The Wordsmith's Forge

 meeks has updated her status with more details and latest news about the crowdfunded illustrations.  Among other things, the "Tin Man" sketch is over the comment threshold so will get more work done on it.  I <3 Tin Man.

 moonvoice has created a new community for Australian gardeners, oz_native_gardening.  I'm boosting the signal because I have lots of friends down under, and well, my nattering on about midwest North American native gardening isn't going to do you folks any good at all.  Go talk to each other for local advice.  Then blog your pictures so the rest of us can enjoy too.

 This is a vivid and eloquent prayer, and it's part of a series.

 ... broken down into itty-bitty detail, with references.  Gotta love it.

lit_handyman shares a list of editorial peeves and advice to writers, based on anthology editing.  Some of this stuff is obvious, or should be, but some you may not have heard before.

I just saw a petition protesting a case where a mother lost custody of her children because she has cancer.  Now, this is outrageous and destructive to begin with, but I want to highlight something else.   It's a new iteration of treating people like they have no rights if they become ill or injured.  They're disposable; throw them away so they don't annoy the ables.  This is not to be tolerated.  Please help by signing the petition -- and watch for more examples of hogwash like this.  I'm having a tip-of-iceberg moment here.

meeksp made this lovely new icon for me.  This was a perk for making oodles of comments on her crowdfunded illustration sketches.  aldersprig has one too, a tree with green spirals.  So, now you can see examples of the goodies that meeksp hands out to project participants.  There's a drawing each week to choose someone for a new icon.

Torn World just posted a new adoptable character, Dlujan.  I designed him as partway between scientist and warsailor: he studies how to kill sea monsters as efficiently as possible.  He also has a close platonic friendship with my character Nleimen.

 With toy soldiers.

ellenmillion has posted another installment in the characterization how-to series.  This one focuses on what kind of stuff Northern characters do for a living.  The basics are "ranger" (working outside the village) and "domestic" (working in or near the village).  Beyond that there are many crafts and skills that people can specialize in.