Antagonizing the female DM when you are about to be shipwrecked on a jungle island ruled by a matriarchy that is one step removed from the Drow in terms of magical firepower and a willingness to use it. Not the brightest bulb on the tree.

No football team ever won the Super Bowl on the strength of its cheerleading squad. Teams win the Super Bowl on the talent of their players and the ability of the coaching staff to lead. Cheerleaders exist in professional sports to rev up the crowd and sell calendars. They don’t actually do anything to improve the game.

  I’ve been a gamer for almost twenty years. I was formally invited into gaming by my ex. His stated reason was so that we could spend more time together and I could get to socialize with his friends. The truth is, they were all tired of being the DM, and he figured since I [...]

Dear fellow publishers. If you chose to ignore these five points and continue to abuse artists, I shall subject you to more of my own horrible stick figures. Nobody wants that to happen.

Artists, I love you. Why do you torture me so much?

While I often vent about how writers drive me nuts, my fellow editors and publishers can get on my nerves just as fast.

The Sith Witch says what everyone else is thinking but is afraid to say…for better or worse.

Reader Awareness Survey conducted April 21, 2011

I have to confess. I am always rather amused when someone posts a thread claiming they have created a new genre when in fact all they have done is write a paranormal romance or urban fantasy. Too often, people get lost in the “gimmicks” in their story instead of focusing on the story’s actual theme. 99% of the time, the issue is not that the author has created a new genre, but has a significant lack of genre literacy and simply does not understand the genres available. The other 1% of the time, I swear the author just wants attention. This isn’t a problem unique to indies. Big publishers often deliberately mislabel books not because they don’t know any better, but because they want to capitalize on certain demographics.

Some of the rough data from my ill-fated attempt to conduct a survey at Amazon.com