The Art of Writing

            All you need to start is one word. Just one. In fact, you don’t even need that – you could start with a single letter, although that is much more difficult if you don’t know what to follow it with.

            You take that one word – or letter, as the case may be – and follow it with another, stretching it out onto a sentence. If you want to get fancy, you can even add some punctuation, making it a compound sentence.

            Then, you do it again, adding a second sentence, then a third. (It is always a good idea to vary the sentence length.) Before you know it, you have a paragraph and you’re ready to do it all over again.

            Except, this time, the words and ideas are different. Just as the paragraph after that – and after that – are different.

            It doesn’t have to be perfect. The words can be changed later; the grammar fixed; the ideas altered. The act of writing is the important part. You aren’t chiseling it into stone – the details can always be changed.

            Just take it one step at a time – one word at a time. It happens faster than you think. You have a blog post. A chapter. A short story. A book.

            Writing is more than a skill. It is an art. It takes practice. It takes time. But when you’re finished, you have something you can be proud of – because, if you aren’t proud of it, that just means it isn’t finished yet.

            All it takes to start is one letter. One word. One sentence. From there, it grows and builds momentum until it is complete.

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.

The Big Bad Wolf

            Earlier this week, I saw a comment using “the big bad wolf” as a metaphor for a villainous person. As a fan of wolves, my brain started to rant about how wolves are continually maligned, even in this enlightened day and age. Knowing that wolves will avoid humans and only attack them out of desperation makes it somewhat ludicrous to use them as a metaphor for what we deem to be evil.

            Or does it?

            As I considered, the realization hit me that this comparison is far more apt than people realize. When we talk about the big bad wolf, we’re referring to our perceptions on the surface of a situation. More than that, we’re stereotyping, just as we do when viewing any other group as villainous.

            Let’s take a closer look at this metaphor, shall we? The wolf. This is a cunning predator; large and fearsome. It is easy to understand why humans came to fear them. Then came a time when wolves lurked around villages, preying on the weak, because they were starving. This is where the metaphor started. And, yes, wolves are looking fairly evil.

            However, we forget the part where the wolves were starving. They were desperate for food and just trying to survive. In fact, they still avoided attacking humans whenever possible, preferring to loot corpses. In normal circumstances, as I mentioned before, wolves avoid humans as much as possible. They are intelligent creatures, and also very social. Within their own packs, they are friendly and playful. Yes, they are masters of teamwork and extremely efficient hunters, but then, so are humans. The difference is that wolves hunt only for food, and they avoid letting anything go to waste.

            So, our metaphor of the big bad wolf shows us someone who is vicious because of their most visible behaviour. It shows us a stereotype of the worst aspects of a species from a time when they were struggling. However, it fails to show us what they are really like. In normal life, with normal circumstances, wolves are very different creatures.

            Considering this metaphor, my view on it has shifted. When we point at a person (or at a whole people) and say, “That is a big bad wolf!” we are commenting on the most visible behaviour. We are ignoring the parts that we can’t see, and very often don’t even go searching for them. In our ignorance, we have no idea what is motivating the wolf, or forcing it into its current position.

            Yes, I now believe that the misunderstood wolf is the perfect metaphor for that which we fear.

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.

Lonely Pets Club

            My in-laws were away this weekend, leaving me in my usual position as pet-sitter. Now I feel compelled to tell you about this atypical group of pets, because they really are quite amusing.

            First, there’s the dog. At least, genetically he’s a dog – we suspect that he may identify as something else. Possibly a sheep. Many dogs, he’s afraid of thunder, but he also takes it a step further – he’s afraid of rain. And just about any sounds, really, which is probably why he almost never barks. He’s very sweet and friendly, though, and is very good about not jumping up on people who have just come into the house – instead, he prances over and grins at them, truly happy to see them.

            When his family is away, I always get a little concerned about him. He misses them so much that he stops eating for several days – except for the treats he gets every time he comes inside from his walks. Of course, I use every a little loosely here; he usually gets a treat when he comes in, but I sometimes feel compelled to do a little training.

You see, my in-laws came into dog ownership later than many people do and, as a result, they aren’t as firm with the dog as they could be. Therefore, when going for walks, he’s used to his humans stopping and waiting for him every time he wants to sniff a tree or roll in the grass. Having grown up with a dog, I have an expectation that the walk keeps moving, and therefore the treat gets denied if I’m kept out in the cold too long. He learned very quickly that I would tolerate nothing more than on very short roll in the grass, and he may even have noticed that he got more treats when he didn’t hold me up at all.

            Then there’s the cat. The latest, and currently only, in a string of abandoned cats the family took in, he is always a bit “my way or the highway”. In other words, he’s a cat. Yet, once the family has been away for a day, he starts begging for attention. As I’m allergic to cats, he doesn’t get it from me, but it doesn’t stop him from trying. He spends the time I’m in the house following me around, meowing and pointedly rubbing against various objects and making me feel generally guilty about my allergy.

            He has, however, given up on trying to sneak out of the house. Due to tome feral cats he’s feuding with, he has been relegated to being an indoor cat, much to his chagrin. I think that’s his greatest sorrow about my in-laws being away. He’s used to a house full of people who are used to him, so they don’t pay him that much attention, making it relatively easy to slip through a closing door (luckily he can be summoned back into the house with the shaking of a treat container – which is ridiculous; I mean, he’s a cat! Cat’s can’t be summoned like dogs!). He has long since learned that this doesn’t work with me. He doesn’t even try anymore. But he does watch me very closely, waiting for me to slip up...

            And, finally, there’s my sister-in-law’s bunny. Now, apparently this bunny is pure evil and hates everyone other than my sister-in-law. It certainly seems that way when she’s brought out in public. She’s certainly very skitterish and ant-social. This is common knowledge.

            Yet, when the family away, she becomes the sweetest bunny in the world. When I check on her, she rushes right over to see me – she doesn’t cringe in corners or kick aggressively as her reputation would have you believe. In fact, she’s so happy to see me that she hops in circles!

            I guess it just goes to show that animals miss their families as much as they are missed. Except, perhaps, the bunny. It is entirely possible she’s just luring me into a false sense of security, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.

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.

New Month, New Project

            The end of the Dungeons and Dragons campaign I shared a couple weeks ago was only the start of another story. That game actually had the potential to last much longer, however an increasing interest in D&D at the board game cafe where I play led us to believe a second game needed to be started. That meant we needed a new Dungeon Master.

            That Dungeon Master is me.

            After several months of planning this, I announced that I was ready to commence a new game starting in November. At the same time, other members of the group got new jobs that interfered with the regular game time. It was decided that, rather than most of the players dropping out of the game and being replaced, the game had to come to an end.

            And now, this past week, a new game started. However, that’s not what I’m here to talk about today – I’m here to tell you about the project I’m starting alongside it.

            I have started a YouTube channel called Once Upon a Tabletop. On this channel, I intend to tell the story of my D&D campaign, week by week, as it is played. I have no idea how it will go, but I have high hopes for it. At the very least, you’ll now be able to listen to (and watch) me prattle on – although, personally I think my written ramblings are preferable.

            So, for those of you who enjoy stories, here it is: Once Upon a Tabletop. What story will be told? I honestly have no clue. I’ve created a world – now it’s up to my players what they’re going to do with it.

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.