Author: JennyDetroit (Page 3 of 52)

“The Length of a Season”

November 24, 2025 /

So Stephen King said about how long it should take to write a rough draft for a novel.

I can’t begin to count how many times I’ve failed at this. I always take too long.

Before anyone starts in and says, “The story takes as long as it needs to take,” let me explain that while this may be a helpful maxim for other people, it is not for me.

I know because I’ve let novels take longer than the length of a season and always–always–it has hurt the project. I lose the heat. I lose the thread. I’m at a different place as a writer and my voice has subtly shifted.

Speaking with one of my students today, she had the exact same experience. She started a draft a few months ago but never wrote a proper ending. She added the ending recently, and she and I both agreed it lacked that certain oomph the earlier portions had. It didn’t have the same voice, the same energy. She’d taken “longer than a season.”

This happens to me constantly. I’m not saying this happens to everyone, nor that it necessarily happens to me all the time (I’ve had a few short stories where the break/pause ended up helping me work out something that was missing). But it happens to me often enough that I’ve got to actively fight against the fear and blockage that keeps me from riding the momentum of a project to its completion. Especially for novels. Both my interest and my ability to conceptualize the story dissipate the longer it takes me.

I want to get better at riding the wave. I have too many stories I want to write for things to linger on like this.

And thus my pact. My commitment. I will finish my next book in a season.

The Backstory:

I started writing a novel for my children earlier in the spring. They had brought home a book about dragons from the Scholastic book fair and it left me cold. Generic. Trite. Also, a bit too mature for my first and second graders.

I sprung into action and started writing a dragon fantasy novel using some of their ideas. I wanted it to be more in the tradition of books I remember loving as a kid. Something similar to the Prydain Chronicles, or Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.

This, remember, was in the spring. And now it’s late autumn and I’m on chapter seven. About ten thousand words in. Not very far. And much longer than King’s “season.”

Nevertheless, I will persist, and in the spirit of King’s advice (and my own inkling about how my creative process works), I intend to finish the novel before the end of this season (this season meaning November/December).

To do so means writing 50-60k in a month (so, sorta like the NaNoWriMos of old), which comes to roughly 1600 words per day. I’m not going to hold myself to a strict word count quota (another quirk of my creative process: as soon as word counts come into view, I get the hives); instead, I’m setting a time quota: sixty minutes per day in the writing studio. A bit more on weekends to make up for slow days.

I’ve already built up a tiny bit of momentum because I’ve been working on the book for the past week or so, but I need a more formal commitment to really push myself and write with more urgency and gusto. Not urgency in the panicked sense, but urgency in the sense that this story will be best served if I get it out into the world without delay. In delay there is doubt. There is that changing of voice and squandering of energy. Like my student realized: taking “time off” from the writing didn’t help it; it just made it flatten, like a tire leaking air.

Why do we take that time off? Is it really to make the piece “better”? Or is it fear, resistance, tension, doubt? It’s worry and perfectionism. It’s a defense mechanism. If we keep going, we might end up somewhere “bad.” We might flub it. We might not know where to go next and make a “wrong turn.”

But I would say the more harmful thing, from an emotional and intellectual standpoint, is to let a story idea taper off, to let a novel die on the vine, to never finish the piece. Losing the energy, wiping out from the wave: these are the bigger troubles. A tough, wild wave is easier to ride if you don’t intentionally jump out of it. Better to stay on and ride it out than to jump off and tread water, hoping for a new wave to come along.

I’m going to keep riding the wave. I’m excited, in fact. There’s a thrill here. A high-wire act (okay, now I’m mixing metaphors). But the idea that I can build my own momentum, that I can accelerate myself to the end of a novel: it’s exhilarating. It’s fun to think that in six weeks’ time I’ll have a rough draft novel to share with my children. I’m hoping this experiment shows me a new way of working, of approaching my creative projects. In the length of a season, I’ll have something new and complete.

Solo RPGing vs. RPG Prep

November 2, 2025 /

There are differences, of course. The end goal, for one. Solo role-playing is (often) not for any other purpose than to play the game, whereas prep is intended to facilitate a better group gaming experience at some future point. Unless the GM is going to make everything up on the spot by using improvisation and random tables, some prep is in order. Solo play is an end unto itself, but game prep is intended for future use at the group gaming table.

But on another level, these two RPG activities can be more similar than maybe we realize. Playing solo as a way to prep for a group game is somewhat more interesting and more ludic than what we’d categorize as “prep.” Prepping (i.e.: preparing) isn’t “playing;” it’s the antecedent to playing. Whereas solo play is just that: play. But it can help prepare a GM for the group game in an even deeper way than simple prep can. Solo play–because it involves participating in the game itself, as a PC, and interacting with the game world not just taking notes on it–creates a mental map and deeper immersion into the game world for the GM.

At least, that’s how it works for me. I find that I’m often more comfortable running a game for a module I’ve played through solo, or a hexcrawl I’ve interacted with in solo play, than I am with only prepping the adventure. This is the attraction of actual-play podcasts and youtube videos, I think. Not the Critical Role entertainment ones, but the normal groups and gamers playing a normal adventure without much editing or theatrics. We get to “play” the game alongside them and thus become better able to run the same adventure later for our own groups.

Admittedly, solo play is not the most efficient way to prep for a group gaming session. The players might not follow the same path as the GM did when playing solo. Solo play–through a module or hexcrawl or dungeon crawl–takes MUCH more time than simple “prepping” does. Traditionally, prepping for a game means reading the module or designing the dungeon or overland map (or both), coming up with encounters and NPCs, etc. It’s note-taking, essentially.

But solo play, while it involves bookkeeping and taking notes, is not a simple collating of material for the game to come. It IS the game. This takes more time, obviously. This involves rolling dice, having combats, imagining encounters, keeping track of character inventories and stats, etc. All of this may help prep for a future game, but it’s not efficient.

It is fun, though.

I sometimes struggle with prepping for games because the prep feels like homework. There’s a dutifulness to it that makes it the opposite of “play.” Play is exploratory; it’s done for its own sake; it doesn’t have any obligation attached.

Is there a way to meld solo play and game prep together? Can I find a way to “play” solo and prep at the same time, melding the immersion and fun of solo play with the more-efficient methods of game prep?

The biggest impediment is time. Solo play is simply not as efficient as game prep. I don’t have the time available to solo play every module or adventure I’m planning to run. And to fully prepare, especially if it’s a megadungeon, I would need to run multiple solo adventures, each time exploring a different section of the dungeon to make sure I’m ready for what my players might do when I run it for them. This is a massive time commitment. I’d be playing solo RPGs every night of my life for some of my games. Maybe that’s what I should do–maybe I’d even find it immensely fun–but I have a day job and a writing vocation and a family and a house to take care of. I don’t have time to devote that many hours to my RPG hobby without sacrificing other things that matter more.

Still. I’m curious to see if some compromise between play and prep might work. I often procrastinate game prep because it feels a little too work-like. A shift to something more playful might make it something to look forward to, something done for relaxation and enjoyment, not obligation.

How that shift might work is the tricky part, but perhaps I could vacillate between the two activities. Basically, game prep as usual until I get to a part that seems interesting or that I need to understand better, and then begin playing it out with my characters. Play out NPC encounters not as a way to predict what might happen with my group later, but as a way to better understand how the NPC would react in general, to get a better sense of their personality and goals. Play out combats to get a feel for how a monster might really react to hostilities and use its powers to survive. And solo play through a dungeon or level not as my only means of “prep,” but as a way to get an organic feel for the locations and how players might interact with the world.

Might is an important word here. Obviously, my choices as a solo player will not be the same as the choices of my gaming group. My solo play is only ONE possible path for the adventure to go.

But by running through one path, I’ll hopefully open up my imagination to other paths, and when the time comes to run it with other players, I’ll have a better imaginative landscape to call upon in adjudicating and describing what’s happening to their characters.

I’m not sure that solo play as a form of prep is the right call for every GM, but I do think it might work for me. When I ran Winter’s Daughter as a solo game, I felt much more connected to the setting and encounters. I understood how these rooms and encounters COULD go, and when I do eventually run the game for a group, even if they act in different ways than my characters, I’ll still have a deeper sense of how those actions should affect the game world. I’ll be able to describe the world to them in a more authentic way.

I don’t have to prep the whole adventure like this, obviously. I can dip into certain rooms or encounters that are complicated or more impactful to the module and play those out with my solo PCs. I can take notes and prep in my traditional way for other things. This will obviously take more time than just normal prepping, but what I’m hoping for is that I’ll be more eager to “prep” if I know that I’ll really be PLAYING as I go.

Just as players often enjoy making characters in their downtime between games, game masters enjoy playing out the adventures in their minds. Solo play is a way to formalize that process and familiarize oneself with game mechanics at the same time. These are games, after all. Playing is the whole point. Enjoyment, not obligation or work, is what matters.

Solo play as a form of prep may be the key to making the game-mastering experience a more playful and fulfilling one.

At least for me.

DCC Middle-Earth: Too Much Noodling?

October 28, 2025 /

I know I JUST posted something about my ideas for a homebrewed DCC-based Middle Earth role-playing game, but now I’m starting to doubt all my noodling and tinkering. Why use DCC’s rules and characters if I’m going to change so many mechanics? (Like combat/damage rules, etc.)

Better to stick with the DCC rules-set and add on a few things (still looking at a Pendragon-style Hope/Despair trait) but keeping the general mechanics as-is. Even though I like Cairn and Nimble 2e’s roll for damage and not to-hit mechanic, it just messes up too many other aspects of DCC that I DO like (like the Deed Die, Turning Evil, etc.).

The real alterations need to be in terms of setting-specific things, like patrons, spells, etc. And using another game’s overland travel rules to capture how important traveling is to the Middle-Earth experience.

But whether we roll to hit or just roll for damage or whatever feels less important. What matters in a Middle-Earth-specific DCC game is making it suited to MIDDLE-EARTH through flavor details, magic, etc., and not worrying about which OSR or NuSR-style mechanic I’ll be using for combat or ability checks.

I need to work on world-building for a Middle-Earth setting and stop trying to Frankenstein all my favorite mechanics into one game.

More Middle-Earth RPG Noodling

October 26, 2025 /

Making my Middle-Earth role-playing game heartbreaker using DCC RPG as the chassis and adding in various other elements from games like The One Ring, Nimble 2e, Dolmenwood, Shadowdark, MERP, Pendragon, and others has been both exhilarating and dispiriting, often in equal measures.

As I got deep into the weeds of character stats, magic systems, Luck/Hope/Despair mechanics, I was suddenly left wondering if maybe I should just learn The One Ring after all and call it a day. Why fight the system that everyone seems to agree “gets” Tolkien the best?

But my Middle-Earth RPG isn’t trying to capture TOLKIEN’s Middle-Earth; it’s trying to capture MY Middle-Earth: the one that I created as a kid via various versions including the Tolkien books, and cartoon movies, and other fantasy-related games, books, and media, and the aforementioned MERP, and my own ten-year-old imagination.

I want a Middle-Earth RPG that’s more 1960s “Frodo Lives” counter-culture and 1970s and 80s American fantasy publishing and Angus McBride MERP illustrations. That’s why I settled on DCC RPG as the main rule-set for my homebrew. DCC gives the right vibes of loose-goosey, pre-codified Dungeons and Dragons generic fantasy that feels right for how I imagine my own head-cannon Middle-Earth.

The One Ring, for all its virtues, is very much in line with the aesthetics and interpretation of Tolkien’s legendarium post-Jackson’s film trilogy. It’s got that WETA Workshop feeling–and listen, I love that WETA Workshop feeling! But I want something different for my homebrew game. I want something that takes me back to my kid days, when Middle-Earth wasn’t so “fixed” in everybody’s minds (including my own). It’s hard to describe this “kid-version” of Middle-Earth, but it was somehow more fluid, more malleable. My imagined Middle-Earth was more of a hodge-podge, and as good as the Peter Jackson films are, and as beautiful as Alan Lee’s and Ted Nasmith’s illustrations are, they aren’t my head-version of Middle-Earth.

Anyway, despite my frustrations, I don’t want to abandon my attempts. I’m a bit stuck on the Hope/Despair mechanic and how it will work. I want it to be similar to the Luck mechanic in DCC, but I’ve been toying with using Pendragon’s personality traits mechanic, where Hope and Despair are two opposed scores that add up to 20. If Hope is 10, Despair is 10; if Hope is 13, Despair is 7; etc.

But then what happens if a player spends Hope? Hope goes down, Despair goes up. This might disincentivize players from using Hope (a la Luck), which is one of my favorite DCC mechanics.

No. The Despair score needs to be something else.

This is where I thought maybe Despair might replace the DCC mechanic of Disapproval. Players start with Disapproval of 1, and it goes up by one point each time a character…what? Fails a Hope check? Falls unconscious? Hmm.

That’s the sticking point. In normal DCC, Disapproval goes up if a Cleric fails a spell check. But in my Middle-Earth homebrew, I’m considering getting rid of spell checks and using a mana point system for magic instead. So when does Disapproval/Despair go up?

This has led me back to Pendragon’s personality traits. Perhaps I keep DCC’s Luck mechanic as-is. Players can spend Luck and it works the same as the rules as written in DCC.

But in addition to Luck, there’s now a Hope/Despair trait. Players start with a base of 12 for Hope and 8 for Despair. They can make a Hope check right from the get-go in character creation, and if they roll under 12, they can add +1 to their Hope score.

Mechanically, players can ask for a Hope check at any time to help them on their journey. Maybe they need something really good to happen that can’t be covered by any other rule or mechanic, like they are in a tricky spot against an overwhelming number of goblins. They can ask to make a Hope check, and if it succeeds, then something good does happen–maybe a tunnel gets spotted that allows the party to escape the goblins, or one of the goblins gets too cocky and accidentally trips himself and several of his comrades. Maybe everyone in the party gets +2 to armor class or something during the fight. The player making the Hope check can decide in conversation with the GM. Later, after the session, they make a Hope check again, and a success means Hope goes up by one point (and Despair down by one).

But if the Hope roll during the game fails, then the player must put a check mark next to Despair, and at the end of the session, they make a Despair check, and success makes Despair go up (and Hope go down).

When Despair is higher than Hope, the player falls under the Shadow… not sure how this will work yet. Maybe I make this more of a role-playing thing and less mechanical. As Despair increases, the player must play their character as falling further and further under the sway of the Shadow, and that means they become more Denethor-like, or even Saruman-like. At some point, the PC might even reach a Despair of 19 or 20, in which case they might cease to be playable because they are too under the sway of the Dark Lord.

There’s also a possibility that Hope can get a check even without a player asking for a Hope roll. Maybe the GM can award a check for the party’s success in a difficult situation, and everyone can get a chance to increase their Hope. Similarly, Despair can also get a check when, let’s say, one of the party dies or is seriously injured without healing at the end of the adventure. PCs will have to make a Despair roll at the end of the session to make sure they aren’t overcome by the bad situation.

Maybe this is too swingy or fiddly, but if I make rising Despair into something that is more about role-playing and less about a mechanical disadvantage, then that might give players freedom to ask for Hope rolls during the game to advantage themselves, knowing that if Despair goes up, it’s more about the storytelling than about making their character less effective mechanically.

I’m also curious to try the Nimble 2e (and Cairn/Into the Odd’s) mechanic of only rolling for damage. This would mean hit points need to be slightly higher at first level, and I’m not sure I would use Nimble’s exploding crits mechanic (but I would keep its normal crit rule, where rolling the highest number on the die equals a crit and you can roll again and add to the total). I would keep Nimble’s rule of missing on a roll of 1 too.

I would also use Nimble’s armor class rule, where the AC is lower (normal AC score minus 8), and that’s what gets absorbed on a hit (but only when using Defend as a reaction, see below). Everything hits, basically, except a roll of 1.

Similarly, I would also keep Nimble’s action economy. Every PC gets three actions per round, and those can be used outside their turn as Reactions too (help, interpose, defend, opportunity attack). A PC could potentially attack three times in one round, but the second and third attacks are rolled with increasing disadvantage. Monsters would not get three actions; they would most likely get two actions (move and something else). The more dangerous the monster, the more actions they would get (using DCC’s action dice rules).

I think warriors and dwarves at higher levels will get more actions or special actions to make their classes special.

I would also steal Nimble’s magic system, where PCs would spend mana to cast instead of rolling. I feel like magic in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth rarely “fails.” I’ll keep the DCC spells, though (with a few subtractions… the ones that don’t fit the flavor of Middle-Earth).

My next big step in all this is to make a character sheet, come up with a starting occupations table that’s more Middle-Earth-centric (no gongfarmers, lol), and create the patron tables for Elbereth, Aule, Manwe, and Sauron. Then I gotta cut down the magic spells lists, figure out how to modify the DCC Annual’s Canticles rules to fit with Middle-Earth sensibilities, and playtest with some of my new rules (the Nimble combat and magic stuff, and the Hope/Despair mechanics especially).

I’m still teetering on the edge of my own despair (pun intended) that this homebrewed system won’t work or be worth the effort, but my hope hasn’t faded entirely yet. I think once I put some of these ideas into playtest, see how it goes, then perhaps I’ll feel better.

One may ask: “What’s the point of all this labor?” And I’m not sure I have a good answer. All I know is that I want to try it. I have an idea of playing in Middle-Earth, and I want something that keeps me in an OSR-space while also being a bit more Middle-Earthy than normal OSR DnD. For now, I’m still obsessed with making this homebrew, and despite my struggles, I’m still having fun.

“Rule 6: Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail. There’s only make.”

October 21, 2025 /

I want to believe this rule. I want to live and make art and teach within the bounds of this rule. Like a mantra, I want this rule to be a constant refrain within me.

But this is a hard teaching.

I want badly to win, whatever that will mean. Maybe it means more readers, or more money, or more accolades. Maybe it means being happy with my output, with the finished product.

Instead, I fail. I don’t get the readers, or the money, or the accolades. I am unhappy with my output, doubting its quality, hating it. The finished product is an embarrassment. A mistake.

But nothing is a mistake. Like Yoda, this rule is saying either make or don’t make. Those are the only two sides to the dichotomy. Those who make, make. Those who don’t make, don’t make.

Winning and failing are not the opposed forces. Making and not-making are the opposed forces.

It’s the fear of mistakes, of wrongness, of failure that keeps us from making.

This is against the Rule.

Failure is an illusion. As are mistakes.

There is only make.

If you make, you are making. If you don’t make, you are not making. This is the only choice. Everything else–everything–is outside of your control. It doesn’t even exist according to the Rule.

“Nothing is a mistake.” That means you can’t possibly make a mistake. Only Nothing is a mistake. Only not-making is a mistake. It’s a mistake because we are called to be makers, to be sub-creators. If we don’t make, if we let Nothing into the world, then we have ceded ground to the mistake. Only by making can we prevent the Nothing.

This is why there’s no win or fail. A different kind of rule would say, “If you make, you win.” But that’s not this rule. This rule isn’t false positivity. It isn’t false praise. The whole concept of winning, of making something that “wins,” is the thing that’s false.

Making has nothing to do with winning or losing. Making has to do with making. There is only make or not-make. The win/lose is a paradigm of competition. Making is not a competition. A lot can happen if we make, and a lot can’t happen if we don’t make, but winning or losing are not part of those options.

If we make, we add to the world. We imitate God.

If we don’t make, well, we don’t. We go along with our lives doing other things, I guess, but those things are not making.

Right now, I am making something. These words are my making. They can sometimes feel like a mistake. I can start to worry that I’ve failed. I can yearn for the “win,” the high praise, the big bucks (though this is unlikely to happen for a lowly blog post!). I can fear the failure, but none of this–the wish to win, the fear of failure, the worrying about mistakes–is part of the actual making. The making is me putting words to the page. The making is stringing sentences together into a whole. The making is the act of making, and that really does exist outside of win/lose, success/fail.

I am making right now. Each letter typed is an act of making. Good/bad, win/lose: these are not involved. The only thing that is happening right now is the making.

And when I’m done, I’ll have a choice. To make or not-make. If I choose not-making, if I choose nothing, then, yes, I have made a mistake.

But I wonder if it’s even possible to choose nothing. Every moment is a moment of making if you think about it in the right terms. Every moment involves thoughts and actions. Those are part of making. Making decisions, making breakfast, making a joke, making a smile. We cannot help but make.

So there’s no fear when I sit down at the computer or with my notebook. I’m already doing the making. The making is already happening.

I don’t need to worry about believing in this Rule. Believing in it has nothing to do with it. Winning, failing: those are immaterial. Those are beliefs. Whether they are false or true is outside of this Rule. I don’t need to believe in either of them.

I only need to make. And I’m already making.

A Lesson in Dependency

October 20, 2025 /

This morning, as I made ready to drive into work, I tried opening my Hoopla app. Error messages ensued. I tried again. More errors. I tried a third time. Errors all the way down.

I grew frustrated. I considered deleting and redownloading the app, but the clock was ticking on my commute (I was still in the driveway, mucking about with the broken Hoopla app). I gave up and drove in while listening to NPR. The Marketplace Morning Report is not my jam, but I made do. S&P 500, NASDAQ blah-dee-blah, trade wars with India now. I let the financial news wash over me, but I was not happy.

I’ve been listening to a really good audiobook lately, and my kids have finally started to groove to A Horse and His Boy.

Alas.

So I tried again on the drive home from work. No more error messages, but clicking the login button does nothing. Bupkis. I click again. Nada. This time, I DO delete the app and redownload it, and still, there is no signing in. Everything seems ready and right for signing in, but the actual signing in, the clicking of the signing in button results in no response. Username and password looking lovely in their little login fields, but clicking of “LOGIN” not so lovely.

I check to see if others are having this problem. They are. Posting on X, Hoopla even apologized for technical difficulties around seven hours ago. It is a known issue.

And yet, I tried the login again. Tried typing in the password instead of letting my autofiller do it. Tried Googling again for answers.

This was futile, and I knew it would be, and yet I did it anyway.

Why did I do it? Why was I still trying to open Hoopla when I knew it was down, by the company’s own confession? Why was I sitting in my car in the parking lot at work for a good solid five or so minutes when I knew none of my efforts would bear fruit? Why did I try again when I got home, sitting for another five minutes in the garage, trying to login and relogin in, and delete the app and redownload the app, the same non-response as before, the same inoperability?

By my own unscientific count, I’d spent a good fifteen minutes trying to get Hoopla to work today, and no, fifteen minutes isn’t a super-long time, but it’s still time–time I could have spent listening to an Audible book or podcast, time I could have spent listening to music, time I could have spent in silence or thought or deep contemplation or simply driving on the road and getting to work/home a little faster. I wasted that time on trying to troubleshoot the stupid app instead of moving on with my life and doing something else.

And even more, I wasted energy and thought and emotion on this trivial thing. So what if Hoopla’s not working today? It’s not like I don’t have a lot of other ways to occupy my mind on the commute. It’s not like I don’t have other ways of listening to audiobooks. I might not love Marketplace Morning Report, but now I know just a little bit more about farmers learning how to adapt to climate change by using more eco-friendly agricultural practices. That ain’t nothing. I have a wealth, a king’s ransom worth of books and music and media of all sorts in my house and in my classroom, and even my radio is a wealth of music and ideas and information, and yet here I was spending time and energy and emotion on worrying about Hoopla.

Would I be sad if Hoopla disappeared? 100%. I love how many audio and ebooks I’ve discovered through the app.

But it’s not like I don’t have access to audiobooks and ebooks and regular book-books in other ways. I’m whining to myself about Hoopla when twenty years ago I would have had none of this plethora of literary media to choose from.

And this is why digital technology of every stripe–electronic technology really–is so frustrating. We come to rely upon it, and when it doesn’t work, when it goes down, when the power is cut off or the system crashes, we’re lost.

I mean, we’re not literally lost, but we feel lost. Bereft. We mash buttons and refresh pages and unplug and replug and do all the other things that are supposed to solve the problem, and as we do, our frustration grows at being cut off from the formerly-instantaneous pleasure machine.

Think about what happens when the internet goes out. When the power dies in a wind storm. When the app crashes.

We growl and grumble and spend fifteen precious minutes of our day trying to get back on, hook back up, return to the smooth seamlessness of our former digital lives.

Even now, I’m writing a ranty blog post about it. The Hoopla app’s crash has infected even this moment of my life.

It’s all so silly. I know I’m wasting time worrying about it. And yet my response to these things is always, “There must be a way to fix it!” As if I have any power in this situation.

I am powerless. And it is this powerlessness that is worst of all. It’s why I spent all that time in my respective driveways. I was trying to regain power. To fix the thing.

But I can’t fix the thing. Apps and electrical power grids are not things I can fix. Internet outages and system malfunctions are not things I am equipped to handle. I need experts. I need people in far-off places, with more expertise, with a desire to help, to help me.

The crashing of the Hoopla app is a lesson in my own dependency.

Maybe that’s why I raged against it all day. To be confronted with my helplessness. To face a thing I couldn’t fix.

Because I’m a person who wants to fix things, and when I can’t fix something, I rebel. The world is wrong. There must be a way. I’ll figure it out. Just give me a minute. I’ll solve this.

But I can’t solve the Hoopla app’s malfunction. I can’t solve so many problems of my modern, digital life. All these things are beyond my control. I must rely upon the kindness of strangers.

I’m sure they’ll fix it. Eventually.

But until then, I’ll have to accept my own vulnerability and imperfection. And recognize there are some things in this world I cannot fix.

« Older posts Newer posts »

Original header artwork

Copyright 2015 Chloe Bensinger

Bookshop

I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org and I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

© 2026 Jennifer M. Baldwin

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑