Raven Oak's Blog, page 74

Monday Night Gaming: Boss Monster

This week’s Monday Night Gaming: Boss Monster: The Dungeon Building Card Game + its expansion (Tools of Hero-Kind).

New card. Check out how you can get it (and others) here.

The first time we played this, there was no expansion set–only the base game. My husband and I were both drawn to it because of its 8-bit style and its tribute to old dungeon crawler games from our youth. In the base game, players compete to build a side-scrolling dungeon. Rather than playing the hero, you play the villain....

Scrivener Saturday #5

This week’sScrivener Saturday is on Revision Mode, which has more purposes than just revision.

The Revision Process according to Patrick Rothfuss

TIP #5: To get to revision mode, go to Format–>Revision Mode, and then choose a revision level (first, second, third, fourth, or fifth). The purpose of this mode is to track changes to your manuscript based on which revision your in.

For example, my first draft–all text is black. When I go through the first revision, anything I add or change, turns to...

Flashback Friday: To Kill a Mockingbird

This week’s Flashback Friday: To Kill A Mockingbird.

It’s a holiday week, so I’m breaking the rules a bit. Instead of a Flashback Friday on a work of SF/F, I’m going to do one on my favorite non-SF/F novel: To Kill A Mockingbird.

Still relevant today.

I read a post on Wednesday where the writer talked about how fighting for what is right and just in the world, doesn’t always make one popular. In fact, you’ll usually lose friends in the process. That same idea is one of the things that drove the...

Thankful

Instead of a Book Cover Throwback for this Thursday, I’m posting my thoughts on Thanksgiving as today is Thanksgiving in the U.S.

This is me on my 9th? Birthday.

Thanksgivings as a child were odd to me, as were most holidays. My father was a single parent, and we lived far away from his family in Michigan. We were also dirt poor, so flying or even driving up there from Florida or Texas was a big deal.

The majority of my holidays were spent alone in an apartment with my father, wishing I had a bi...

Monday Night Gaming: Pokemon Card Game

This week’s Monday Night Gaming: Pokemon Card Game.

I’m a brave geek. So brave I will admit that before I was hooked into Magic: the Gathering, I played the Pokemon Card Game.

Having graduated to Magic, we’re currently selling some of the older cards worth something. 1st edition foils mostly.

While mostly thought of as a game for children, it’s completely playable by adults. My husband calls it my “gateway drug” as learning the mechanics of it is what formed my interest in Magic years later.

In a...

Interview about Amaskan’s Blood

The folks over at ReadFree.ly interviewed me about Amaskan’s Blood, what’s next, what I do when not writing, and a few other topics.

Feel free to check out the Interview aboutAmaskan’s Blood here: http://bit.ly/1r2SftW

(Monday Night Gaming post coming later today.)

The post Interview about Amaskan’s Blood appeared first on Raven Oak.

Class-M Exile Excerpt

The Class-M Exile Excerpt is now up in PDF, ePub, and MOBI formats. You can download it here.

If you like what you read, there are two ways to get the full 80 page novella:

1) You can Join the Conspiracy. Members of the mailing list will receive the full story for free.

2) You can purchase it in late February. Details on that coming in 2015.

The post Class-M Exile Excerpt appeared first on Raven Oak.

Top 10 Text-to-Speech Fails

When I’m editing writing, what helps the most is to have Scrivener read out loud my novel. Having a computer read it, finds all those annoying typos or mistakes that my brain auto-corrects no matter how many times I read my work.

(If you aren’t sure how to get Scrivener to read out loud, click here.)

While text-to-speech has grown by leaps and bounds since its development, it still struggles with some words.

In the past year, I’ve found quite a few hilarious bugs. I’ll give you the word and then...

Flashforward Friday: Galaxies

This week’s FlashForward Friday: Galaxies.

Photo Credit: Wildlife Learning Center.

The Western screech-owl above is named Zeus. He’s blind.

And he has galaxies in his eyes.

Scientists say that the galaxy look is due to strands of gel that have clumped together to make lines or strands. He doesn’t have an iris either.

Zeus can’t ever be released into the wild, which only makes me feel happier at my freedom. Looking at his eyes, the vastness of the universe stretches before us–all of time and space...

Book Cover Throwback: Howl’s Moving Castle

This week’s Book Cover Throwback: Howl’s Moving Castle.

Before it was an amazing film from Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, it was an excellent novel by Diana Wynne Jones. This cover is from the reprint, but I love it so much more than the original, which you can see below the reprint.

Here is the original.

The original makes it feel too much like a horror novel for kids. While there are scary elements to the story, the themes of believing in one’s self and finding beauty in unique things makes...