Sometimes it is difficult for the untrained eye to spot the difference between a working writer and a lazy slacker. I'll admit that there are certain similarities, so I'm all too willing to forgive the error. I have a lot of conversations that go a lot like this:
Her: What are you doing?
Me: Writing.
Her: You're playing Facebook games.
Me: It's all part of The Process.
Her: Are you sure?
Me: I'm sure.
Time passes.
Her: What are you doing now?
Me: Writing.
Her: You're watching Farscape!
Me: If you already knew what I was doing why did you bother to ask?
More time passes.
Me: Before you ask, yes I'm writing.
Her: You're getting drunk.
Me: It's part of The Process.
Her: Are you sure?
Me: It is crazy, how sure I am!
So there it is.
Can you, Dear Reader, spot the differences? No? To be honest ... some days, neither can I. There's definitely something to be said for keeping the conscious mind occupied while letting the 'boys in the basement' (to pilfer a line from Stephen King) do their work. I personally find that some level of distraction and refocusing is absolutely necessary to do creative work. I hear that Neil Gaiman likes to go for long drives. Jennifer Pelland does belly dancing (and she does it quite well.) And it is crazy how many authors like to get blasted out of their minds on the controlled substance of their choice.
But on the other side of the keyboard, there are countless authors who fritter away their days goofing off, waiting for the muse who never comes, and building social empires out of Twitter accounts. Most of these authors don't get enough written. And I, Dear Reader, am very much one of Those Authors. There are many different jobs that a writer needs to get done. Some of them require some goof off time, many others require a whole lot of focus, dedication, and time in chair. For every hour I spend day dreaming about plot, I need to put in 6 more on writing and 20 more into editing.
Creating plot is the fun part for me; it's the bold and exciting part of any project where there are no wrong answers and everything is possible. Then there's the nuts and bolts writing, worrying about word choice, timing, continuity, style, and character. And then comes the dreaded editing. Punctuation, spelling, grammar, typographical errors, and all the other hobgoblins of good writing are the anchor that drags me down.
Which just makes it all the more exciting when I flex my mighty metaphorical thews and stand proud, lifting the anchor above my head and howling the author's fierce victory cry, "The End!" Somewhere between the slacker gazing out the window and the head's down keyboard cowboy, I get my best work done.
None of this is easy on my writing partners, most of whom have much, much better working habits than I do. Through clever planning and unearned audacity, I have multiple deadlines all converging right about ... now. Feverish typing at 3 in the morning has become pretty normal for me, and my collaborators are probably getting equally used to seeing my latest work first thing in the morning. I hope that working with me is rewarding on some level, because it surely frustrates on more than one.
For those of you out there looking forward to the final session of Serendipity Station and Feast of the Minotaur at Intercon L, please say nice things to my co-writers about how patient and considerate they have been. For those of you patiently waiting for my next interactive smart phone app and novel, that is still a way's off... For those patiently waiting for my next blog posting, here it is! How do you like it so far?
It has been said that writers wear many hats, the mind set, skill set, and temperament required for getting a rough draft out of your brain and onto the computer screen is entirely different from the hats you have to wear during later phases of any literary project. Switching gears is very hard for me, and I'm sure it's just as challenging for most other writers. But the rewards are pretty great so I'll keep doing it as long as I can. Because, frankly, I suck even worse at most everything else.
President's Day 1/20/2012
Chelmsford, MA
Showing posts with label Intercon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Intercon. Show all posts
Saturday, 18 February 2012
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
Putting things off, one thing at a time
If I have one true gift in this world it is procrastination. I'll put my putting-things-off skills against any and all comers. I'm so good at procrastinating, I can even get behind schedule on my Facebook games. Don't try this at home, kids. And definitely don't try it at work or you'll be having some unfriendly conversations with your supervisor.
As evidence of my prodigious skills, I am actually procrastinating on six different projects at the very same time. I'm currently blowing off writing two live action games, an iPhone application, and a novel. I'm failing to play test another app and not getting much marketing done on yet a third (except the last two are both mostly the same). To round out my list, I'm behind schedule on marketing the novel that put me near the map.
What am I doing? Besides watching Farscape re-runs, reading back issues of X-Factor digital comics, and playing Castleville on Facebook, that is? Well, at least I'm writing this blog. In fact, I am about to check one of my longest over due commitments off my to-do list. Yes, Dear Reader (and to you especially, Mr. Smith) I am pleased (and somewhat surprised) to announce my long-awaited thoughts on Once Upon a Time in Tombstone.
For those who came in late or just don't remember anything from last year, Tombstone was a live action game I played down in Maryland back in October 2011. It was a big deal for me because, unlike most games I'm playing these days, Tombstone was a weekend-long game. I love the three day form, it offers more complicated stories and more time for character development without the commitment of a full campaign.
I also think that more people are willing to go for the epic fail and a glorious public demise in a weekend than they are in either a campaign or a shorter game. I'm a big fan of character loss in live action games. There's a difference between the player winning and the character winning. One of these days I'd like to see a villain's character sheet that plainly states the character's goal is to get caught by the good guys for the opportunity to give a 'This is how I did it' speech. I love giving those speeches. And there's nothing like being the guest of honor at a hanging to get the whole game to pay attention to you for a minute or two.
Which brings us back to Tombstone. I knew from the start my character was going to come to a sticky end on Sunday afternoon. The character sheet that I had received weeks before made that much clear. It's wonderfully freeing to know the time of your own demise. For example, I knew that no matter how much of a bastard I was all day Friday and Saturday, I was invulnerable. They couldn't kill my character because I was fated for that on Sunday sometime after High Noon. The worst they could do to me was try to throw me in jail. And did I mention that my utter bastard of a character was also the Tombstone County Sheriff? The Game Masters were very, very good to me and I thank them for that.
So while the majority of the game was scrambling around trying to solve mysteries, mend broken romances, discover hidden identities, and avenge themselves on the man who shot their Pa, I was able to wander through it all with a smug smile on my face and a song in my black heart. I drawled venomous honey in equal measure at the lawmen who wanted me in jail and the outlaws who wanted me dead. It was great fun being a man in the middle. My character wasn't as bad as the bandits who terrorized Tombstone, but he was blackmailing and bullying his business partners, smuggling rotgut hooch to the Indians, swindling half the town with a bogus silver claim, and tricking a Russian millionaire into thinking he had shot an Indian for sport (yeah, we stole it from Maverick, that's part of why it was so much fun). And there might have been some dark secrets in my past about conspiracy to murder the previous Sheriff (Tom Destry, Sr.) and frame his best friend (Washington Dimsdale) for the deed. I was a bad, bad man. My character was an amalgamation of Bill Cobb from Silverado and Behan from Tombstone. This was a choice villain and the game's meta-mechanics allowed me to ham it up without fear of wrecking anyone else's game or prematurely ending my own.
The writers also had a nice mechanic to represent the endless vistas and ranges that are the staple of many a Western. A good-sized function room was devoted to County Land. Two dozen different parcels of land were represented by masking tape boundaries and printed signs. A pile of chairs and a long table in the back corner comprised the bandits' secret hideout. I went there once or twice in character, but my Sheriff really didn't get along very well with the bandits. I did manage to score a few hundred dollars by offering to suppress some wanted notices, but that was mostly just for fun. The real money was in crooked railroad deals and duping Russian millionaires.
There was so much going on in the game that I was barely aware of 80% of the plots. The continuous hustle and bustle of the bulk of the players was a fantastic back drop to my own triumphs and tragedies. A good game provides its own dramatic canvas the same way a good novel does.
More or less smack-dab in the middle of all of this criminal fun was the big poker game of Saturday night. I'm always seriously ambivalent about any kind of game-within-a-game mechanic in live action. Even if it's my favorite game in the world, it still drops a player out of the action and steals valuable plot and role play time, not to mention the havoc it can cause other players whose plots are hung up until they can talk to your character. I am pleased to say that the poker mechanics worked unusually well for me in Tombstone.
First off, the mechanic for playing poker was mostly 'play poker.' This may sound like a no-brainer but you'd be surprised. A big part of the appeal to live action games is being able to feel like you're doing something you can't do very well in real life. Between that and the lamentable fact that it takes a long time to finish a game of poker, a lot of game writers choose to either dramatically simplify the game rules or replace it with an entirely different mechanic. Tombstone chose a middle road; they gave limited-use game powers that could improve a hand but the basic betting, bidding, and bluffing was pure poker.
The other thing I really liked about playing cards for an hour or two was the table talk mechanic. Some characters had special abilities that forced other players to reveal secrets, motivations, and knowledge across the table. I didn't have any of the abilities, but I sure had my share of juicy secrets. Being forced to reveal my nefarious plans was a big surprise, but I was comforted by the knowledge that I couldn't die before my time and that - as Sheriff - I was all but immune to jail time as well. What were they going to do to me? Nothing, that's what. Much like the movie villains I was inspired by, I swaggered boldly through a town full of people who knew I was dirty but couldn't touch me. This was live action gold, Dear Reader.
I eventually went bust in the poker tournament, which was just fine with me, I was ready to go back and mingle some more. Besides, all the people who knew the details of my dirty dealings were still 'trapped' in the poker game. Can I get a good old-fashioned villainous laugh? Mwah Ha Hah and so forth.
Sunday morning brought me to my last hurrah, and quite a hurrah it was. I got to lounge around in the street outside the Shootout at the OK Corral, I got to gloat about having managed to purchase the most valuable parcel of land in the entire game, and got to drawl yet another vaguely creepy threat to my business partner, flashing my smug and toothy smile all the while. For maximum drama, it was important to hold up my 'nothing can touch me' attitude right up until the last moment.
That last moment came when a combined posse of the Earp Brothers, Tom Destry, Jr., Sheriff Washington Dimsdale and a disguised (and mostly reformed) Jesse James came to call me to task for my crimes. I leapt to my feet and drew my trusty six-gun. And Destry shot the gun out of my hand. Well that simply wouldn't do! But fortunately I had a second gun which I promptly drew. And Wyatt Earp shot the gun out of my other hand. Golly, this was getting old fast. As luck would have it, my occasional partner in crime, Johnny Ringo was in the crowd and he managed to throw me his spare gun without anyone noticing (in character, anyway). I deftly caught Ringo's shooting iron (in character anyway) and pulled it up, ready to shoot good ol' Dimsdale the reformed-and-lovable town drunk right in the heart. And Doc Holiday shot the gun out of my hand.
Moments like this are why I play these games. If I'm going to lose, this is the way I want it to be! They took away my County Sheriff's badge and threw me in my own jail. The writers of Tombstone had cleverly put the jail cell right in the center of game space, so lots of people came by to talk to me and to ask me what I was doing in my own jail cell. And I, in classic hammy villainous tradition, got to wax on about how I was going to get the no-good-do-gooders who did this to me.
I got my trial in a speedy fashion. The good guys wanted to convict me of killing the previous Sheriff, but the writers had made me too wily and they couldn't pin it on me. The only crime they could prove was my old smuggling hooch to the local Indians operation. Fortunately for justice's sake, Judge Roy Bean had no qualms at all about sentencing me to hang for hooch smuggling; an elegant solution to the lack of murder evidence, we all thought.
And so we come to my hanging time and my brief minutes of undivided attention. I stood on a chair and held the noose in my hands. Sadly, the length of twine that served as noose prop was way too small to go over my big fat head, but there is an amusing picture of me wearing it like a tiara somewhere on Facebook. I ranted. I gloated. I confessed to everything and I cursed the men who had brought me down. In short, Dear Reader, I was in my glory. Losing is a lot of fun when you do it right.
My story may have been over, but the rest of the game wasn't. I did a quick and dirty costume change and hung around game space as Generic Townsfolk and watched the inevitable and over-the-top gunfights, duels, and knife fights that comprised a large chunk of the game's dramatic conclusions. There was plenty of steely-eyed staredowns, mustache twitches, bluster and bravado followed by a whole lot of shooting and at least one harmonica solo. In short, it was epic. Thanks once again to the writers, game masters, assistants, and players who worked and played together for one magical weekend, once upon a time ... in Tombstone.
And now I think I have procrastinated enough for one evening. It's high time I got back to writing Feast of the Minotaur for Intercon L. Or maybe I'll watch a little more Farscape first ... ?
Chelmsford, MA
February 1, 2012
As evidence of my prodigious skills, I am actually procrastinating on six different projects at the very same time. I'm currently blowing off writing two live action games, an iPhone application, and a novel. I'm failing to play test another app and not getting much marketing done on yet a third (except the last two are both mostly the same). To round out my list, I'm behind schedule on marketing the novel that put me near the map.
What am I doing? Besides watching Farscape re-runs, reading back issues of X-Factor digital comics, and playing Castleville on Facebook, that is? Well, at least I'm writing this blog. In fact, I am about to check one of my longest over due commitments off my to-do list. Yes, Dear Reader (and to you especially, Mr. Smith) I am pleased (and somewhat surprised) to announce my long-awaited thoughts on Once Upon a Time in Tombstone.
For those who came in late or just don't remember anything from last year, Tombstone was a live action game I played down in Maryland back in October 2011. It was a big deal for me because, unlike most games I'm playing these days, Tombstone was a weekend-long game. I love the three day form, it offers more complicated stories and more time for character development without the commitment of a full campaign.
I also think that more people are willing to go for the epic fail and a glorious public demise in a weekend than they are in either a campaign or a shorter game. I'm a big fan of character loss in live action games. There's a difference between the player winning and the character winning. One of these days I'd like to see a villain's character sheet that plainly states the character's goal is to get caught by the good guys for the opportunity to give a 'This is how I did it' speech. I love giving those speeches. And there's nothing like being the guest of honor at a hanging to get the whole game to pay attention to you for a minute or two.
Which brings us back to Tombstone. I knew from the start my character was going to come to a sticky end on Sunday afternoon. The character sheet that I had received weeks before made that much clear. It's wonderfully freeing to know the time of your own demise. For example, I knew that no matter how much of a bastard I was all day Friday and Saturday, I was invulnerable. They couldn't kill my character because I was fated for that on Sunday sometime after High Noon. The worst they could do to me was try to throw me in jail. And did I mention that my utter bastard of a character was also the Tombstone County Sheriff? The Game Masters were very, very good to me and I thank them for that.
So while the majority of the game was scrambling around trying to solve mysteries, mend broken romances, discover hidden identities, and avenge themselves on the man who shot their Pa, I was able to wander through it all with a smug smile on my face and a song in my black heart. I drawled venomous honey in equal measure at the lawmen who wanted me in jail and the outlaws who wanted me dead. It was great fun being a man in the middle. My character wasn't as bad as the bandits who terrorized Tombstone, but he was blackmailing and bullying his business partners, smuggling rotgut hooch to the Indians, swindling half the town with a bogus silver claim, and tricking a Russian millionaire into thinking he had shot an Indian for sport (yeah, we stole it from Maverick, that's part of why it was so much fun). And there might have been some dark secrets in my past about conspiracy to murder the previous Sheriff (Tom Destry, Sr.) and frame his best friend (Washington Dimsdale) for the deed. I was a bad, bad man. My character was an amalgamation of Bill Cobb from Silverado and Behan from Tombstone. This was a choice villain and the game's meta-mechanics allowed me to ham it up without fear of wrecking anyone else's game or prematurely ending my own.
The writers also had a nice mechanic to represent the endless vistas and ranges that are the staple of many a Western. A good-sized function room was devoted to County Land. Two dozen different parcels of land were represented by masking tape boundaries and printed signs. A pile of chairs and a long table in the back corner comprised the bandits' secret hideout. I went there once or twice in character, but my Sheriff really didn't get along very well with the bandits. I did manage to score a few hundred dollars by offering to suppress some wanted notices, but that was mostly just for fun. The real money was in crooked railroad deals and duping Russian millionaires.
There was so much going on in the game that I was barely aware of 80% of the plots. The continuous hustle and bustle of the bulk of the players was a fantastic back drop to my own triumphs and tragedies. A good game provides its own dramatic canvas the same way a good novel does.
More or less smack-dab in the middle of all of this criminal fun was the big poker game of Saturday night. I'm always seriously ambivalent about any kind of game-within-a-game mechanic in live action. Even if it's my favorite game in the world, it still drops a player out of the action and steals valuable plot and role play time, not to mention the havoc it can cause other players whose plots are hung up until they can talk to your character. I am pleased to say that the poker mechanics worked unusually well for me in Tombstone.
First off, the mechanic for playing poker was mostly 'play poker.' This may sound like a no-brainer but you'd be surprised. A big part of the appeal to live action games is being able to feel like you're doing something you can't do very well in real life. Between that and the lamentable fact that it takes a long time to finish a game of poker, a lot of game writers choose to either dramatically simplify the game rules or replace it with an entirely different mechanic. Tombstone chose a middle road; they gave limited-use game powers that could improve a hand but the basic betting, bidding, and bluffing was pure poker.
The other thing I really liked about playing cards for an hour or two was the table talk mechanic. Some characters had special abilities that forced other players to reveal secrets, motivations, and knowledge across the table. I didn't have any of the abilities, but I sure had my share of juicy secrets. Being forced to reveal my nefarious plans was a big surprise, but I was comforted by the knowledge that I couldn't die before my time and that - as Sheriff - I was all but immune to jail time as well. What were they going to do to me? Nothing, that's what. Much like the movie villains I was inspired by, I swaggered boldly through a town full of people who knew I was dirty but couldn't touch me. This was live action gold, Dear Reader.
I eventually went bust in the poker tournament, which was just fine with me, I was ready to go back and mingle some more. Besides, all the people who knew the details of my dirty dealings were still 'trapped' in the poker game. Can I get a good old-fashioned villainous laugh? Mwah Ha Hah and so forth.
Sunday morning brought me to my last hurrah, and quite a hurrah it was. I got to lounge around in the street outside the Shootout at the OK Corral, I got to gloat about having managed to purchase the most valuable parcel of land in the entire game, and got to drawl yet another vaguely creepy threat to my business partner, flashing my smug and toothy smile all the while. For maximum drama, it was important to hold up my 'nothing can touch me' attitude right up until the last moment.
That last moment came when a combined posse of the Earp Brothers, Tom Destry, Jr., Sheriff Washington Dimsdale and a disguised (and mostly reformed) Jesse James came to call me to task for my crimes. I leapt to my feet and drew my trusty six-gun. And Destry shot the gun out of my hand. Well that simply wouldn't do! But fortunately I had a second gun which I promptly drew. And Wyatt Earp shot the gun out of my other hand. Golly, this was getting old fast. As luck would have it, my occasional partner in crime, Johnny Ringo was in the crowd and he managed to throw me his spare gun without anyone noticing (in character, anyway). I deftly caught Ringo's shooting iron (in character anyway) and pulled it up, ready to shoot good ol' Dimsdale the reformed-and-lovable town drunk right in the heart. And Doc Holiday shot the gun out of my hand.
Moments like this are why I play these games. If I'm going to lose, this is the way I want it to be! They took away my County Sheriff's badge and threw me in my own jail. The writers of Tombstone had cleverly put the jail cell right in the center of game space, so lots of people came by to talk to me and to ask me what I was doing in my own jail cell. And I, in classic hammy villainous tradition, got to wax on about how I was going to get the no-good-do-gooders who did this to me.
I got my trial in a speedy fashion. The good guys wanted to convict me of killing the previous Sheriff, but the writers had made me too wily and they couldn't pin it on me. The only crime they could prove was my old smuggling hooch to the local Indians operation. Fortunately for justice's sake, Judge Roy Bean had no qualms at all about sentencing me to hang for hooch smuggling; an elegant solution to the lack of murder evidence, we all thought.
And so we come to my hanging time and my brief minutes of undivided attention. I stood on a chair and held the noose in my hands. Sadly, the length of twine that served as noose prop was way too small to go over my big fat head, but there is an amusing picture of me wearing it like a tiara somewhere on Facebook. I ranted. I gloated. I confessed to everything and I cursed the men who had brought me down. In short, Dear Reader, I was in my glory. Losing is a lot of fun when you do it right.
My story may have been over, but the rest of the game wasn't. I did a quick and dirty costume change and hung around game space as Generic Townsfolk and watched the inevitable and over-the-top gunfights, duels, and knife fights that comprised a large chunk of the game's dramatic conclusions. There was plenty of steely-eyed staredowns, mustache twitches, bluster and bravado followed by a whole lot of shooting and at least one harmonica solo. In short, it was epic. Thanks once again to the writers, game masters, assistants, and players who worked and played together for one magical weekend, once upon a time ... in Tombstone.
And now I think I have procrastinated enough for one evening. It's high time I got back to writing Feast of the Minotaur for Intercon L. Or maybe I'll watch a little more Farscape first ... ?
Chelmsford, MA
February 1, 2012
Wednesday, 12 October 2011
Who he is and how he came to be!
Hello and welcome to a ongoing and poorly organized tour of my brain.
When I'm not writing novels or goofing off, I'm writing LARPs. LARP is a very silly acronym for Live Action Role Playing game. Which basically means dressing up, walking and talking while you're playing role playing games. It's great fun and absorbs all of my spare time, money and sanity. I'm currently involved in two live action role playing games, www.SerendipityStation.org which is an ongoing campaign and Feast of the Minotaur which is scheduled to run at http://www.interactiveliterature.org/L/. I'm collaborating on both projects with other very talented creators and I'm lucky to be able to work with them.
I'm currently in the process of publishing my first novel, Monday and the Murdered Man. My previously published interactive story, Verdigris, is available from the Apple iTune store. http://www.verdigris-tales.com/. I also just wrapped up a successful project at www.kickstarter.com to fund a print run of Monday and the Murdered Man. If you come to this blog by way of any of those links, welcome! If you just happened along, you're even more welcome! I'm glad to have you along and reading.
While I will talk a lot about the writing and publishing process in this blog, it's not going to be my primary subject. There are lots and lots of fantastic blogs that already cover these subjects in depth, and I'll certainly be talking about some of my favorites going forward. (http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/ is a must-read for all aspiring author/publishers) I'll also be talking about board games and role playing games that catch my fancy, as well as other diversions I enjoy ranging from television, movies, coffee, books, comics, web comics and anything shiny that catches my eye. And yes, I will occasionally talk about politics, but not too often. Hopefully, there will be something of interest for everyone who stops by. Please feel free to suggest topics for consideration; I don't promise anything, but sooner or later, I'm going to run out of things to say and believe me when I say, I'll be grateful for the suggestions then!
Because I'm largely self-absorbed and more than a little bit egotistical, I'll be talking about what I'm currently up to in any given week. As often as not, that will amount to a lot of goofing off. I'll also talk about what I should be doing instead of goofing off, just for the record.
Speaking of goofing off, I recently discovered a really cool web comic called 'The Bean.' You can find it at www.beanleafpress.com and decide for yourself how cool it is. Writer/Artist Travis Hanson has a very clean style. His use of negative space and creative borders is as visually appealing as the story itself, and I love the little lizards and faces carved into rocks that accumulate in the corners of panels. It's a fantasy epic, by the way, so be prepared for a long haul. You won't find daily punchlines or quick story resolution, but you will find interesting characters that develop slowly and a well-developed world with a past and a future.
Speaking of what I should be doing instead of goofing off, my writing partners and I are in the final stages of preparation for the October 22nd run of Serendipity Station. The tricky part of writing a game with multiple authors is continuity. We try to get the primary writing done a month before game run so we can go over everything with a fine-tooth comb and find where we contradict ourselves. We're in the continuity stage of things right now and it can be challenging having to re-write things that were 'put to bed' days or weeks ago. We've done this 4 times so far and I think each game has been better than the one before. Live action gaming is an ephemeral art. It's a collaboration between the writers and the players and when it's over it's gone and lives only in our memories. Is it worth all the time and effort and expense? I think so, but you'd have to ask my players, or perhaps my co-writers.
In novel news, now that the Kickstarter project is complete (yay!) I'm reaching out to a small army of professionals to design the physical book, the electronic book (multiple versions), web site, and what-have-you. The hunt for a cover artist continues, as does my stressing over which printer to use. There are so many tiny little decisions to make. When I was a wee tyke dreaming of being a published author some far-off day, I never dreamed about which fonts looked good together or worrying about white or cream-colored paper. Reality is so much more complicated than fantasy.
Who am I?
My name is Andy Kirschbaum and I'm a novelist, game store owner, LARP writer and general nerd-about-town. You can find my store at www.3trolls.com or in lovely downtown Chelmsford, Massachusetts. Most days you can find me there, too, if you're interested in meeting me in person. Confidentially, I'm much more interesting over the internet, also taller.
When I'm not writing novels or goofing off, I'm writing LARPs. LARP is a very silly acronym for Live Action Role Playing game. Which basically means dressing up, walking and talking while you're playing role playing games. It's great fun and absorbs all of my spare time, money and sanity. I'm currently involved in two live action role playing games, www.SerendipityStation.org which is an ongoing campaign and Feast of the Minotaur which is scheduled to run at http://www.interactiveliterature.org/L/. I'm collaborating on both projects with other very talented creators and I'm lucky to be able to work with them.
I'm currently in the process of publishing my first novel, Monday and the Murdered Man. My previously published interactive story, Verdigris, is available from the Apple iTune store. http://www.verdigris-tales.com/. I also just wrapped up a successful project at www.kickstarter.com to fund a print run of Monday and the Murdered Man. If you come to this blog by way of any of those links, welcome! If you just happened along, you're even more welcome! I'm glad to have you along and reading.
While I will talk a lot about the writing and publishing process in this blog, it's not going to be my primary subject. There are lots and lots of fantastic blogs that already cover these subjects in depth, and I'll certainly be talking about some of my favorites going forward. (http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/ is a must-read for all aspiring author/publishers) I'll also be talking about board games and role playing games that catch my fancy, as well as other diversions I enjoy ranging from television, movies, coffee, books, comics, web comics and anything shiny that catches my eye. And yes, I will occasionally talk about politics, but not too often. Hopefully, there will be something of interest for everyone who stops by. Please feel free to suggest topics for consideration; I don't promise anything, but sooner or later, I'm going to run out of things to say and believe me when I say, I'll be grateful for the suggestions then!
Because I'm largely self-absorbed and more than a little bit egotistical, I'll be talking about what I'm currently up to in any given week. As often as not, that will amount to a lot of goofing off. I'll also talk about what I should be doing instead of goofing off, just for the record.
Speaking of goofing off, I recently discovered a really cool web comic called 'The Bean.' You can find it at www.beanleafpress.com and decide for yourself how cool it is. Writer/Artist Travis Hanson has a very clean style. His use of negative space and creative borders is as visually appealing as the story itself, and I love the little lizards and faces carved into rocks that accumulate in the corners of panels. It's a fantasy epic, by the way, so be prepared for a long haul. You won't find daily punchlines or quick story resolution, but you will find interesting characters that develop slowly and a well-developed world with a past and a future.
Speaking of what I should be doing instead of goofing off, my writing partners and I are in the final stages of preparation for the October 22nd run of Serendipity Station. The tricky part of writing a game with multiple authors is continuity. We try to get the primary writing done a month before game run so we can go over everything with a fine-tooth comb and find where we contradict ourselves. We're in the continuity stage of things right now and it can be challenging having to re-write things that were 'put to bed' days or weeks ago. We've done this 4 times so far and I think each game has been better than the one before. Live action gaming is an ephemeral art. It's a collaboration between the writers and the players and when it's over it's gone and lives only in our memories. Is it worth all the time and effort and expense? I think so, but you'd have to ask my players, or perhaps my co-writers.
In novel news, now that the Kickstarter project is complete (yay!) I'm reaching out to a small army of professionals to design the physical book, the electronic book (multiple versions), web site, and what-have-you. The hunt for a cover artist continues, as does my stressing over which printer to use. There are so many tiny little decisions to make. When I was a wee tyke dreaming of being a published author some far-off day, I never dreamed about which fonts looked good together or worrying about white or cream-colored paper. Reality is so much more complicated than fantasy.
October 1, 2011
Chelmsford, MA
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