This upcoming weekend, I will be speaking at the Game Your Future conference in Baltimore, Maryland about the contents of my book, The Video Game Writer’s Guide to Surviving an Industry That Hates You. The talk is at noon on Saturday, followed by an autographing session. Come on down! It’s going to be awesome!
So here’s what went down last month. I:
Got published in issue 1o of legendary noir magazine Dark Yonder with my first true non-supernatural noir story, “Competitive Advantage”. I’m pretty sure that’s also the only piece of fantasy baseball-themed noir ever written, much less published.Pretty sure there was other stuff in there, but I think that’s a good start.
Now, deep breath, and then September.
Big news!
I just launched a Patreon!
Here’s a sample of what you can find over there. Content will be pretty much steady at least five days a week, with me talking about everything from game development to Sasquatches to writing to, well, pretty much anything.
Looking forward to seeing you over there!
Every so often, someone invites me onto their podcast to talk about some flavor of writing or other. I always enjoy doing this sort of thing, and it’s a real pleasure to have these sorts of conversations.
This past week, I had the rare distinction of having three podcasts episodes where I was a guest drop, one after another. Here are the links:
First up, the mighty Brian Kindregan had me on at Game Story Basics. Here’s part one
And here’s part two, where he called me a “narrative wild man”.
Switching gears a bit, here’s a three-headed conversation on what was the most ambitious piece of work I did back in the White Wolf days, Charnel Houses of Europe: The Shoah.
Coming up, I’ll be making appearances on a few more, most notably the Corner of Story and Game. Will keep you posted!
Just got back from my annual trip to New England for Necon, which was, as ever, a delight. This year I had the privilege of serving as Toastmaster, and was thus tasked with delivering the opening toast to the convention, as well as hosting the welcoming dinner for the Guests of Honor and interviewing the Writer Guests of Honor (Cynthia Pelayo, Errick Nunnally, and Eric LaRocca) onstage. I also moderated a panel on writing local horror, MCed the improvisational humorous writing competition Write Club (where I was gloriously sandbagged onstage by my girlfriend), co-hosted Necon Update (a humorous look at the con and various campers), and hosted a new event where first-time Necon attendees got to give a reading. Oh, and Ellen and I also hosted a late night unofficial Scotch and Cheese party, which was by all accounts a smashing success.
And there was some other stuff that went on that I will talk about later.
But it was great, I promise. Already planning for next year!
As part of the recent Microsoft Massacre, I find myself with a lot more free time on my hands. The project I was working on at Romero Games was canceled, and as a consequence of that, I’m out of work at the moment.
I feel terrible for my team, who are a fabulous bunch of people, and I am sad that the project we were working on might not ever see the light of day. Because, well, it was going to be awesome.
But, time to go forward. The leadership of Romero Games is reaching out to publishers to see if there is interest in bringing the game to market, so with luck, that will be a thing. If not, well, I am lucky enough to have a bit of a cushion – you don’t work in games for a couple of decades without planning for the unexpected – and I am going to take some time to decompress, recharge, and work on personal projects. I’ve got Necon coming up in a week, I’ve got GenCon and Pop!Con and ProgDay after that, I’ve got a brilliant and lovely girlfriend who lives far away whom I’d like to spend more time with, and there’s a whole mess of stuff around here, both in terms of my house and just things to do in North Carolina that I have never done, all of which will keep me busy for the foreseeable future.
So, that’s the plan for now. I’ve got all that to do, and some personal projects happening, and then there’s the launch of The Video Game Writer’s Guide to Surviving an Industry That Hates You, and the graphic novel is ongoing, and I should be getting edits on my novel Nightmare Logic from the publisher soon, and….as the marvelous Ellen says, “How did you have time to hold down a day job anyway?”
But stay tuned, there’s more news coming.
I am thrilled to announce that my book on being a working game writer, The Video Game Writer’s Guide to Surviving an Industry That Hates You, has gone to press and will be available August 27th! In the meantime you can pre-order it, and my publisher has kindly put it on sale!
More good news! This week also saw the fine folks at Starship Sofa agree to publish my story “Footsteps Among the Stars”. The best way to describe the story is “What would happen if a Lovecraft protagonist went to a beach party on the Outer Banks?”
Needless to say, hilarity and cosmic horror ensue.
In any case, do give Starship Sofa a click or two – they do great work – and when I have a pub date I’ll announce it here.
