The Marshmallow Ranch Gazette (Patreon)

Volume 2, Issue 2

Tuesday, January 9th, 2017

Howdy, patrons!

Part 2 of "Gift Exchange" will be posted on Thursday afternoon -- we'll see what happens when Rane and Jakebe are late for a party, and learn a bit more about how magical creatures interact with their mortal friends! There's also a super-secret special guest star! Not really, but a friend of ours was slotted in to the story just because I thought it would be interesting. So enjoy!

As I write this, we're just two days away from Further Confusion 2017! I'm on four panels this year -- three writing panels and one spirituality one -- and as usual I'm way behind on preparation. Yikes! That's all right, though; I'm not up there alone, and it's really fun interacting with my fellow panelists and folks who take the time to come and hear us talk about whatever it is we'll be chatting about. While I definitely want to bring my A game, I also want to make sure that I'm not TOO stressed about things related to the convention. 

Part of that means working hard to get all of my work for the winter class in order before Thursday! I'm taking a class on the History of Rock and Roll over the winter session, which means that we have to condense a class from 13 weeks to merely four. I'm reading a full chapter of the textbook just about every day, taking two quizzes and a test every week, participating in forum discussions every day, and there's a five page paper due at the end of the month. Whew! It's a lot of work, but it's also tremendously fun. I'm learning a lot about music theory, how market forces shape our entertainment, and how technological advances democratize the way we share just about everything from songs to stories. It sounds a little weird, but it's actually given me a lot of good ideas on flavor for my Pathfinder game and furry settings in general!

After FC, I would like to pick a weekend day to hold a writing stream! For now, all patrons are invited to attend, and chances are I'll work on a future serial or short story for half the time, then open it up to flash fiction requests for the other half of the time. If folks are interested in that, what would be the best day to hold them? Friday evenings? Saturday afternoons? Sundays? Let me know in the comments!

I'll see you lovely folks on Thursday at the very least, and I hope I'll see some of you at Further Confusion this weekend!