Jennifer M. Baldwin's Blog, page 3

Knowing Stuff

I’m trying hard not to frame this is a “back in my day” vs. “kids these days” thing. I don’t know that people back in the day were more culturally literate than they are today. I suspect not. And cultural literacy changes as culture changes, so the references to things that meant a lot to […]

Let’s All Read Tanith Lee

If you had asked me about Neil Gaiman before recent horrific news broke about his abusiveness, I would have said I was a fan. Not a huge fan, but a fan. I liked The Sandman comics, liked Neverwhere, liked the movie adaptation of Stardust, liked some of his children’s books, liked the movie adaptation of […]

I Like Essays!

“Listen, we all hate reading essays. Nobody likes reading essays. Nobody likes writing essays either.” This was spoken by an English teacher at a conference I attended earlier this week. I knew what he meant. I think we all knew what he meant. I’m not trying to be obtuse by ignoring the context of his […]

Typing Offline

I really want to get a classroom set of word processing machines for my students to type up their drafts after working in their notebooks. Many of them struggle with writing legibly, and they like the comfort of the spell-check function (I know I do too!). But I don’t want them accessing the internet, partly […]

“The Writer’s Journey” by Vogler

I got this book from the library about a month ago. It’s due back soon, so I thought I’d make an effort to finish it before then. I was supposed to read Vogler’s book for a screenwriting class way back in my freshman year of undergrad, but I never actually did. I was very much […]

“Pick a notebook, any notebook”

“Pick a notebook, any notebook. If you compose well in it, you will become attached. Choose a pen that feels right. It could be a beautiful, expensive fountain pen, or any old BIC. Whatever feels good in your hand. Okay — this is your notebook, and this is your pen. Balance the notebook on your […]

Input Update 1/7/2025

Reading: The Book That Broke the World Also reading: Everything Sad Is Untrue Also, also reading: The Mythmakers Listening to: My Analog Journal Youtube channel Playing: Dolmenwood RPG (solo)

Winter

I really like winter. I think this is one reason why my husband and I were made for each other. We have no desire to live in a warmer clime. We like the snow and cold. Maybe it’s a kind of weather Stockholm syndrome, maybe all these Michigan winters have brainwashed me, but I love […]

The Motern Method

Book just came in the mail. Haven’t read it yet, but will report back later when I do. I first heard of The Motern Method and Matt Farley on Austin Kleon’s substack. The whole question of quantity versus quality and how much we should share is something I’ve been interested in for quite some time. […]

Goal: Finish Ysbaddaden and the Game of Chess

This one was always going to be a challenge. It’s a tortured history, and I might not be ready to confront it. I wrote the first Merlin book in roughly 2014-2016 (exact dates are fuzzy because it was so long ago, which is exactly why my goal to finish Ysbaddaden is so fraught). That was […]