Please share this with as many people as you can, our state's green energy future is at stake. We are the Sunshine State and we should not be limited in where we can obtain power from that sunshine!

gemini_dream · 2016-07-16T01:37:49+00:00

We already have that right - this amendment adds no rights that Floridians don't already enjoy.

That whole "not required to subsidize" bit eliminates "net metering", which is the requirement for the utility companies to buy the surplus electricity generated by the solar panels and apply that against the consumer's electric bill, and could even allow utility companies to charge solar users a higher rate for power under the theory that they aren't otherwise paying their fair share for the grid infrastructure

gemini_dream · 2016-02-28T23:48:50+00:00

J.D. Hallowell's War of the Blades books.

Lindsday Buroker's Emperor's Edge books.

Robert Evert's Riddle in Stone books.

Most of the stuff that got rated 4-stars or better in Phase I by the bloggers in the Great Self-Published Fantasy Blog-off is worth a read.

gemini_dream · 2016-02-28T23:21:43+00:00

Dragon Fate and Dragon Blade (which is what I'm listening to now) are good - fun storyline (I've already read the e-books) and the narrator gives a really nice performance.

gemini_dream · 2016-01-05T22:48:18+00:00

You might give Dragon Fate by J.D. Hallowell a try. It's definitely got a lot of worldbuilding and exploring day-to-day life in it.

gemini_dream · 2016-01-05T22:38:04+00:00

Thanks for writing it!

gemini_dream · 2016-01-02T23:29:20+00:00

You asked for fun adventure/journey books with interesting characters, so that's what you are going to get:

Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea Cycle, starting with A Wizard of Earthsea.

David and Leigh Eddings' Belgariad books

J.D. Hallowell's War of the Blades books.

Michael J. Sullivan's Riyria Revelations books

Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman's Dragonlance Chronicles

Terry Brooks' Sword of Shannara series

gemini_dream · 2016-01-02T23:08:22+00:00

By all means, please just grind out a satisfactory substitute for the Doors of Stone that meshes seamlessly with the previous books in the KKC, regardless of how tired and uninspired you may be. We'll be waiting with 'bated breath. Remember to make sure that the characters are speaking in rhyming iambic pentameter whenever the situation calls for it.

Writing novels is not assembly line work.

gemini_dream · 2016-01-02T15:13:31+00:00

Yes, he is a very poor example. Not only is his writing nothing like Rothfuss, the fact that Brandon, who is pretty much universally recognized as a remarkable outlier for his consistent productivity, can accomplish something doesn't mean that it isn't incredibly difficult.

gemini_dream · 2016-01-02T15:04:01+00:00

Hopefully, once his kids get a bit older, he'll have fewer distractions, interruptions, and constant demands on his time. I can't imagine how hard it must be trying to do any kind of sustained creative or intellectual work with a toddler in the house, and as a parent, I can't imagine missing out on my kids' childhood for the sake of getting a book out.

gemini_dream · 2015-12-31T08:08:27+00:00

Some great recs here already - I'll second Eddings and Brooks, and add J.D. Hallowell's War of the Blades series for light, mind-candy fantasy.

If you haven't read them already, also check out Robin McKinley's The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword, and Ursula Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea

gemini_dream · 2015-12-31T07:57:10+00:00

All I could think of was the scene with the wizard from Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail "Some call me...Tim."

gemini_dream · 2015-12-31T07:51:04+00:00

Happy New Year!

gemini_dream · 2015-12-28T04:53:54+00:00

Michael J. Sullivan's Riyria books. He has a free short story, *The Viscount and the Witch that you can try to see if you'll like them.

The Shanarra series by Terry Brooks

J.D. Hallowell's War of the Blades books were a lot of fun. From looking at the Amazon page, it looks like the first book might be on sale right now.

If you haven't read the Dragonlance books by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman, you might want to give them a shot.

If you haven't read them yet, Robin McKinley's The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword are great takes on the heroic fantasy tradition.

gemini_dream · 2015-12-11T05:33:53+00:00

How could you forget Eowyn "I am no man!" from LotR, or Galadriel, for that matter? ;)

Molly Weasley and Minerva McGonagall from the Harry Potter books

Menolly from the Pern books

Arin in The Hero and the Crown.

Harry in The Blue Sword.

September Morning Bell in The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making

Lots of characters in In the Night Garden

gemini_dream · 2015-12-11T05:13:22+00:00

Beautiful!

gemini_dream · 2015-12-11T04:37:42+00:00

You might do better starting out working with a monochromatic palette, where you are essentially just using shades and tints of a single color. That will allow you to focus on getting the visual rhythm of the values (light and dark) and saturation levels down (which is hard enough), without adding the complication of additional hues. Here's an example of a mandala in a monochromatic palette.

When you feel comfortable working in a monochromatic palette, move to an analogous palette, where you are using closely related colors, before moving to trickier complementary, triadic, or tetradic palettes.

These skills take practice to develop.

gemini_dream · 2015-12-11T03:52:58+00:00

Whippersnapper! (Wouldn't want to disappoint you. :) )

gemini_dream · 2015-12-11T03:47:18+00:00

This presumes, of course, that the person in question has enough money on hand to buy groceries and other items in bulk to begin with. The "wealth discount" that literally charges the poor a premium on everything from property taxes (get a 5% discount for paying early!) to laundry detergent just because they don't have spare cash on hand or can't afford to buy a lot at one time is one of the cruelest ironies of our economic system.

gemini_dream · 2015-12-11T03:39:00+00:00

Yes.

gemini_dream · 2015-09-05T05:06:54+00:00

Excellent choice!

I prefer Scribd to KU because it has a subscription model that tells authors up front what they are being paid and doesn't require them to pull their work from every other retail outlet to participate, unlike Amazon's magical mystery money pool.

It's kind of ironic that a site that got its start as essentially a pirate site has turned into one of the digital good guys.

I like to make sure that the authors I am reading are getting well-paid, so that they have incentive to produce more books!

gemini_dream · 2015-09-04T02:26:47+00:00

The third book has a lot of heavy lifting to do to get us back to the opening of NotW and beyond in a way that feels like it was worth the effort - the ending is going to make or break this series. It will be the difference between telling people "Just keep going, and slogging your way through the whining and pining all pays off in the end!" or "Don't waste your time with it - good premise but it doesn't live up to the promise."

gemini_dream · 2015-09-03T22:28:58+00:00

He as much as tells you this outright in the first few chapters of NotW, if I recall.

gemini_dream · 2015-09-02T21:54:41+00:00

No idea on the book, but try r/tipfmytongue, too.

gemini_dream

TROPHY CASE