Jennifer M. Baldwin's Blog, page 2

Input Update 7/23/2025

Reading: More Than Words by John Warner Also reading: Fantasy: A Short History by Adam Roberts Also, also reading: The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill Listening to: When We Were Wizards podcast Watching: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (with the kiddos) I am also in the midst of reading a […]

Lo, these many years, I have searched in vain…

…until now. At long last, I think I’ve found it. The book I read as a kid and could never remember its title. At first I thought it was The Sleeping Dragon. Then Quag Keep. Then The Twilight Realm. Then Demons Don’t Dream. But none were right. I remembered the book was about a group […]

Inventing the Process

“Part of the work is figuring out how to work.” (Kevin Nguyen, from Counter Craft interview, April 8, 2025) I’m abandoning old ways of thinking and doing. For too long I’ve clung to “identities” (think: Plotter versus Discovery Writer) and methods (“Writing into the Dark”) that are gumming up the works of my actual, functioning […]

Word Counts and Critical Voice

I never realized how much my consideration of a project’s word count could invite my critical voice to make an appearance. After all, if I’m writing a novel, don’t I have to make sure it hits a certain word count (ballpark, anyway)? Same for short stories, novellas, etc. How can I write anything without considering […]

Return to DCC RPG

I’m playing a solo Dolmenwood game right now, my kids and I are playing some adventures using Hero Kids, and I might be joining an open table for Shadowdark in the very near future, but I’ve also been cooking up another solo adventure/campaign using the Emirates of Ylaruam gazetteer from TSR, and I was thinking […]

Thoughts on The Motern Method

I liked it. Well-worth reading and owning. However, if anyone has spent any time at all reading Heinlein’s Rules or exploring corners of the internet where these Rules are being lived out, a lot of the concepts in The Motern Method will sound familiar. Which doesn’t mean it’s not worth reading. IT IS. But it […]

News Fast

I wasn’t going to do a news fast because I thought it was important to pay attention to all the crazy stuff happening since January (since November, really). I thought consuming news was crucial to keep abreast of STUFF. Stuff that’s important. Stuff that’s going to hurt people (is hurting people). Stuff that’s going to […]

American Fantasy in a Box of Rain

Ross Douthat had an op-ed a few months ago where he posited that America needed its own quintessentially American fantasy novel/series, and while I immediately objected to the headline’s premise that we’ve never had one (ever heard of Oz, my dude? Or the John the Balladeer stories?), I understood that Douthat was arguing for a […]

A New Spirit

It feels like spring here in Michigan. For two days, at least, we’ve had a thaw: snow melting into great running rivulets along the sides of roads, puddles everywhere, blue sky and birdsong. I’ve also started a new notebook, having finished my previous one this past weekend. Upon starting a new notebook (spiral-bound, flimsy cardboard […]

Experiments in Applying Butt to Chair

Wrote about 740 words in an hour. Handwritten. (Sometimes I handwrite, sometimes I type. Switching back and forth helps jog my Creative Voice. I let it decide which to do at any given moment.) Not my highest word count in an hour, but I did have a brief stretch in the story where I haggled […]