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Author: S.M. Carrière

When S.M. Carrière isn't brutally killing your favourite characters, she spends her time teaching martial arts, live streaming video games, and cuddling her cats. In other words, she spends her time teaching others to kill, streaming her digital kills, and cuddling furry murderers. Her most recent titles include 'Daughters of Britain' and 'Skylark.' https://www.smcarriere.com/
Reviews Are Not For Authors

Reviews Are Not For Authors

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

Hello! Welcome to the end of August (nearly). Where I am, the nights are starting to get cool, and some of the trees have begun their autumnal blush. It is my favourite time of the year, at risk of outing myself as ‘basic.’ It honestly is wonderful. The heat finally leaves. I blame my largely Irish ancestry for my inability to handle the summer temperatures. The night air moves from obnoxious heavy and thick to clear and brisk. As the season progresses, an evening walk will deliver the delightful, homey scent of wood-burning fireplaces, and the sweeter scent and satisfying crunch of fallen leaves. Coats and hats and scarves make an appearance. It’s the perfect weather for a blanket, your favourite warm drink, and a good book.

Perfection.

So much better than summer, in my opinion. I am of the firm opinion that the heat makes people a little nutty. That might be why this summer I’ve been watching from the edges of author and reader social media and watched a couple of writers careen wildly into a good many readers ‘Never Read’ piles. This is not on the weakness of their work, but rather a horrifying flight of their good sense. Two happened quite recently, and I watched from a safe distance (as I hadn’t yet read or reviewed the books in question); both weirdly similar situations, in which authors received a review that was less than absolutely gushing and seemed to lose their minds.

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Reedsy: From the Perspective of an Incorrigible Pantser

Reedsy: From the Perspective of an Incorrigible Pantser

Good Evenaftermorn, Readers!

Those following along on my own personal blog know that I am waist-deep into a work in progress that I’ve titled The New Haven Incident. It’s a very silly premise – what if a zombie-style plague created hyper-aggressive fairy-types instead of the walking dead? – but I’m loving the characters trapped in this silly hellscape and I’m having an absolute blast writing it. Ordinarily, I don’t really use any tools to write save for a word processor. This time, however, I opted to give one of the many programmes a go to see if it would help my workflow at all. What a better WIP to try it with than something I’m going to offer free on my blog as a serial? So, after a little bit of research, which includes the phrase ‘free’ because I’m a writer and have no money, I settled on Reedsy.com.

Here’s what I think of it thus far.

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No Story is Without Value

No Story is Without Value

Image from Image by Peace,love,happiness from Pixabay

Good… whatever time of day or night you are reading this!

They say those who do not read live but one life. Those who read live thousands.

Reading is one of life’s few, small pleasures. It can also be incredibly frustrating, particularly if you want to share your excitement for any particular tale with the world.

It seems that I am once again seeing discourse floating around the interwebs about books and genres and weird superiority rankings. It’s tired and tiresome, and I can’t believe we are having this discussion again. Really internet? Really?!

Luckily, this time around, it’s nowhere near as vitriolic as the argument has been previously (that I’ve seen thus far), but it seems there there are some really pretentious knobs out there eager to try and elevate themselves by disparaging what others enjoy reading. I just don’t understand that mentality at all.

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The Complicated Morality of Joel Miller

The Complicated Morality of Joel Miller

Hello! I’m back with more The Last of Us stuff because I’m not quite done with it all. I want to talk about how the first game (and the first season) ended, and the maelstrom of morality debates that followed the incredible, tortured conclusion.

What follows will include spoilers, so if you haven’t played the game or watched the series, you might want to go ahead and do that and then come back to this.

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Look for the Light: The Last of Us, Episode Nine

Look for the Light: The Last of Us, Episode Nine

Well, here it is. The final episode. I didn’t really want to get here for two reasons. One, it’s the end of a most excellent season of a most excellent show. Two, I have absolutely no idea what my next article will be about. There was some comfort in having an article already decided two weeks before it must be written. But enough of the pity party. C’est parti!

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Left Behind: The Last of Us, Episode Seven

Left Behind: The Last of Us, Episode Seven

Hello! We’re back with another episode review! This one, judging by the title, is based entirely on what was a DLC to the original game that explored Ellie’s backstory. I’m excited about this one… in a very masochistic way (honestly, the DLC left me sobbing). C’est parti!

I may have mentioned before, but I will again, how much I love the guitar introduction. I remember the game introduction being the same thing, though that might be my memory mixing things up (I do know it was guitar, and I’m reasonably certain it’s the same exact tune, but I’m open to being wrong.)

Winter proper. In the game, we open to a rabbit getting skewered by Ellie’s arrow. It’s probably for the best we don’t see that in the show.

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Endure and Survive: The Last of Us, Episode Five

Endure and Survive: The Last of Us, Episode Five

Good morning, Readers!

I have long been stressing about this episode, since Sam and Henry were introduced last episode. I know precisely how this is going to end, and I’m not looking forward to it at all… While also looking forward to it a great deal. We don’t have time to unpack that. Let’s get on with it all the same.

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