Music Monday: Once More, into D&D

It is true, what the memes say, that one of the worst of the big bads in Dungeons and Dragons when you play as an adult is scheduling. Take the schedules of 6-8 grown humans and try to make them fit into a single weekend day where everyone is available and let me know what you come up with, please?

Pure chaos, that's what you will come up with...but somehow, my group (Lorem Ipsum) seems to manage even when it has been several months between sessions. So today's Music Monday is for them...and for Barb, DK, Annet, Sloane, Rei, Widow, and Maera, our characters who were left in a pretty precarious situation yesterday. Huzzah! Chaotic Social Worker Wombat Wranglers Assemble! (It's cooler than it sounds, I promise.)

[Verse 1]Stuck in a dungeon, no gold to my name,

Kobolds in my face, and the cleric’s effing lame.

Spellbook’s heavy, but my heart’s full of spite,

Gonna light this crypt up with some arcane dynamite!

I’m no apprentice, I’m a wizard supreme,

Forget your lame ass healing potions, I’m living the dream.

One somatic gesture, and the whole room’s toast,

Fireball’s my baby, let’s burn down the coast!

[Pre-Chorus]

No more sneaking, rogue, put your daggers away,

This ain’t a stealth mission, it’s a blaze of glory day!

Point and shoot, let the flames run wild,

Fireball’s the spell that makes the DM cry!

[Chorus]

Fireball, let it rip, watch the whole place fry!

8 D 6 damage, kiss those minions goodbye!

Boom, crash, burn, let the chaos ignite,

Fireball, Fireball, we’re exploding tonight!

Scorch the beholder, roast the troll’s ugly mug,

Bard’s on fire, guess he shouldn’t have shrugged!

Raise your staff, let the inferno fly,

Fireball, Fireball, watching everybody die!

[Verse 2]

Party’s screaming, “Aim it somewhere else, you dick!”

But I’m laughing like a lich as the flames start to lick.

Fighter’s got plate mail, but it’s melting to slag,

“Sorry, bro, you’re crispy—blame my spell slot brag!”

Forget your Eldritch Blast, that’s warlock trash,

Ice Knife’s for hipsters, and Thunderwave’s a rash.

Fireball’s the king, it’s the wizard’s true jam,

One bad reflex save, and you’re ash in a can!

[Pre-Chorus]

No counterspell’s touching this, I’m a magical god,

Arcane focus my power, prepare to be awed

From the Underdark to the tavern’s front door,

Fireball’s the reason we keep settling scores!

[Chorus]

Fireball, let it rip, watch the whole place fry!

8 D 6 damage, kiss your minions goodbye!

Boom, crash, burn, let the chaos ignite,

Fireball, Fireball, we’re exploding tonight!

Scorch the beholder, roast the troll’s ugly mug,

Bard’s on fire, guess he shouldn’t have shrugged!

Raise your staff, let the inferno fly,

Fireball, Fireball, watch the hit points die!

[Bridge]

Roll, roll, roll those dice, let the damage stack!

Paladin’s praying, but his god ain’t got his back!

Cast, cast, cast, no regrets, full send!

“Sorry, Druid, your treant’s kindling—make amends!”

You’re not just a caster, you’re a walking apocalypse,

Turning goblins to charcoal with a flick of your wrist!

So crank the volume, let the table go mad,

Fireball’s the spell that makes the whole campaign sad!

[Final Chorus]

Fireball, let it rip, watch the whole place fry!

8 D 6 damage, kiss your minions goodbye!

Boom, crash, burn, let the chaos ignite,

Fireball, Fireball, we’re exploding tonight!

Nuke the mind flayer, torch the lich’s whole vibe,

DM’s screaming, “My plotline won’t survive!”

Raise your staff, let the inferno fly,

Fireball, Fireball, watch the hit points die!

Another Day, Another Scammy Email

Here's a quick non-musical post to follow up on the last one about receiving scammy emails. There are two kinds, in my opinion, and the last post was in the "I've never read the books I'm writing you about." This one is similar. 

The other category is "I can legit do something for you as an author but you have to pay me loads of money that you shouldn't have to pay under normal circumstances." I will get to that one in a minute.

Over the weekend while at a book signing event, I received another of the first category of scams. It was pretty obvious from the subject line: Podcast & Radio Opportunities for "My Name Is Resolute: A Novel by the Author of Sarah's Quilt " This Quarter Nancy E. Dunne, Writer

What? I haven't written anything with a title even close to that, and normally I would just delete it (bye bye, AI!) but my curiosity got the better of me. After all, who of us hasn't sent an email to the wrong recipient? No? Just me? Cool, cool.

So I read on as my email program previews the first bits of it and the first paragraph contained this line: "Hello Nancy E. Dunne, Writer

I don’t reach out often like this, butcHers To Keep genuinely "My Name Is Resolute: A Novel by the Author of Sarah's Quilt" 

What?

So I'm sorry, Ava Holmes, Author & Media Outreach Consultant, Podcast & FM Radio Interview Placement, Helping authors connect with engaged listeners beyond social media, but maybe next time use a better AI to type your clearly mass-sent email? Yeesh.

Now, on to the other type that requires a lot of money...usually I can see these coming a mile away, but for the most recent one I was genuinely taken in and it hurt my feelings a little bit, if I'm honest, to realize what was happening with that email.

The subject line looked like something I would have written (which should have been a clue, I guess): Rift — One of the best books I’ve read in a looong time. Now, I'm sure for authors with huge followings these emails come all the time. Not for me. I'm lucky if I have three readers that might react to one of my books like this (and I know which three by name), so I started off thinking this had to be a scam.

Was it written by AI? No idea. The email read like it came from a real person who was able to pass my normal Is This AI tests as though she had read the book. She went on to describe the service she provides--book trailers--and even sent me a mock up sample of a script and an audio of said script. Her signature even included how much she loved my storytelling. Oof.

Listening to that audio left me in tears, I will admit. At a book event last summer I met a young man who has a podcast focused on supporting indie authors by performing an audio selection of their books--I wrote about that here and it can still be found by searching The Wandering Tavern wherever you get your podcasts. It was real. My words, read by someone else. So this hit me right in those feels again.

However, I kept enough of my wits about me to ask a very important question (after I found out the price for such a production, which was out of my budget and clued me in that something was up here): how much AI is used to produce these trailers because I am against using AI voices instead of real human voice actors. She assured me that even though the snippet she'd sent me was an AI voice, that was a choice the author could make. If you preferred a human voice actor instead, that could be arranged.

Finally, I asked if the project could be put on hold because I wasn't able to afford the price she quoted. SURE, she said, but then went on to offer me discounts on doing both Rift and Storm and using voice actors and OHHHHHH but she loved the books so much she was already coming up with ideas for compelling trailers in her head and SOOOO excited to get to work on them.

No. I just didn't answer any of those things and said no, I couldn't do that right now, but thank you for sending the scripts and the audio file and have a good day. No response. Here's where the hurt feelings come in--I wanted it to be real. I wanted her to write back and say she understood or hoped that there would be a third Arcstone book or something. Crickets. Of course, because it wasn't real.

Indie published and self published authors, stay frosty when you open emails. The AI is getting better. The "promoters" are becoming smarter. But at the end of the day, the only people that will promote our work is us...and those three readers of mine. I wish I had a happy ending involving massive real engagement or a movie/TV option, but I don't. The former is a work in progress and the latter would be a scam anyway.

Back to work on the WIP.

Music Monday: Generational Wars

Quick one today...I saw this in a meme on social media and I've internalized it now so...Congrats, Gen Alpha. You poked the GenX bear and here we go. 

(8, 8, I FORGET WHAT 8 WAS FOR is the answer to 6 7.)

Music Monday: What Dreams May...Be Wild

Back to the beginning here...we didn't lose power during the storm, and we've had another one since then--just snow this time--and during all this time with nowhere to go and plenty of time to write...I haven't.

By write, I mean put words on a page. I have, though, had some of the craziest dreams and I've been taking notes and I may have a second book in the steampunk adjacent series in the bare bones stage. It's the wildest dreams phase.

This song first came to my attention on what I lovingly call the clock app, in a series of videos describing the MMC in a rom com, but even though I don't write those I can use the descriptions from the videos and the general feel of the song. Hang on, Elys and Hack, your story is developing.