A recent update to WordPress did not interact well with my theme and the result is a complete breakdown of the Pym’s Pen website. I will rebuild it in 2024, but writing always takes precedent. As the next book takes shape, I hope to have a brand-new website to feature its progress. Expect excited over-sharing…
Well here we are again. After my sheepish posting about being listed as a finalist for the IAN Book of the Year Awards (Novella category), I got another jaw-dropping email today. This one from Foreword Reviews. The Serpent and the Swan, my wee fairy tale novella, won the Silver Medal Book of the Year Award…
I got an interesting email on Saturday night. My husband and I had just gotten back from a jaunt down to Kerry for a belated anniversary hike (Kells Bay Gardens and Valentia Island are highly recommended) and we were settling onto the sofa for a night of Final Fantasy XIV. I took a quick glance…
The Underworld isn’t a cavern. It is an ocean with no boundaries and no map.
Archetypes are the building blocks of story. But why are archetypes important? Aren’t they just a fill-in-the-blank structures for trite stories about chosen-one farm boys? Not even close. This post is part one in a series that explores and defines archetypes, their origin, and their purpose. The series will correct misinformation and help writers and narrative designers utilize a much maligned tool to connect with audiences.
Back in 2014, before my confidence in everything I once knew was shattered by doing my PhD, I taught a class in archetypes for writers at North Seattle College’s Continuing Education Department. As part of the marketing for my class, I was interviewed for their blog. Well, as I no longer teach there, that post…
Once-beloved words like “story” and “narrative” have been co-opted into the business world, and so too has “archetype.” It was inevitable. I was taking a seminar for entrepreneurs today and they were going on about “your business’ personality archetype” and “your ideal customer archetype!” No. Stop it now. It was very hard not to say…
Myth conservation and video game design combine in this rollicking romp of dry academia! A sizzling 200 pages of virtual heritage, game narrative, and culture. Buy yours today! Game Design Meets Conservation It’s out! Released into the wild! My magnum opus (so far)! The culmination of the last seven years of grad school and dissertation…
Oh Divine Bullshiticus, Patron God of Grad Students, Lend Me Thy Bovine Effluence… It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman in possession of a finished dissertation is in want of a Viva. That Defense took place on the Second day of November, the year 2019, on a sunny afternoon in Southern California. The…
I’m pretty sure it’s not normal to start salivating when faced with stationery. Pretty sure. I know we stationery people are weird, but not that weird. Maybe it’s because I have swapped ring doughnuts for ring binders, I don’t know. Half of pleasure is anticipation. And a large part of anticipation is potential. The “what if.” I look around at the notepads and the leather-bound journals and the accordion files and imagine them filled with potential.