The Ayrelon Times

First, check these links out and circle back to this post to found out who/what/when/where... if you're interested. https://www.ayrelonpress.com/ https://www.ayrelon.com/ https://www.rlparkerfantasy.com/ A while back, a fellow author, and friend, named Mike Conley switched his website around to reduce his monthly costs, and found a solution so obvious the rest of us just didn't think about it. Well, the rest of "us" members of that particular Discord community. I just got the chance to pull the trigger on migrating my websites off of SquareSpace onto Google Sites myself, and I've got to say... I think the switch has been pretty amazing, so far. You'll notice: New graphics An improved color scheme An improved layout, and menus Smoother performance And the fact that my blog is now external, but wrapped inside a page of the site(s) Now, there were a few slightly tricky, or tedious steps involved. I plan to film a tutorial video for YouTube some time this week and...

ROLEPLAYING VS DICE ROLLING, THE VALUE OF STORYTELLING AS A DUNGEON MASTER, AND WHAT IT MEANS AS A WRITER. This topic has come up a lot on social media recently. As a former hardcore pen & paper roleplayer, and current author, I figured I might have a unique perspective that will at least be an entertaining read, if not help some of you with your games, or your approach to novels. Now, I’ve covered some of my thoughts in previous blog entries. You can go hunt them down and read those first if you’d prefer, but it totally isn’t necessary. Without further ado, let’s get into it… after all, this is going to be fairly long. Why now? With the popularity of Stranger Things, many people around the world are being exposed to Dungeons & Dragons for the first time. They get to watch kids on screen have a blast playing a game they have no understanding of, and for some that piques their interest. So they jump online, or talk to friends, and try to gain an understanding of this strange gam...

As my bio explains, I am a storyteller not a formulaic writer. I don’t create some construct following industry-prescribed structures and fill in the empty spaces with content. My chapters aren’t perfectly sized to fit some mold, my scene breaks will probably upset the uber-literary. This deviation from the “norm” extends through every facet of my work. The characters, conversations, descriptive text, all of it. Why? Because I care more about the story than I do the craft. I write what feels right; what flows best as I tell my tale. Scene breaks are used to provide breathers for my audience, or shift point of view. Chapters are used to provide an overall tone for a collection of scenes, as they pertain to the main “thread”. I will never be the author that can tell you exactly how long my chapters are, especially in advance. I’m okay with this. I don’t write by chapters, I simply don’t think that way. When I attempted to write that way back in 2010, I failed miserably. I got so lost in ...

There seem to be mixed opinions on Self Publishing, or being an ‘Indie Author’, that run rampant among both readers and other authors. Regardless of where you are in your publishing journey, you’ve probably already considered doing it all yourself—and if you haven’t, that day is coming… First of all, if you’re expecting me to tell you that self publishing is better or worse than traditional publishing, you’re about to be disappointed. Every author is unique, so every single one of them will have different experiences with their publishing process. Just because traditional publishing did wonders for Author A, doesn’t mean Author B will see the same level of success. Vice versa for self publishing. Ultimately, whether or not you self publish is a choice for you and you alone. However, if you do choose to self publish, there are a lot of things to consider and you’ve got a lot more work ahead of you than your traditionally published peers if you want to do it better, and break through the...

Google Docs is free, and collaborative. I own a Microsoft 365 license, which gives me the latest version of Word . There are also several open source, free word processing programs available. Not to mention the various competitors for Scrivener , specifically targeted towards authors. So, why did I choose Scrivener? The answer to that is multi-faceted. My reasoning won’t be a fit for every other author out there, but perhaps it will shed some light on what Scrivener has to offer. If you’re trying to decide what program to use, this article should provide valuable insight from someone who is using Scrivener to its extreme. Before I begin : No, I am not sponsored and have zero contact with Literature & Latte or any of their staff. I am just passionate about my work, and the tools I’m using to produce it. Working Offline I live “out in the boonies”. Our house is surrounded by farmland, and our roads are car-and-a-half wide with no lines or street lights. They twist and wind through ...

I’ve read a lot of blogs and articles that offer advice to authors. That advice comes in many different flavors, and sometimes seems to contradict advice you find elsewhere. I think the reason for this is that authors aren’t all the same. We process information differently because we’re human and we’re each different. Now… I’m not going to claim I’m an expert writer. In fact, I’m rather self-conscious about my writing skills. However, one thing I’m confident in is my ability to craft a story. One of the key factors for that, in my eyes, is that I give all of my characters a voice; a distinct personality that tells me how they behave, how they think, and what they would do given a set of circumstances. This mental process was enhanced quite extensively during my years of pen & paper role-playing. Without those gaming sessions, I doubt I’d be able to do what I do now. All in all, I find my mental process for handling characters a little hard to put into words… but I’m going to try. U...

I mentioned briefly in another blog entry that I accomplished a lot of my early world-building through hosting pen & paper role-playing games. I ran dozens of players through epic campaigns in Dungeons & Dragons , Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition (the majority of them), Rolemaster 2nd Edition and Palladium Megagames . The reasons for this were: I wanted to continue building my fictional world I loved being Dungeon Master and controlling a plethora of non-player characters each session It let me flex and hone my on-the-fly storytelling skills I thoroughly enjoyed role-playing in general It let me receive real-time feedback from players, so I could refine things that missed the mark or emphasize things that landed properly Those sessions lasted between 1994 and 1999. Many players came and went, but there were a core of them who flowed through almost every campaign. Most of my campaigns lasted five to six months, and we played between one and three sessions per week… ...