Jennifer M. Baldwin's Blog

It’s been awhile. I’m going to try and be as upbeat as possible, but the results speak for themselves: I haven’t achieved most of my goals. And yet! I’ve achieved some, and that ain’t nothing. Failing to success, right? Would I have achieved even these small things if I hadn’t set myself the goals? Some […]

I love fall, and I hate it. I love the weather, but I hate that I can’t always enjoy it. Fall is busy. It’s the new school year, it’s making lunches again, it’s three birthdays in our family, it’s letters of recommendation and summer homework that needs grading. It’s always getting started on the wrong […]

I know it is not efficient or even very “productive” to write my notes by hand or write comments on student papers by hand, but every time I sit down to do my teaching work, I find myself drawn to writing things out with pen and paper. Right now I’m reading through beginning-of-the-semester student surveys, […]

Reading: More Than Words by John Warner Also reading: Fantasy: A Short History by Adam Roberts Also, also reading: The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill Listening to: When We Were Wizards podcast Watching: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (with the kiddos) I am also in the midst of reading a […]

…until now. At long last, I think I’ve found it. The book I read as a kid and could never remember its title. At first I thought it was The Sleeping Dragon. Then Quag Keep. Then The Twilight Realm. Then Demons Don’t Dream. But none were right. I remembered the book was about a group […]

“Part of the work is figuring out how to work.” (Kevin Nguyen, from Counter Craft interview, April 8, 2025) I’m abandoning old ways of thinking and doing. For too long I’ve clung to “identities” (think: Plotter versus Discovery Writer) and methods (“Writing into the Dark”) that are gumming up the works of my actual, functioning […]

I never realized how much my consideration of a project’s word count could invite my critical voice to make an appearance. After all, if I’m writing a novel, don’t I have to make sure it hits a certain word count (ballpark, anyway)? Same for short stories, novellas, etc. How can I write anything without considering […]

I’m playing a solo Dolmenwood game right now, my kids and I are playing some adventures using Hero Kids, and I might be joining an open table for Shadowdark in the very near future, but I’ve also been cooking up another solo adventure/campaign using the Emirates of Ylaruam gazetteer from TSR, and I was thinking […]

I liked it. Well-worth reading and owning. However, if anyone has spent any time at all reading Heinlein’s Rules or exploring corners of the internet where these Rules are being lived out, a lot of the concepts in The Motern Method will sound familiar. Which doesn’t mean it’s not worth reading. IT IS. But it […]

I wasn’t going to do a news fast because I thought it was important to pay attention to all the crazy stuff happening since January (since November, really). I thought consuming news was crucial to keep abreast of STUFF. Stuff that’s important. Stuff that’s going to hurt people (is hurting people). Stuff that’s going to […]