When the paladin rolls low, the party members will play. This week’s blog covers the bad day of a paladin who just couldn’t see the antics of his party. One bad day of perception tuns into another as the party’s task remains incomplete. This week’s tale covers the first day. Stay tuned as next week will cover what happens next. Until then, I hope you enjoy this snipped from a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, and happy Friday the 13th!
I haven’t published yet, but you can be sure I’ve researched the process over and over again. This past weekend I went to a panel at the Indianapolis Comic Convention for more writing tips. Nothing new was said, but it did at least verify what I already knew.
For some of the best material on editing, I’d recommend going to your local library and checking out the latest copy of Writer’s Market. The book is great for self-publishing and traditional. It also has a fantastic section on trusted publishers and agents. There are several useful query letter templates and so on.
If a quick list is more of what you’re after, then this is the place! I’ve done most of these steps myself and intend to finish up with those I haven’t done. To be fair, I’ve also done a few extra rounds of editing not listed in the list below.
If you enjoyed the first round of Ninja Mayhem, then you may enjoy this round as well. If you’re not a fan of the D&D short stories, next week will be a mystery post that'll most likely involve a writing tip. Then again, it may be a short story.
If you’re new to the blog and have no clue what is going on, welcome! I write short stories and post them here on my blog. One of the genres of short stories happens to be tales from different Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. As a writer, I also post bits of advice or tales of woe from past experiences. When I’m feeling particularly rambunctious, I post short stories here that turn into single novels (Positivity Camp).
Newcomer or veteran, young or old, I hope you find something enjoyable with Caffeine is My Muse.
If you read last week’s blog, you may already know what topic I’m covering this week. If not, welcome! This week I’m covering a question I’ve received from a few different writers. In particular, I was asked if I was in a writing group. When I said I had created one after leaving one I felt was a bad fit, I was asked what it took to create one. Specifically, they wanted to know how to make a group that works well together and accomplishes the goals of a writing group.
Before I go too far, I’d like to point out that the writing group I had joined wasn’t a bad group. What they had worked for them, but it wasn’t right for me. That being said, the same may be true of the steps I took in making my own group. It may work for me, but it may not be exactly what you’re looking for. The five of us in my group meshed well together, but we’ve had our own fair share of people who have joined and left.
One last thing before I jump into the steps, I wanted to go over how my group works. First, we have the goal of writing and improving our writing. We meet one to two times a month face-to-face. There we discuss what we felt worked, didn’t work, or inspired us in another member’s writings. After that, we pick a time to meet again, I create a Facebook event on our Group Page, and then we set some goals for next time. When the meeting’s all done, we go our separate ways and during the two-week gap, we work on our goals. We also read what the other members post. This is done in Google Drive where we can share our work privately with shared files / folders. Having our work there also allows us to leave comments or questions as we go. This is particularly helpful in that it works with all our schedules.
Now here’s a breakdown of the steps so you can find what works for you!
This week's blog comes from a tale shared by @shortSorcerer on Twitter. This story takes place as Bert, a changeling sorcerer, has a late-night encounter with some irate firbolgs. If you're new to my blog, welcome! I often do short stories of random Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. Most of the time, the stories involve some misadventure, though I do occasionally share tales of grand success. If you're unfamiliar with Dungeons & Dragons, it's a table-top role-playing game that involves mythological creatures. With dice rolls determining a player success in a situation, you can imagine the sort of chaos that can occur as low roll means they don't do so well while a higher roll most likely means success. It's a lot of fun. If you have any tales you'd like me to write up and share, feel free to send me a message here on my blog or through my email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Next week I'll switch over to a writing question I received a while back: How do you form a good writing group? Until then, I hope you enjoy this awesome tale!
It’s been another week full of distractions and full of small victories. If you haven’t guessed it yet, this is an update post on where I’m at with crafting and writing. No worries though. I’ll skip past the distractions, as I’m sure they would likely bore you. Then again, someone might be excited by the tales involved in randomly shopping for D&D miniatures, photographing mattresses, or organizing two events, one for a local fair and the other for a trip to the Indiana Comic Convention. Either way, we’re skipping all of that and jumping right into what I’ve been up to this past week!
I’m losing my mind with editing Positivity Camp, so I’ve decided to start enjoying life again by keeping up on fun writing. It may not be often, it may not even be the adventures of heroes, but at least I’ll be writing again. I may even start working on doing more posts on the writing process or tips for writers. It’s been a while since I’ve done that, and I’ve had a few writers ask me questions.
Well, I’ve rambled on long enough! If you’re a Dungeon Master for D&D, I hope this doesn’t inspire you too much. If it does, may your players never know who gave you the inspiration.
The weekend is near, and I know I’m ecstatic about that! After a few crazy weeks of trying to edit and write, I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to put my blog writing on hold. In other words, Caffeine is My Muse will be going on a hiatus.
Then end is upon us. Well, what I meant to say is that the end to Positivity Camp is upon us. There’s still a lot I’d like to add and tweak with this story, so if you’ve enjoyed it thus far, be prepared for extras and more as I work on editing and publishing this story. Editing, I’ve learned, takes a long time for me – roughly two years. (I spend about 2-3 months editing, cutting, adding, and filling plot holes. From there, I usually find an editor to search for spelling and grammar mistakes, and then I do another round of edits.)
What I don’t know is how the cover is going to look. If you have an idea of what you’d like to see on the cover, feel free to share your idea in the comments!
I don’t know about the rest of you, but when it comes to saying goodbye to a story, it’s never easy for me. Just know that there is more to look forward to as I make this story more complete.
It’s been so long since I’ve written of mayhem in the different table top role-playing universes, and I must say, it’s good to be doing so again! If this is your first time visiting, welcome! I write many things and can be a bit random about it, but lately I’ve been taking the adventures of different Dungeons & Dragons players (or other similar campaigns) and writing them up. My blog Role-Playing Shenanigans explains it a bit more.
Other than that, I’ve also been writing a blog only short story called Positivity Camp. It’s a story about a camp that forbade negative words and punished campers who dared utter them. As you might imagine, it led to a revolt that ended…well, I shouldn’t ruin the ending, particularly when it’ll be coming out next week ;)
Now that Positivity Camp is coming to a close, you can expect me to be picking up where I left off on Ryac and The Dark Mage. This tale takes place in a book being read by a rather unpleasant child. What effect might the stolen book have on him? Well, you can find out in a few weeks as I take on its telling once more!
Positivity Camp is drawing to a close, and I can honestly say, I’m very glad to see it ending. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been fun, but it’s also been a long journey. It’ll be nice to get back to the usual routine. Besides, there’s still Ryac and The Dark Mage to return to.
For those of you who are concerned over the fate of Positivity Camp, I’ll be working throughout the year to edit and revise the chapters. With a story this long, I already know there are several continuity errors that need fixing. I usually despise editing, but oddly enough, I’m looking forward to making the story flow better and to flesh out different characters more. The main plot will stay the same, but you can be sure there will be some interesting developments in the final version.
Until the final piece is done, I hope you’ll enjoy this the second to last chapter of Positivity Camp.
