new year

Mistress of Potions

/ Jim / Leave a comment
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Happy new year everyone.

To get 2022 off to a good start, I have a new entry over in Book Corner.

Mistress of Potions is a short story I wrote some time ago. It was intended to be part of a series of short stories set in the mystical world of Calindraal. As can sometimes happen, life had other ideas and the project never really got off the ground. Mistress is the only story that was ever written…for now that is. I may find myself revisiting the lands of Calindraal.

Reflections and Resolutions

/ Jim / Leave a comment

Greetings all,

I hope you all had a wonderful Chranukwanzadan.
This one was very special for me as it was the first one I have been able to spend with my family since 2004. As I sit and contemplate this, I find myself looking at the coming new year with a new perspective. In recent years, around this time, I’ve faced the new year with trepidation and dread. As you all know, 2010 was not exactly a good year for me and coming into 2011 was daunting to say the least. If you had told me a year ago that I would be not only back home engaged to my school crush, I would have laughed in your face. Yet here I am, happy as can be.
So this year instead of the normal resolutions I’ve decided to give something back. Recently I became aware of the charity ICAN. This is a charity that helps children with communication problems. They say it better than I could so:

We are the children’s communication charity. I CAN’s mission is to ensure that no child who struggles to communicate is left out or left behind. Our vision is a world where all children and young people who struggle to communicate receive the help they need so that they can have a happy childhood, make progress at school and thrive as adults.

I grew up with (and still have) speech problems. It would have been fantastic to have had the support of a group like this. So this new years resolution is to support these guys. My first pledge is to donate to the Adopt A Word program.


Now I know this might look like a token effort so I have something larger up my sleeve to raise money. I can’t go into too much detail just yet as it’s all in the initial stages. Let’s just say it will involve facing quite a few of my fears at one time. Not spiders though…that’s just not going to happen…EVER!!

So what have you wonderful people decided to do this year?