Polishing

Last weekend was fun. My wife and I had friends over Saturday for a game of Mana Punk (http://mana-punk.com/) and in between my character recovering from an attack by something called a grave grub and dodging a gorilla sheathed in fire, our group discovered that we were going through one of the new modules for the game, Aria of Sorrow. Jeremy gave me a copy a few weeks back so I could go through it and get more familiar with the game, and now I'm glad I held off on reading it.

Also, summer has firmly settled in to Houston. This is noteworthy because the summers down here are not like summers anywhere else. If a Houston summer decided to go on the road for a while and seek its fortune, I can only imagine the horror. When it took I45 north and explored Dallas and Fort Worth, both cities and their many suburbs would declare emergencies and shut down when people discovered that their clothes were sweat-glued to their bodies. When it got to the dry panhandle, people wouldn't mind the heat but they would all stop what they were doing and take pictures of cars, buildings, and everything sinking into the mud that used to the southern edge of the high plains. If the traveling summer (I need to use that as a story title) got all the way to the north pole, then you, me, and everyone else would get washed into never-never land by the resulting tidal wave. Then the Elder Ones would thaw out and get the planet back.

But then I wouldn't be around to see Handsome Devil in print, so forget that.

Jeremy asked me to give Bittermint Tea a bit of a rewrite, saying it needs a smidge more atmosphere. Initially I was thinking that the GM would be able to pull that off from the framework I had lain, but I'm a bit spoiled in that regard from being raised on old Hammer Horror movies that starred people like Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Those two and their peers could give you a chill by just looking at their watches. So I'm tweaking the adventure hook and adding what was going to be just a children's story but is quickly growing into a creation myth. (that'll teach him to send something back to me, dammit!) I've set myself a possibly ambitious deadline of having it done this weekend.

So I need to get back to writing.

Next

So, while I'm on pins and needles waiting for January to hurry up and get here, what am I doing?

I've just sent off a query to The Dreadful Cafe, telling them what a fantastic fit 'Stilling the Demons' would be for their Membrane anthology. The last time I tried to sell that story to anyone was back in October, and Tor graciously declined, so it needed some air. Yesterday my lady love and I had lunch with our friends Jen and Jeremy, who own Hot Goblin Press and the Mana Punk gaming system. He's looked over Bittermint Tea and Ironlace Orchids, and he had some suggestions about ways to tweak it. One bit of advice he gave sticks with me. When you're writing an adventure module, if you can get the players to say WTF in the first five minutes, you've got them. Jeremy's been doing this for a while, and I'm pondering ways to follow his hint.

It's bugging me a bit to have In the Dark and The Red Man Burning sitting on the back burner, but I already have one book finished, and I need to work on getting it sold. I saved a copy of it to my Kindle so I can read it during my lunch breaks, and I'm seeing a place or two where it could be stronger. I was rushed to get it ready for the Amazon contest, and I have to admit it's not as good as it could be. I still get to grouse, though. They rejected it on the first past, meaning they never read anything but my pitch.

Oh, I'm also waiting on the contract for Dirty to arrive in the mail. I can not put into words how cool it is to type those words.

Am I still writing? Hell yes.

The next stepping stone

So I'm a little less grouchy, and possibly have my next project to boot.  Today I finished first draft of a little piece called 'The God Box,' and after a day or so of letting that part of my brain rest, I think I'm going to tackle a project that's a bit different.  My friend Jeremy has designed and published his own gaming system, Mana Punk, and the other weekend my wife and I helped play-test a module that he'll be releasing soon.  It was a fun session, and I got to explore a new character personae that really annoyed my wife. (always a plus)
Once upon a time, when I played AD&D, I would get all kinds of bizzare ideas for dungeons and scenarios that I would detail down to the color of the stone that made up the walls.  This was, however, before I learned to write down every single thought I had, because sooner or later they all find a use.
I still kept imagining, though, even after I stopped playing, and these days it all goes on paper.  Sometime ago, I thought of a special little village, tucked away from the prying eyes of the world.  Beautiful things are wrought in it's houses and huts, but there's a reason.
Coming soon to a gaming store near you.  Will I mention it here?  Hell, yes.  The world is mine, after all.