What’s the most money you’ve ever spent on a meal? Was it worth it? The leather-bound ledger lay open on my writing desk, its pages bearing witness to five decades of careful financial records. My finger traced down the column marked “Exceptional Expenses,” pausing at an entry that still made me smile despite the passage Continue reading

Scour the news for an entirely uninteresting story. Consider how it connects to your life. Write about that. The news scroll had been waiting on my workbench when I arrived at the Municipal Enchantment Workshop that morning, its official seal still warm from the courier’s urgent delivery. I unrolled the parchment with calloused fingers that Continue reading

List 30 things that make you happy. The letter had arrived with the morning post, its formal seal and academic parchment marking it as correspondence from the Lumenvale Institute of Philosophical Studies. Master Cornelius Brightquill had requested—with the polite insistence that scholarly institutions wielded like finely crafted weapons—that I contribute to their upcoming symposium on Continue reading