I don’t know how this ended up on our netflicks list, but The Gamers: Dorkness Rising is an awesome movie. It about a group of pen and paper gamers. The DM is trying to write a new campaign but the players keep dying… Until they add a new player, a girl who doesn’t do things the usual way.

Very, very funny and well written movie. I highly recommend it for everyone. You don’t have to be very knowledgeable about gaming to understand it. Just rent it! You won’t be disappointed. This is one of those little gems you never hear about. Now you have, so there’s no excuse to miss it. (Unless you just don’t watch movie or something like that.)

I’d never played any kind of D&D before, but this movie had me wanting to give it a whirl. Steven, of course, has played D&D before, so on our mostly kid-free weekend, he pulled out his (I think 2.5 edition) books, we made characters and went on a quick little adventure.

Steven is a bit rusty and wouldn’t let me play a thief so I picked a fighter, and she turned out awesome. 18 strength with 100% bonus (+3 attack, +6 damage, 335 lb. weight allowance!!!), 17 dexterity, 14 constitution (health), 10 intelligence, 4 wisdom (she’s ditzy), and 13 charisma.

Hard as it is for me to believe, it’s 6 weeks and a day until Christmas. Where has the year gone? Seems like it was summer just yesterday!

I have no idea what we’re going to do for Christmas this year, which is strange. Usually I have a plan! I have some ideas, but I’m not sure what’s going to be doable. I’d like to finally get some kind of cable tv. Yes, netflicks has been sustaining us, but I terribly miss the SciFi channel, Discovery, Animal Planet, and all of that stuff. Heck, even Cartoon Network! I think the kids will be happy with cable tv and a few small presents.

Christmas and I have a love hate relationship. Some days I’m super excited and others, I want to stick my head in the sand and ignore the world. I really can’t complain though. We don’t have to run around as much as other people. My Dad usually works ER (emergency room) most holidays, so we go to my Mom’s. Steven’s uber small family goes there too, which is awesome!

Anyone have any interesting plans this year? Can anyone top my running around on the day of? (So what it’s only one place! It feels like 5 with all of the driving. My Mom lives 50 minutes away.)

Last year’s Christmas sucked for me. I had a dying tooth root, lots of pain and felt sick from the anti-biotic. This year has to be better than that. (Knock on wood!)

Delilah Rehm

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I can’t help but believe that 2009 has to be awesome and with this fever burning within me, I spurred my writing group to make a pact. We’re going to finish our books, find agents and get the books sold inside of 2009. (Did I mention I have a thing about 9s?)

Here’s a run down of my plan:

November-December 2008 – Pre-Writing: Do any plotting and research I’d like before the real writing starts, and basically get excited about the book. I may edit Part 1 (Relentless) which I wrote last year during this time (Remember hellish NaNo? Yeah. Not doing that this year).

January-March – First Draft: Write the first draft of Vampire Planet (new title for the whole book). I’m going to add some POVs (different points of view than the main character) to part one and then write parts 2 and 3.

It’s funny how many times people are described "overnight successes" without regard for any of the work they did building up to the "break-through" event. Steven and I talked about this a lot with Elijah Wood after the Lord of the Rings movies. His "instant success" came after being in 16 other movies!

What about Harry Potter? It’s the only thing Rowling has ever published. Except… when did you first learn about Harry Potter? For me it was on Oprah, book three or four. I don’t think Harry was mainstream in America until book five. Add to this mix the fact that her first book was rejected by every large British publishing house. Wow. I can see that killing many writers’ dreams. She had guts to keep going and see it through.