.  The forest homeland explains why they are so good at making bows and arrows too.
  5. Elves are agile and sometimes even superhumanly strong.  Stemming from their reputation as being superior, they tend to be given better physical abilities than humans.  This doesn’t make them muscular and bulky though, which is why authors are more likely to skip the enhanced strength.  They will still be the fastest and most agile member of a party if one goes by the traditions.  Sometimes, they even break the laws of physics . . . Friggin’ Legolas.
  6. They have a major sense of superority to other races, which can border on racism for some groups.  Yet, the elves aren’t always noted as racist when they start badmouthing other species.  Many are shown to be kind and friendly, but the ‘we live alone because everyone else is terrible’ elf society is still written today.  I think the reason the racist thing isn’t called out as much is because authors tend to play it off as elves being better, so they aren’t lying.  Pretty messed up mentality if you ask me.
  7. Elves are immortal, but not unkillable.  They will always live for centuries, which adds to their sense of superiority.  It also makes them emotionally distance themselves from other species to avoid pain or because they see the others as insects.  An anime called ‘Frieren’ actually touches on the how the main character (elf) sees the death of her old comrades and how humans experience time.  Fairly unique since most fantasy glosses over this issue or uses it to make elves seem more amazing.
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The Origins of 21 Common Phrases

Posted on August 12, 2024 by Charles Yallowitz

I don’t know about you, but I love history. It inspires, humbles, and fascinates me. Part of that is learning the etymology of some common words and …

The Origins of 21 Common Phrases
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Alcatraz Opened Today in 1934

Posted on August 11, 2024 by Charles Yallowitz

Alcatraz

Decided to look at history of today and saw this at the top of the first page.  For those who don’t know, Alcatraz was an island maximum security prison used from 1934-1963.  It’s near San Francisco and surrounded by cold water with strong currents.  It was called ‘The Rock’ and considered inescapable.  Although, 3 prisoners used plaster heads in their cots and got out through holes in the wall, but nobody is sure if they made it or drowned in the water.  The fate of John Anglin, Clarence Anglin, and Frank Morris is considered an Alcatraz mystery.  Currently, the place is a museum.

So, who were some of the famous inmates?

  • Arthur R. Barker for conspiracy to kidnap.  He tried to escape and was shot by the guards.
  • Al Capone who had been continuing to run his empire from previous jails.
  • Alvin Karpis who was a ‘Public Enemy #1’ and in jail for 10 murders and 6 kidnappings.
  • Machine Gun Kelly for robberies and murders.
  • Harvey Bailey who was one of the biggest bank robbers of the 1920’s.
  • Robert Stroud a.k.a. the Birdman of Alcatraz who wrote ornithology books.

Those who weren’t killed by guards trying to escape, killed by other inmates, or died for other reasons would be sent to other institutions after some time.  This is because inmates were sent to Alcatraz if they were misbehaving and causing too much trouble for less structured prisons.  For example, Al Capone was given special treatment and still involved in criminal activity while in jail.  So, he was sent to Alcatraz where he couldn’t do that any more and was treated like every other prisoner.  This place seems to have been designed to get the inmates to adhere to a strict system and almost rehabilitate them.  Some to the point where they could leave jail.

Here are some odd facts:

  1. Alcatraz being a harsh, merciless place was a myth.  The strict schedule and segregation meant everyone got their own cell.  This reduced violence.
  2. Inmates could have hot showers.  Supposedly this also meant that their bodies would be more susceptible to the cold water if they tried to swim away.
  3. Good food was provided as three meals a day.  Similar to the showers, this may have been done under the theory that lazy, fat inmates won’t be able to escape.
  4. In the 1930’s, prisoners couldn’t talk to each other outside of meals and recreation periods.  Doing so resulted in whatever military punishment is and revoking of being able to speak.
  5. Softball was a popular sport for the inmates.
  6. Many inmates worked on the island for 5-12 cents an hour.
  7. Al Capone played banjo in the prison band?
  8. The saltwater from the ocean caused a lot of corrosion on the structures, which was expensive to repair.
  9. Due to the one man per cell, food, library, jobs, and showers, some inmates requested to be sent to Alcatraz.
  10. Even though Alcatraz had death row inmates, it did not hold executions.  Those inmates were sent to San Quentin State Penitentiary when it was time.
  11. Robert Stroud, Birdman of Alcatraz, was not allowed to keep birds in his cell.  He did that in Leavenworth before he was transferred.
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