So, here’s some background. After the third episode of House of the Dragon, I felt some sympathy for Otto Hightower, and as a joke I tweeted (as one does…)
New Draft: In Defense of Otto Hightower
People got so crazy about that, it was clear that I had just committed myself to writing an Otto Hightower defense.
The good folks at Watchers on the Wall did not deny me when I suggested this as a feature article, and the die was cast.
Read the rest of this entry »House of the Dragon, HBO’s next series set in George RR Martin’s Seven Kingdoms (more or less Seven) is now airing, and I’ve been fortunate enough to resume my role as occasional contributor to the Game of Thrones-centric fansite Watchers on the Wall.
The second episode featured the crown’s heir-designate Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, tasked to choose a replacement Kingsguard, to fill in an absence. I felt that this was a good opportunity to talk about the institution of the Kingsguard. Look, this might sound dull, but I’m a funny writer. My dad will back me up.
Read the rest of this entry »Daemon Targaryen: You are all cursed with me.
Viserys Targaryen: OR NOT!
Daemon: (Somehow, still cursed. Trust me.)
Hey, with House of the Dragon, the prequel/successor series to HBO’s Game of Thrones airing, I re-started my avocation of writing articles about the show for Watchers on the Wall, the Game of Thrones fan site.
Read the rest of this entry »HBO, roughly a month before the new show House of the Dragon is set to premiere, released a final trailer for the show. They’ve previously released two teaser trailers and a series of character photos. Because my dad has read the A Song of Ice and Fire books and seen the Game of Thrones adaptation on HBO, but has not read Fire and Blood – the Targaryen history – to provide him baseline context for the upcoming show, I’ve been making non-spoilery (or, very light-spoilery) posts that focused on the trailers.
This is one of those posts. It’s long, because the trailer had close to 100 shots to present and talk about.
Read the rest of this entry »It’s the first of June 2022, so I went through my social media feeds and grabbed all of the MicroStories I’d tweeted during the month of May.
As a reminder, these represent story-essences composed using no more than 269 characters (so I could tweet them with the hashtag #MicroStory.)
Usually, I only tweet Science Fiction and Fantasy #MicroStories. May was no exception. I guess?
For really great #MicroStory action, please follow @MicroSFF, the Twitter account that inspired me to participate in this minimalist writing exercise. That feed puts out great science fiction and fantasy MicroStories all the time.
Read the rest of this entry »Wow, the titles are getting long on these posts.
HBO once again released a trailer for their upcoming House of the Dragon show, a series that takes place roughly 150-170 years before the time period of Game of Thrones. (I’m giving myself a fudge on the dates because there are two different time periods that will be shown. AT LEAST two different time periods. Since we have two different actors playing younger and older versions of two of the characters.) I covered the previous trailer and the series of cast photos that was released a few months ago here on the blog, specifically designed for my dad.
My dad has read the main series books – A Song of Ice and Fire, but has not read the Targaryen history volume Fire and Blood (part 1 – there is no part 2 yet) that House of the Dragon is drawing on. So I’ve been wanting to provide him with some casual context. Mostly non-spoilery, I just want him to be familiar with the cast of characters, and some background info that will probably be appropriately communicated via the show, but one never knows about these things. Anyway, this is for you, Dad, but if anyone else is reading this, hey there.
Read the rest of this entry »Woohoo! HBO saw fit to announce the date of House of the Dragon‘s first episode (it’ll be August 21st, 2022.) Right now is the time where Game of Thrones seasons would typically air (right around the end of March, beginning of April) so getting more Westeros content at this time, even if it was just photos, was still welcome.
Back when the first (and at the moment, only) trailer came out for House of the Dragon, I wrote up an explainer breakdown for my dad, who has read the main series books but is not too familiar with the setting of the Targaryen Civil War. I wrote it up to be more or less spoiler-free, but to give some context for him. (I’m very pleased that my dad watches the shows and has read the main books, it makes for fun conversation.)
Read the rest of this entry »It’s the first of April, 2022 (I promise this is not an April Fool’s Joke) , so I went through my social media feeds and grabbed all of the MicroStories I’d tweeted during the month of March.
As a reminder, these represent story-essences composed using no more than 269 characters (so I could tweet them with the hashtag #MicroStory.)
Usually, I only tweet Science Fiction and Fantasy #MicroStories. March was no exception. OR WAS IT? Well, it wasn’t outside of the Fantasy genre, I guess. But usually, I write a random microstory during the month, and any one microstory has no relationship to the previous one I’d written, or the next one that I’d write. (That’s not always this case.) For March, I decided that every microstory that I’d write would be related, all would take place in the same setting established by the first story.
Read the rest of this entry »During Christmas of 2021, my dad (we call him ‘Dappy’ because that’s the nickname his first granddaughter gave him) handed out seven handmade wooden boxes as gifts. Two to his children (me and my sister) and five to his granddaughters (my four nieces and my daughter, Grace.) They were amazing, and are worthy of some showcasing.
Each wooden box was in the form of a book. They really look like books. Each one was roughly the size (a bit larger) than my hardback collected volume of The Lord of the Rings.
Read the rest of this entry »It’s the first of December, 2021 , so I went through my social media feeds and grabbed all of the MicroStories I’d tweeted during the month of November.
As a reminder, these represent story-essences composed using no more than 269 characters (so I could tweet them with the hashtag #MicroStory.)
Usually, I only tweet Science Fiction and Fantasy #MicroStories. November was no exception. Maybe? You be the judge.
For really great #MicroStory action, please follow @MicroSFF, the Twitter account that inspired me to participate in this minimalist writing exercise. That feed puts out great science fiction and fantasy MicroStories all the time.
Read the rest of this entry »
I Can't Possibly Be Wrong All the Time 