Master of Bear-emonies

The Midwest Storymakers Conference is always a highlight of my year. I get to see old friends and meet wonderful new people. And this year was no exception.

If I had one suggestion for beginning writers it would be to write, write a lot, write some more, then keep writing. If I had two suggestions, the second one would be to go to a writers conference to meet other writers like you and learn from them.

Thanks to our conference partners this year, the Johnson County Public Library and their Read Local committee, we held the conference at the education center of the Antioch branch of the library. I never knew that the library did so many different things in the community. Three cheers for libraries!!!

This year, I wasn't in charge of the Audio/Visual equipment. It felt a little strange, at times, being able to attend classes and not worry about making the rounds to check if projectors were behaving, clickers working, or giving 5-minute warnings to the instructors. It was both refreshing and a bit awkward. I've been doing the A/V for several years, so I always had that aren't-you-forgetting-something-important feeling.

They didn't let me completely off the hook. I was the Master of Ceremonies, and it was a blast! I had so much fun finding humorous ways to make announcements or introduce the schedule. If you've seen me at a conference you know how much I like to interact with people, so MC was the perfect job. I got to meet everyone.

To be honest, it was also stressful to get everything together and figure out how to make a bunch of different things fit together. And there are always last-minute changes that got whispered to me right before I went on. That's just the job of MC. But it was so much less stressful than A/V.

This year, we had a power-packed lineup of instructors: 

Cathy Maxwell, Danyelle Ferguson, Don Carey, Gregg Luke, Heather Justesen, Janette Rallison, Jennifer Moore, Julie Ford, Laurie LC Lewis, Lisa Mangum, Lisa Swinton, Rebecca Bellison, Sarah Eden, Tamara Hart Heiner, Traci Hunter Abramson, Samantha Millburn, and Scott Slocum.

I know that's a lot of people in a dense list, but they are all awesome and I didn't want to forget anyone.

Now, another wonderful Midwest conference is done, and I'm already looking forward to next year. I don't know what my job will be, or if I will be given one--won't that be weird, to not have anything to do?

And I'll leave you with a bit of an inside joke. If you don't get it, don't worry. Enjoy.

You Gotta Love Your Neighbors

I've been on vacation, but when I saw this sign I had to snap a picture and share it with you. Enjoy.

Diet Sickness

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For a limited time, you can visit my house and contract your very own diet sickness. Do you need to lose weight? Having problems getting over that diet hurdle?

WE HAVE THE ANSWER!

Using our patented Triple Strike Technology you too can be on your way to being pasty and too-thin.

Strike One: With our diet sickness you will lose all desire to eat anything. No more wanting that mid-morning snack or your bedtime ice cream. In fact, you won't want to eat anything. And if you do succumb to your habits or common sense and try to eat anything it will be regurgitated a few hours later. This greatly reduces your caloric intake.

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!

Strike Two: Take advantage of a weight loss secret from the ancients. We've found record of this long-kept secret as far back as Egypt, Greece, and the Mayans. What is it? Fever. You'd be surprised to learn how much energy it takes to raise your core body temperature by 3-4 degrees. Burn calories while you sleep. Burn calories while you watch TV. It's a dieter's dream.

WAIT! THERE'S MORE!

Strike Three: Once your fever breaks you will perspire away pounds of unwanted water weight. This is better than a wrap treatment at a high-end spa.

ALL THIS CAN BE YOURS TODAY!

Bonus: Just by visiting my home and hanging out for a few hours you too can catch the diet sickness. And for the first 100 people who take advantage of this opportunity, we will throw in an extra-special gift. While you wait for inoculation, you can keep yourself busy by doing laundry, dishes, vacuuming, or mowing the lawn.

WHAT MORE COULD YOU ASK FOR?

This is a limited-time offer. Once this sickness passes through my family you will have missed out on this rare opportunity.

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Void where prohibited. Not valid in all states. All weight loss results are speculative and not verified by the FDA, FFA, BSA, NASA, or any other acronym or initialism. Sickness not actually patented. This opportunity is not rare. Side effects may include headache, body aches, slowed thoughts, lethargy, grumpiness, exhaustion, and an unhealthy increase in sarcasm.

Thank You Dan Wells

This morning I was having problems with an electronic gadget, so I took it into the store to get fixed. It always takes a long time, so I decided to grab a book to read. I grabbed Dan Wells's latest. I've been looking forward to reading it for some time.

I got to the store, explained the situation, then I sat down to wait and read.

It was a good time, no one bothered me. I did notice one person behind the counter look in my direction a few times, but whatever. My device was fixed in, surprisingly, record time, and I was on my way.

It wasn't until I left that I realized I was reading a book that was clearly titled "I Don't Want to Kill You".

I'm not saying that the book had anything to do with my uninterrupted reading time or even the speedy repair, but you never know.

Has anyone else gotten better service or more attention using this little trick? If so, I'd like to hear about it. If not, it might work for you.

Tales of the Arabian Nights (Board Game)

Each year whooshes by faster and faster. The last few months have been a whirlwind and the next couple don't look much better, but I did take some time off to hang out with my family.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and got to spend time with those you care about. 

One of my Christmas gifts this year was a cool board game called Tales of the Arabian Nights. When I first hefted the gift, I thought it was filled with bricks, but it wasn't. It was full of pages and pages of game material. It's like a choose-your-own-adventure on steroids.

Unlike most board games, this one is about the story and less about the winning. If you're the kind of person who MUST.WIN.GAME. then you might not enjoy this. To be honest, I'm fairly competitive but I'm able to turn that off for this game. It's really fun to see all the crazy things that happen. Sometimes the fates are on your side, sometimes they're not. 

I enjoy creating a story as I go along. Here's how it works. Everyone starts the game with a random quest. You can ignore this quest if you want, but I like to build my whole character around it. Last night I discovered my father was the King of Thieves and I had to steal some awesome loot in order to take over as his heir.

I traveled through the desert and mountains to Constantinople. The first person I tried to rob enslaved me, then I had to go searching for money to buy my freedom. After many turns, I escaped slavery and obtained one of the quest relics. Huzzah! On my way across the sea to India I aided a prince and successfully escaped a merman attack. The next person I robbed threw me in jail where I rotted for many turns. But it turned out to be a good thing because I met a jailer who taught me some skills that I used to get the last relic and claimed my title.

I didn't win the game, but I had a blast trying to fit the crazy encounters into a cohesive story.

If you like stories and board games, and have a couple hours to play. You might enjoy this game. I know I do. And my older kids do too.

* The image of the cover of the game belongs to Z-Man games.

Scrabble: Howard Taylor & Dan Wells Style

I was manning the help desk at a writers conference last year when I saw two of my favorite writers, Howard Taylor and Dan Wells, playing a game. It looked like Scrabble, but they were having fun.

I'll admit, I don't like Scrabble. That may sound strange coming from someone who enjoys words and stories and writing, but it's true. I just can't get into it.

Curious, I walked over after my shift, and got my first introduction to Speed Scrabble. That may sound like an oxymoron, but it's actually a very descriptive name. I didn't get to play with them, but I did jot down some notes.

The game itself is small (it requires no board). Games last less than 10 minutes. It works with many age levels (you don't get prodigious advantages for comprehending erudite lexicon).

Here are the rules:

• Put all the tiles in a bag or upside-down in a pile on the table.
• Everyone draws seven tiles.
• When the game begins everyone attempts to make word(s) with their letters. You can make as many or few words as you want as long as they all connect, crossword-style.
• As soon as someone uses all their letters they call, "Draw."
• When "Draw" is called, everyone must draw one tile. You draw a tile even if you haven't used up all your letters.
• Play continues until there are no more letters left to draw.

Scoring:

• We play that the person who calls Draw when the tiles run out is the winner. It's easy.
• You can also tally up the score for each tile used and subtract your unused tiles. The winner also gets to add everyone's unused tiles to their score.
• You can give bonus points for longer words.

And a couple quick notes:

• The letter Q can be used as "Qu".
• Blanks are wild (just like in Scrabble).
• You can rearrange your tiles at any time. This means you can break up existing words and recombine them to form different ones.
• Draw different amounts. Try a game where you draw two or three tiles at a time. I, personally, like drawing a single tile because it forces you to rearrange your words more often, but drawing more tiles will make the game go faster.
• There are other sets of rules online. Just search for "Speed Scrabble."

If you're looking for a fun game that you probably already have in your home, then you might like Speed Scrabble. It's also portable, so you can take it to your next writers conference. If you see me there, I'll play a round with you.

* Oh, man! What I wouldn't give for all those vowels in the photo. It was taken by janetgalore and can be found on Flickr.