A freelancer’s tips for keeping calendars, breaking down projects, and tracking your billable time. — I’d say that one of the hardest things to figure out when I first started freelancing was time management. When you’re working as someone else’s employee, your time is structured according to their schedule; you have a set shift with a start and an end time, you have specific tasks…

Being someone who uses research as a part of her daily life and work, it was inevitable that I was going to get curious about the history of my chosen profession. Surprisingly, the concept of freelancing actually goes back much further than many people think. To give you a better…

A review of Nymeria Publishing’s newest dark poetic offering. — “Hello, my wicked darling, How does evil fare tonight? Much better than your heart? Which is more empty than mine?” - From The Devil’s Proposal, by Will Winters Yet again, I have had the absolute pleasure of joining Nymeria Publishing’s ARC program — this time, to review a sharp poetry…

From fiction to essays, learn how to map out your writing so you don’t get lost. — Writing is hard. Shocking, I know, I’ll wait for you to catch your breath after that massive revelation. It’s hard for a lot of reasons, but the writing pitfall that tends to grab me is, once you have an idea, how do you move it from your head to your…

How carvings from the Native American community showed a researcher what the world looks like through different eyes. — This past Thursday, I had the pleasure of seeing Rex Buchanan speak about his book, Petroglyphs of the Kansas Smoky Hills. Buchanan, a former director of the Kansas Geological Survey, worked with Professor Burke Griggs of Washburn University School of Law and Joshua Svaty, the fourteenth Kansas secretary of agriculture…

Create a background that your DM will actually read and use in your next game. — Are you gearing up to make a new D&D character, but scared that they won’t be interesting enough? Are you having trouble telling a good background story for an awesome character concept? Have you written a massive backstory only to have the DM ask you to lighten up? …

The final part of this explanatory series, where we look at the marvelous miscellaneous minutia of writing up a character sheet — So, you’ve got a character sheet. You’ve got abilities and skills, hit points, combat stats, spells, and an inventory. It looks like you’re ready to hit the road, which is why today’s part — part 7 in this D&D character sheet building series — is the last one. In…

Explaining your inventory and how to use it — When you’ve got your character built, it’s time to stack them with gear. That’s right; today, we’re talking about inventory! Building, reading, and managing your inventory is an important skill that can keep your character from ending up the creek without a paddle — or in a fight without their…

This cute little game is a relaxing way to actually enjoy the food service industry — I love casual management games. Stardew Valley and Slime Rancher are some of my go-to relax-and-shut-down games, full of cutesy art and easy mechanics. Resource-management and base-building games are fun to me! I get to run my own little place, without having to worry about (much) danger or big goals…