Tag Archives: Creativity

WIP-it Wednesday: July 26th, 2017

26 Wednesday Jul 2017

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Time for a new weekly writer’s roundup of my works-in-progress and those ready to read!

Cretaceous Queen –my epic tale of magical girls, superheroes, dinosaurs and giant alien robots–  is just shy of six thousand words as of today. I hadn’t expected the short story to get this long, figuring that it’d top-out at around five thousand last week. However, it’s been a lot of fun to write!

Putting this together has been satisfying on multiple levels. For my inner-child, it’s like I flipped over my toy box, picked up my favorite playthings, built a set piece with the other stuff, and started telling this wild story with it all. Conceptually, there are many disparate elements going into the piece… So as an adult writer I’ve had a nifty challenge weaving all of it together. It’s allowed me to get pretty creative with the unseen foundations, and with the actual characters of the piece.

And then there’s my inner teenage superhero fan.

There’s a couple ideas in Cretaceous Queen that are directly based off of superhero concepts I came up with way back when. Or ideas I was influenced by at that time and always wanted to see better developed or combined in different ways.

I created a lot of superheroes back in those days, mostly within the frameworks of role-playing games like the Marvel Super Heroes Advanced Set that was a favorite of mine throughout the late 1980s and early 90s. That game was also popular in my circle of friends, so –as geeky teen boys that love superheroes are prone to do– we created many heroes and teams for tons of adventures.

There were other games, but none ever topped the good-old MSHAS. One of these was Palladium Books’s Heroes Unlimited that claimed to be a “thinking man’s” superhero game. Its focus was seemingly more grounded in street-level heroics with an absence of the demigods that dominate mainstream comics.

This appealed to me because, then as now, I enjoy the flavor of a Spider-Man-ish setup where the hero needs to make do with a limited budget and resources.  It helps to make them relatable: Wondering how they’ll pay the rent next week, or having anxiety about work, relationships or… science exams.

But the rules of this game… oh boy! They were wildly unbalanced and over-complicated, and character generation was so uneven and random that that every other player would end up with a character hard to do anything with but die. I never actually played or ran a game of Heroes Unlimited; the book only ever served me as a source of idea fodder.

This was actually a running theme with the Palladium games I owned: I used them as references and points of creative inspiration, but I very rarely if ever played them. I enjoyed many of their settings much more than Unlimited, for example Beyond the Supernatural and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness… which I still adore and smile acknowledging their influence on my work.

But MSHAS was still king. It was the gateway that exposed me to a vast amount of comic book lore and knowledge of the superhero genre. To this day my trivial knowledge of the Marvel Comics Universe of the 1980s remains pretty sharp thanks to all that exposure.

In my role-playing circle, I was particularly well known… or um, infamous… for my “weird” character ideas. Some of these were indeed downright unplayable after I tried them out, but as we tended to cycle though heroes and teams frequently that never was a particularly longstanding issue. However, a lot were perfectly fine characters that the other boys thought were “dumb” because I wasn’t trying to create supremely powerful heroes like they were. I was trying to make cool ones, and cool stories.

Inkjet, by Will Petrey

This was me playing with concepts I thought were interesting and that I wanted to explore story-wise. The trouble was that I really needed to be exploring them by writing stories and/or making my own comic books rather than trying to do this in the context of a game: Particularly so in games that were running plots and had backgrounds entirely different from what I wanted to do.

The result of all that was frustration for all. Eventually we moved on to other RPGs, but I never stopped making superheroes and plotting stories. And I pursued this in the worst possible way by continuing to create them within the frameworks of the games I loved, but was so discouraged by actually playing.

This would be the beginnings of my Nowhere Man years of 1994-2001 after high school, and the start of my stay in the Worldbuilding Dungeon as well that would last for many years longer. What I needed to do was write. Instead, just I kept using the games to create my characters and find worlds for them. Over and over again I did this, and the stories never left my head and notebooks. They never grew or developed. I never gave them a chance to live in anybody else, because I kept trying to refine them into that unattainable prize that is “perfection” before I dared write a story about them.

Why? Because of the simple but pervasive nemesis all creatives fear: Rejection.

Because I didn’t want my ideas and creations called “dumb” again as they were so often in the heyday of my teens.

It took me twenty years to fight my way out of the Worldbuilding Dungeon and finally start writing. Now it’s my passion like nothing else ever has been. I’ve used it to heal and make peace with the young man I was. And with Cretaceous Queen, I’ve been able to sit down and talk to that creative kid and tell him with experience and hindsight that his superheroic ideas were cool… and not “dumb”.

I told him he’d inspired me to write about a couple of heroes his own age, using some ideas of his, and some of mine. He’s been checking out the early drafts, and so far he thinks it’s pretty awesome. :-)

Alright, time for me to stop blogging and get back to writing some more fiction! Take care!

WIP-it Wednesday: July 19th, 2017

19 Wednesday Jul 2017

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Time for a new weekly writer’s roundup of my works-in-progress and those ready to read!

As I mentioned last update, I started writing a short story for the upcoming FantasyWriters challenge near the end of the month. Although I began Cretaceous Queen on a whim and as a gift for a friend, it became an effective means to get me back into gear writing-wise after my June hiatus.

Being self-contained and small, it’s easier to just sit and write on a short story rather than returning straight to a novel in the middle of rewrites and edits. As I discovered last weekend, tacking a ton of threads, tying them together and forging new ones in an ongoing novel is a tall task made even taller if you’re out of your grove.

I’ve noticed a pattern with Viv’s that, when things get bogged-down, if I write a short story and come back to the novel afterwards I’m refreshed and things go a lot better thereafter. This happened with The Boy in the Jar in November and Ounta in December, so after six months I think now is a good time for another recharge and return.

It helps that Cretaceous Queen has been a fun story to write so far. It’s got humor and action, and I’m venturing into new territory with it which is always good to get the rust off. The new territory is that it’s a modern superhero story, a genre I enjoy but haven’t written a lot in.

My long-on-the-back-burner story Allied Section Alpha definitely has superhero gravitas, but it also takes place in a (very) alternate history World War II setting which is far from contemporary. In addition, the protagonists are all women who are historical personalities drawn from all over time and rewritten to fit the world of this setting. So the overall feel is something more akin to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen than fare for a younger audience… Even if a key charter is only twelve.

It’s a project I want to get back to, but that story is going to be a novel. Before I even pick it up again I want Vivian’s Last Cigarette done and released.

Queen is different not only in setting, but also in tone. It’s got a Young Adult fiction feel, which is pretty easy to maintain given that my two protagonists are both fifteen. I’ve taken inspiration from American superhero comics focused on teens such as Teen Titans. However, I’ve also incorporated and adapted many elements of the Japanese Magical Girl and –to a lesser extent– Tokusatsu genres.

The mix is interesting, particularly as I put my own spin on Magical Girl tropes. Some of these are story touches, such as the young-love-but-I-don’t-know-what-to-do romantic subplot between protagonists Max (A.K.A. The Purple Phantom) and Sue. Others are tributes, such as Sue needing a magical widget to transform into her superheroic self.

Finally, I subvert a major Magical Girl trope with Sue’s superhuman persona. Although she is certainly empowered, she doesn’t become a glorified, glamorous version of herself in highly feminine attire… as is so often the case for that genre.

She becomes a Tyrannosaurus.

A full-on, full sized, oh-my-god-it’s-a-dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus.

She doesn’t even get a T-rex sized frilly dress to wear. Or anything, actually… given that her change in scale is too much even for my comic-book logic to apply something like The Hulk’s stretchy purple pants.

But the metaphor is that she embodies something majestic, primal and powerful that both compliments and transcends a fearsome exterior. Sue is discovering her hero’s heart in this story, placing her life and gifts on the line to protect others. She puts aside her insecurities and embarrassment, because people and the world they live in need a Cretaceous Queen to save them.

And that is as beautiful as any dainty magical girl.

I’ll probably end up spending another weekend on Cretaceous Queen before it enters a first draft. It’s a tight-paced story so far that has hit 2,800 words —at least half-done— since I started it last Thursday. Yesterday I reached the point where it’s just about to start a wild climactic battle that I’ve been looking forward to writing since I started it.

Once it’s in edits, I’ll be touching it up to share here and elsewhere… but the dive back into Viv’s will probably take place before I’m even done with that. :-)

Alright, time for me to stop blogging and get back to writing some more fiction! Take care!

WIP-it Wednesday: July 12th, 2017

12 Wednesday Jul 2017

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Time for a new weekly writer’s roundup of my works-in-progress and those ready to read!

This weekend I returned to Bryan Aiello’s podcast to record a second discussion with him that turned out great. The YouTube video above is this latest interview, and if you missed the first one we did back at the end of April, here is a link to that one as well.

Like the last time we spoke, the conversation was fun and lively. I talked about my convention experiences as a writer and game master for a short time, and the dialogue then moved into a discussion on the fantasy genre and the works and influences of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard.

We ended up using those two masters’ different approaches and strategies to writing –and living a writer’s life– as examples that are still quite relevant for modern authors today. It was a really good talk, and I even got to speak about my upcoming novel Vivian’s Last Cigarette for a while.

With the rest of my weekend, I started getting caught-up on a bunch of projects put on hold during the chaos of June. I finished editing a short story that had been on the back-burner since May and posted it here on Saturday. I also did edits and review on a more recently written flash fiction piece that will go up on the blog this upcoming Saturday.

I followed-up on correspondences with several authors that had been on hold, and that work spilled over into Monday as I replied to responses. In particular, my friend and author Lauren L. Garcia and I are planning a few interview exchanges between our respective blogs. She has many interesting things to say, and I’m excited to be hosting an open discussion between her and I that should be both insightful and entertaining!

Given those investments of time over my weekend, the progress I made returning to work on Vivian’s was minimal.

On the editing side, Lauren (who is also a critiquing partner) completed her edit and feedback notes on the new chapters four and five of the novel. She’s excited to read chapter six, and on Sunday I got some work done towards finishing it. I didn’t get as much written I would have liked, but I did give its opening three-thousand words a solid read-through and edit sliding back into the piece again.

I added a bit less than a thousand words to the chapter beyond the editing: Getting started again on the book has proved to be slow going. It probably doesn’t help that the chapter itself is going through a major shift in scene after a big chase at this point, making “getting back into the flow” difficult because my very task is to change that flow rather than to ride it.

But problems or not, I did make progress. And next weekend should have less distracting me from the novel (like an interview) than this one did.

I do have a side project I’m going to try and squeeze in on my workday evenings for the next week or so. You see, last week it was my turn to unleash a new monthly writer’s challenge prompt on the FantasyWriters group. This was my long-planned-but-kept-secret Dinosaur Challenge:

Your Challenge this month is to write a story containing fantasy elements that features a dinosaur or dinosaurs as major components. Imaginary or speculatively evolved humanoid dinosaurs won’t cut it by themselves. Submissions will need to be three-thousand words or less in length to be eligible to win.

Prior to this reveal, another writing friend (and critique partner) of mine made a funny statement on her Twitter:

To which I replied:

Prior to that exchange, I was actually thinking that I would expand this particular Fifty Word Fantasy piece I did featuring a dinosaur into a short story. Yet now the gauntlet had been thrown!

Penning a Magical Girl story likely isn’t something folks would expect me to do, but truth be told I’m not unfamiliar with the genre. I was into anime back when it was still called Japanimation, and thanks to working a third-shift job in the mid-nineties I watched the American syndicated run of Sailor Moon most mornings eating cereal after I came home from work.

It was honestly the best thing on at 6 am in 1995…

I also love superhero fiction, and most magical girl stories share a lot of tropes and conventions with the former. The major defining difference is that the latter is focused on pre-adult girls as magic-powered protagonists, and their sub and even main plots often involve comedy or drama unrelated to superheroics.

As odd of a concept as it is, I can’t get the thought of a fifteen-year-old girl with the magical power to save the day by becoming a dinosaur out of my head. It definitely has humorous alludes, but after outlining ideas and background for an in medias res short, I can truly see this actually working as a YA tale.

Seriously.

And that’s why I’m putting aside weeknight time to write Cretaceous Queen when I’m not working on Viv’s over the weekends. :-)

Alright, time for me to stop blogging and get back to writing some more fiction! Take care!

WIP-it Wednesday: July 5th, 2017

05 Wednesday Jul 2017

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Time for a new weekly writer’s roundup of my works-in-progress and those ready to read!

I entered my weekend with designs to get back to work on Vivian’s Last Cigarette, but several factors prevented me from achieving that goal. The first of these was plain old exhaustion.

This last month had run me down emotionally with my cat’s illness and then his loss. As soon as I’d recovered from that blow, I had to pull out all the stops to get things ready for PortCon and finish the RPG sessions I was committed to running. This required nearly all my spare time to complete in the week I had left before the convention.

I got it all done with a day to spare, but not without a significant amount of sleep deprivation.

It also ate-up much of the time I usually devote to maintaining the blog and my other social media, to the point where things came to a dead stop. The convention was, however, great fun… I just wish the circumstances leading up to it this year hadn’t transformed it into this big, disruptive event.

My reentry back into the weekly grind post-PortCon was rough. I returned to a workplace in turmoil and with an urgent need to patch-up a situation that could have been avoided with just a little forethought and planning. But instead, I and others scrambled for days racing against the clock to get it fixed.

Stacked onto my existing exhaustion, it was mind-numbing. I’d get home burned-out, and getting out the pair of WIP posts I did last week was a real struggle. The end of the work week saw some improvement –I even completed a 300 word piece of flash fiction on Friday I’ll likely share here in the future– but I still wasn’t sleeping right. So the weekend hit and I, at last, crashed.

There were chores in need of doing around the house that ate-up some writing time, but it was the task of getting the blog back on track that took most of the work after I got some needed rest.

Maintaining my blog is kind of like being a locomotive engineer. When it’s chugging along like it should, its momentum and weight will sustain it and hardly give notice to whatever incidental weekly interruptions there may be. This is because I plan and schedule many of my blog posts a week or two in advance. WIP posts like this one I usually write on Tuesdays, so that they are current with my weekly activities. And my Mid-Week Muses features I compose throughout the week via my micro-blogging on Twitter. But by planning and scheduling the majority of my posts in advance rather than daily, I’ve found that it’s not only more efficient but the planning promotes better quality.

I use a similar tactic of planning and scheduling for the posts on my Facebook Page, which both shares what I post here and has its own unique content. What I do on Twitter, however, is mostly free-form beyond the sharing of links from this blog.

Overall, it’s freed up more time for me to focus on writing fiction while maintaining a social medial presence. And it’s reduced personal stress in my daily grind. :-) Yet to get back to the train analogy, when something derails that process and the engine goes cold… stoking the fires and getting the locomotive going again is a big task.

That was the situation I found myself in this weekend: Getting the social media train going again.

I’m pleased to say that I got the track laid for the next two weeks. So while this weekend wasn’t the big return to the novel I wanted it to be, I’ve now got things back under control so that rest of July can be.

Coming up next week I’ll be doing another interview with Bryan Aiello, which should be a lot of fun if our first talk in April was any indicator. I really like talking writing with Bryan, he’s got a lot of energy and cool thoughts. Creatively, I’m looking forward to having my schedule back to normal and a weekend with which I can focus on my book.

Alright, time for me to stop blogging and get back to writing some more fiction! Take care!

WIP-it Wednesday: June 28th, 2017

28 Wednesday Jun 2017

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What a week! The month leading up to it was a real rollercoaster, but I had a tremendously fun time at PortConMaine all the same! By the end of it, I was exhausted –conventions and back to back gaming and game-mastering are rarely restful– but it was a good kind of exhausted as I came home late Sunday night. I was really glad that I had Monday off to recover… I slept until 8 am, and I haven’t done that in ages! ;-)

This was my second year as convention RPG staff and my wife Kimberly’s first after being regular attendees for several years. One wouldn’t think that working as a volunteers (PortCon is all volunteer staff) for half of your long weekend and vacation would be such a fantastic time. And yet it is. It’s not only great fun, but an honor to be active parts of an event that provides so much to so many.

In a world that seems to go out of its way lately to beat our spirits down, we created an oasis for others and ourselves in which those same spirits could find shelter and renewal. That’s worthy and good work, and I’m proud to be part of it.

So what went down? Things actually started last Wednesday night before the start of the con, when my friend Ian came down to my house and spent the night with fellow staffer Patrick. Ian is the Staff Chair of the RPG section of the convention, and one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. This was the second year we were able to entertain him as a guest and the first where we got to do the same for Patrick. We all sat around and had some great conversations about games old and new, and quite a bit of talk was given to my upcoming novel, Vivian’s Last Cigarette.

Thursday morning came, and our guests departed early to attend to the last preparations for PortCon’s 4 pm opening. Kim and I got ourselves packed for the three night stay in a staff room in the hotel, then stopped at the local copy shop to print off colored game handouts. We got to the event, registered, checked into the hotel and had just enough time to settle in before I ran my Toys Against Darkness game at 6 pm.

Toys went really well, and the players were able achieve the best possible ending. Everyone left the table satisfied. :-) A pair of players I had from last year joined in, and would return for two more of the games I would run that weekend. They said I ran some of the best games at the con, and that really meant a lot to me. :-)

After that, the game arena closed, and Kim and I returned to the hotel room we were sharing with Ian and another staffer named CJ whom we became friends with over the course of this year’s convention. Ian was in a bit of a jam as he had forgotten to bring the player characters needed to run his RPG session the next morning, so we assembled a group of RPG staffers in our room and helped him create a worthy batch! This was a great exercise in collaborative creation and storytelling, as we didn’t just create characters but also their relationships to one another and even the story setting and scenario. I loved it, and was up far too late enjoying the process. ;-)

Portcon 2017, day two!

Friday morning began the first full day of the convention. I took in a panel at 11 am called “So You Want to be an Author?” being given by a trio of experienced writers from the Quantum Muse eZine. This was an excellent “101” writing-publishing talk with very practical, sound and no-nonsense advice. These guys have decades of experience and know their stuff. I can’t say that I learned much from the panel I didn’t already know, but I did get a lot of affirmation that what I’m currently doing are tactics they’ve employed and recommend.

What was most instructive for me was getting to talk to the presenters afterwards. I thanked them for their talk, and asked them some more “202” type writing questions about critiquing and editing that they were more than happy to answer. I took note of their advice, and it really put me at ease with what I’m doing so far with the editing of my novel. I bought a few of their printed anthologies, and I’m thinking about submitting some work to Quantum Muse in the future. :-)

Not long after that conversation, I met indie author Melissa Walshe selling her books Autumn’s Daughter and Autumn’s Sister. Her back cover blurb immediately sold me on Autumn’s Daughter, and I ended up having a lovely fifteen minute chat with her and her husband after buying a copy of that first book of her trilogy. Really nice folks. I’m looking forward to getting into her story once I find a moment to start enjoying it!

I finished my shopping with a stop at artist Melissa McCommon’s booth. Melissa is the creator of the Epic Chaos! webomic, and we had a nice conversation. She’s really talented, and had come all the way from California to Maine to vend at PortCon while visiting family… on her birthday! And she also had these awesome fantasy, RPG-ish buttons that I just had to add to my collection!

This one in particular I wore for the rest of the convention:

These were all really cool people to run into, and that’s one of my favorite things that happens regularly at PortCon. :-)

This blog is getting long, so I’m breaking it into two-parts. Tune in tomorrow for part two! Take care!  

WIP-it Wednesday: June 21st, 2017

21 Wednesday Jun 2017

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Time for a new weekly writer’s roundup of my works-in-progress and those ready to read!

It’s been a packed week.

Leading up to it, my old cat became very sick and then passed away. And prior and post to that sad event I had bookended weekends that required me to work on my house and it’s grounds. All of this prevented me from putting as much effort as I wanted into preparing the sixteen hours of roleplaying games that I’ll be running at this year’s PortCon, which starts Thursday.

It shoved the majority of what needed to be done all into the last weekend before the con. Most of my fellow writers out there should know that means it was deadline and crunch time. I tapped my reserves and chugged caffeine like Popeye downs spinach. And, by gum, even though that last weekend wasn’t enough to get it all finished… I pounded out and completed the last two games this Monday and Tuesday!

Aside from printing the color handouts Thursday morning, the games are ready with a day to spare.

However, this victory came at the expense of the time I usually devote to maintaining my social media thoughtfully, and other stuff… like sleeping. ;-) I apologize if my presence has been lacking, or my posting slapdash. Starting next week, I hope to not only return to working on my novel, but also to getting the blog back on track and regular again.

As I write this, I’m exhausted. This was a lot of effort compressed into a small amount of time while I was also working and commuting to a full-time day-job. But now I’ve met this part of my responsibilities, and once my work is done today, I even have an evening to rest-up with before my vacation and the convention starts.

So I hope you can forgive me if I cut this short, and bid you adieu. I’m going to have fun over the next four days, and you’ll hear all about it next week. :-)

Alright, time for me to stop blogging and get back to writing some more fiction! a good night’s rest! Take care!

WIP-it Wednesday: June 7th, 2017

07 Wednesday Jun 2017

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Time for a new weekly writer’s roundup of my works-in-progress and those ready to read!

As I mentioned in my last update, the month of June in general will find me shifting my focus away from Vivian’s Last Cigarette for the next few weeks. Instead, I’m working on and finishing the RPG sessions I’ll be running for PortCon, which takes place from June 22nd to the 25th.

It is creative work, not unlike assembling ideas for a story outlines. But thereafter, crafting role-playing sessions and scenarios is different than settling down and writing fiction. Role-play is collaborative storytelling. Unlike a you-and-your-story situation, you need to leave a lot open in the scenario to allow the other people playing to craft the unfolding tale with you.

You’ve got to make your players active participants, because if they are instead passive observers the game isn’t going to be very fun. If folks want a passive entertainment experience, a good book, movie or something similar will whip the pants off of me standing around and acting out a story from start to finish for several hours.

Most RPG players are looking for that active experience. The key thing about RPG game mastering is to give it to them, but that can be harder than you think.

As a writer, I personally LOVE telling stories. I start thinking about characters and have a blast working out their backgrounds and personalities. Then I start envisioning story scenarios –Who’s going to do this and when, and how antagonist X will react and how events are impacted from there– This is a great strength for me to have as a writer, but as Game Master it’s a serious flaw: It makes it easy for me to have tons of preconceived assumptions and desires about how a game will play out, and how its players will act using the characters I have worked hard to craft and embellish for them.

As you can imagine, having a mindset like that doesn’t set-up an experience that is likely to be a satisfying role-playing for the players. With everything pre-plotted in my brain, they feel railroaded and like their choices and input doesn’t matter to the ultimate outcome of the game’s story.

Three out of the four games I ran at last year’s PortCon featured characters I’d spent many tens of hours envisioning and writing. I wrote over 40,000 words of material for the con, most of that for player handouts with detailed character rundowns. However, that work was a wasted effort because it was vastly ignored.

The games were still fun all the same, because I designed them as open-ended and without preconceived conclusions. I did that as a safeguard, being conscious of my plotting tendencies, and I’m so glad that I did. Doing that salvaged those situations quite well combined with a positive mindset.

The one game where I let the players generate their own characters with a quick system turned out to be the best. All I did for my part was run the rest off a few pages of essential notes and lots of improvisation. I’d done it that way only because I was running low on time and couldn’t finish what I had planned initially… but it taught me a valuable lesson.

Players generating their own characters is defiantly the best way to get them invested in in a game. It also prevents me from making assumptions about how the characters will act or react to events… because I have no idea who the characters will be. ;-)

The downside is that this can eat-up valuable time when you only have four hours to play. Depending on the game, character creation can be lengthy and complicated. Fortunately, I’m using the Five by Five rules system for all my games this year. It’s a simple, versatile and understandable system that can be taught with 5 – 10 minutes. In it, characters only consist of five “traits” and one “trouble trait” that’s used as a roleplay aid. I have found 5×5 perfectly suited to the “pick-up” style of play found at PortCon, where players of all skill levels might be found at my table.

However, even simple and quick systems can get bogged down if the players don’t know what they want to play. In addition, players often don’t have a good grasp before the game starts of what character traits will be fun and useful in the scenario. This can result in characters that don’t get to do much, like a scuba expert in a desert based adventure. It can also create unbalanced parties with a massive excess of ability in one area (making some challenges too easy), and a great or total deficit in another (making other challenges nigh-impossible).

So this year what I’ve done in all my games is to let the players select their characters from a pool of partially completed ones:

Each character has an illustration to give a player an at-a-glance impression of what they could be like. In addition, in most of the games I have 1 to 3 of the five character traits pre-selected as well. These pre-selected traits are useful to the scenario I’m going to run, thus ensuring that some basics needed for the game will be in the group of players.

Unchosen trait slots get to be selected by the player as electives, off a chart of options that is unique to each game. This allows some player customization, enforces setting flavor, and ensures trait usefulness. Each individual trait is also removed from the available selection pool as they are chosen, ensuring each character has a unique set of abilities.

The one exception to this is my Godzilla: Invasion of Monsters game. In that scenario, ALL of the character’s traits are electives chosen by the players, allowing total customization… from a variety of useful traits.

No specific background or roleplaying guidelines are presented for any characters in the games. I leave those for the players to dream up in play, and they get a head start on that by selecting a role-play related “trouble trait” from a list much as their other elective traits were chosen.

As a game master, my job is to keep the story moving, judge rules, describe events, and portray every character that isn’t controlled by a player. And I’ve found that as my players are given more freedom to tell and influence the story, I am freed as well. Instead of making the game “just so”, I instead can focus on my antagonists acting appropriately for their goals and knowledge. I improvise and let them react to the world the players are influencing. I can focus on making every member of my supporting cast of non-player characters being memorable, and simply having as much fun as the players are.

I’m a reformed, formerly bad, game master now. It just took me realizing that if I wanted to make a game “just so”… I needed to write it as a story instead. ;-)

Alright, time for me to stop blogging and get back to writing some more fiction! RPGs! Take care!

WIP-it Wednesday: May 24th, 2017

24 Wednesday May 2017

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Time for a new weekly writer’s roundup of my works-in-progress and those ready to read!

My writing was interrupted by a Saturday that included a half-day of yardwork and a lawnmower that died on me. However, my inspiration never faltered. Even with an abbreviated amount of time to write this weekend, I had added 2,500 words to new chapter five of Vivian’s Last Cigarette by Sunday night.

Monday ended up being one of those rare weekdays where other projects didn’t crowd out my time to write on the novel. With my motivation in high gear by the time I got home from the day-job, a stiff dose of caffeine helped me add a thousand words to complete the chapter before midnight.

The first draft totals a little more than 4,100 words, and I got to end it on a great cliffhanger that wasn’t entirely dissimilar to this:

Overall, the chapter is quite character focused. Viv and Gronk get to have some fun at the start, a nice change of pace given events up to here, and the readers get to see their friendship develop a little more. Minor character Mike, introduced in the previous chapter, gets a touch of development too… although this is the last chapter he’s physically present in.

The big challenge for our protagonists this chapter comes in the form of a new character, Bri (Brian) Kane. He’s a local Hammerfist thug and member of the same gang that attacked Gronk and got the action rolling in chapter one. Although he wasn’t present in the inciting incident of the story, he’s fully aware of the event and serves a role to fill the reader in on how gang has reacted to it.

In monomythic terms, Bri is absolutely playing the archetype role of a Herald (specifically, of the Shadow) and the Trickster in this bit. Although not a physical threat to the orcs, he’s a crap-talking loud-mouth who is trying to taunt and goad them to violence with his anti-changeling vitriol. It’s a test that Gronk passes, but a trial that Viv fails. Her failure has several repercussions, one of which is very immediate and stinging for Gronk.

But, tested as they are, the pair’s bond strengthens for it. I got to illustrate that with some short, well-timed dialogue I’m rather proud of towards the end… And then the sh*t hits the fan.

I’ll be giving the chapter a read through and editing brush-up before handing it over to my first reader for feedback. Hopefully it will be in a second draft state by Friday or sooner so I can send it –along with the second draft of chapter four– over to reader two ahead of the long Memorial holiday weekend here in the United States.

I’m also going to crack my knuckles and try my hardest to write as much of chapter six as I can over the holiday. I have no other firm commitments, and it would be great to finish that draft and enter June on such a high note! But even if I don’t, the more work I can get done on the novel before I temporarily shift focus to finishing (and start crunch-time on) the RPG sessions for PortCon, the better. :-)

I’m really excited to start writing chapter six, too. I’ve been inspired to open it right where five leaves off: With a dozen or more skinheads hot on the heels of our intrepid (and fleeing) orcs. ;-) I’ve got this great idea for madcap chase that leads into the other scenes I have planned… And it all climaxes with the appearance of a majestic, one-horned animal that will tie the new chapters into the rest of the established book. Huzzah!

Alright, time for me to stop blogging and get back to writing some more fiction! Take care!

WIP-it Wednesday: May 17th, 2017

17 Wednesday May 2017

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Time for a new weekly writer’s roundup of my works-in-progress and those ready to read!

Steady progress was made on Vivian’s Last Cigarette this weekend. I edited the new chapter four that I finished last Sunday, and expanded it by almost a thousand words to add and improve a few things. These were focused on the chapter’s second half, particularly on the introduction of the first non-orc changeling to appear in the book, and an encounter with one of Gronk’s former friends that gets ugly.

The introduction of the new character needed refinement, mostly to get her voice consistently right. I also expanded the conversation she has with Viv and Gronk. Their dialogue now foreshadows some things that are important points later in the book, and the additional verbiage allowed me to pad everyone’s speech and give it a more natural sounding flow without packing it with filler-fluff.

The original version of the conversation did what it needed to do plot-wise, but was too short and pointed. Now it sounds like a brief, friendly encounter that drops a lot of background and upcoming story tidbits for the reader… without glowing neon signs pointing them out.

It was also fun to write a conversation that included talk about Chevrolet Camaros and Jackalopes in almost the same breath. ;-)

The new changeling, Cricket, is a pleasure to write because of her casual, new-age, and laid-back nature combined with a humorous side. She’s a four-foot, hippie – granola gnome girl. The teen plays a bigger role (no pun intended) as an ally in an upcoming chapter: When a chain of events has a couple of orcs seeking refuge in the Magic Moo-Shroom Metaphysical Shop (and petting zoo) that is her family’s business.

I’m looking forward to writing that bit. :-) And to writing her dad, Neil: He’s a mellow, former 60s hippie and Grateful Dead roadie. Obviously, his daughter is an apple that didn’t fall far from the tree! However, he is also a changeling, having gone dwarf from “The Change” around the same time Cricket did. Yet Neil is groovy with it… things are just pretty far-out these days, ya know, man?

Getting back to chapter four, my efforts on the last quarter of it were devoted to making Gronk’s former friend, Mike, more of a character and less of a cardboard cutout. In the first version, he’s just a flat jerk. After the revision I did Saturday, he’s a more rounded character. He’s still being rotten, but is doing so because of his fears and external pressures that eventually get shown to the reader in an ugly way.

He’s definitely being spineless and not doing the right thing, but now I think there’s a little sympathy for him. It leads to a downer moment of no winners that makes the whole scene sting a lot more than the original version as it closes.

On Sunday I got chapter four edited into a second draft thanks to Kim’s feedback. Then I edited an unrelated new short story of mine (I hope to share it here soon) before cranking-up some 80s punk and starting the new chapter five.

I was a thousand words deep before the day was over, and the opening pages of this latest chapter were pleasant writing. Viv and Gronk are goofing off, bantering and playing the Gauntlet arcade game while waiting for a pizza. Its funny stuff, and a healing change of mood compared to the downbeat end of chapter four. But because of the way that chapter ended, the reader knows that the clock is ticking unbeknownst to our intrepid orcs. Trouble is on its way, and if Viv knew of the danger she wouldn’t be playing games.

It’s subtly tense. And I was able to write right-up to where a different –and competing– sort of trouble walks in the door. ;-)

And that’s where the novel is sitting at as of today. I don’t think the rest of chapter five will take too long to write, given that what I still want to happen in it consists of about two and a half more scenes. This makes me hopeful that I might get it finished next weekend, and then I’ll be on to the last of the new chapters being added to the book’s opening!

Alright, time for me to stop blogging and get back to writing some more fiction! Take care!

WIP-it Wednesday: May 10th, 2017

10 Wednesday May 2017

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Time for a new weekly writer’s roundup of my works-in-progress and those ready to read!

I finished the new chapter four for Vivian’s Last Cigarette late Sunday night. Coming in at 4,400 words, it contains a lot of interaction between my orc protagonists and several minor characters. This chapter definitely relays a feel for the town of Buford, something that was missing until late in the book before. It also shows them dealing with several levels of ugly behavior from assorted “normals”.

Poor, friendly Gronk gets put through an emotional wringer this this chapter as his belief in the better nature of people is challenged by his first major encounter with anti-changeling bigotry. :-( Then on top of that he feels the sting of finding out that he’s lost a friend because of his transformation.

The big guy is, of course, too good natured to do anything but get emotionally bruised and quiet. But Viv silently witnesses his rejection. Having been an orc longer than Gronk, she’s grown thick-skinned and canny in dealing and (particularly) avoiding a world that usually sees her as a monster. But writing her reaction to seeing Gronk go through rejection like she did in the past was a good scene.

Her feathers are ruffled, and the display of growing empathy and protectiveness for Gronk I wrote for her doesn’t bode well for his former friend. Viv knows how to play the role of the monster many see her as, and delivers the most intimidating pizza ordering scene ever as a result.

I’ll stop talking now, before I start dropping spoilers. ;-)

I’m at a point where I can start to judge how much of a gap remains to be bridged to weave the old chapter two back into the new narrative. I’m thinking it will take me an additional two chapters to do that, making what was once chapter two the new chapter seven.

Once that’s done, minor edits, additions and reworking will need to be made to most of the other old chapters (3-17) to get them in line with the new events. Chapters nine and seventeen will require more extensive rewrites, but I’m not expecting any big migraines. If anything, I’m excited to be putting in some revisions that will tie in the new part of the book that I’ve grown.

I also worked on my blurb for the novel. This was actually quite a bit of work, —because blurbs are hard, man— and I devoted my free time on Friday and half of my day Saturday to the task. Some of you may remember that back in November I spent about a month coming up with this version.  I got multiple feedbacks on it last week that were less than stellar, so I tried a different approach in a new version:Thoughts? Impressions? I like it better than the old one, and those that disliked the first version felt this was much better.

Over the weekend, I also had a new idea for the book: I’m strongly considering ending the novel differently. What is currently last chapter would remain, but it would be followed by a short epilogue of a few thousand words closing the story. This epilogue would call back to the new material I’ve written in expanding the opening of the novel, and unify its new whole. It would end the book on a stronger note, and set up a possible sequel much more definitively. Not quite a cliffhanger, but I defiantly think that those reading it will want to find out what happens next. :-)

In summation, a good weekend of progress made. Outside of my efforts, Lauren completed her feedback/notes on the new chapter three said she really liked it. And my second beta reader Jessica finally finished the last of her notes on the second draft after many tumultuous months that required her to delay. So now I have those chunks of editing to work on as the book keeps shaping-up!

Alright, time for me to stop blogging and get back to writing some more fiction! Take care!