Author Archive: admin

A Slight Change of Plans

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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.

Second Sale of the Week

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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.

 

 

 

Now At Horrific Scribes: “Scheduling Issues”

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Today marked the publication of my story “Scheduling Issues” over at Horrific Scribes!

This is a story I first wrote a version of maybe 20 years ago, when I had just ascended to the management group at Red Storm and was really uncomfortable about certain aspects of having done so. The draft I wrote then was overlong and overwritten and lacked a certain maturity, in that the core of the story is the conversation between the protagonist and his wife, and at that point I was freshly married and honestly didn’t understand how marriages worked years into the arrangement.

So I messed with it for a while, and then I moved on to other stuff because I couldn’t get that one where I wanted to go. It faded into an old working folder that got passed along from computer to computer over the years and pretty much lost in the process, until a couple of months ago, when in a burst of procrastination I decided to tidy up my hard drive and accidentally found that lode of long-abandoned fiction.

Like a fool, I opened it and started reading the 20-odd stories in various stages of completion in there. Some were absolutely terrible. Some were very much “product of the times” pieces that would no longer speak to anyone. And a few still clearly had good bones, and if I could polish the language and cut about 30% (mostly adverbs), I might have something.

This was one of those stories, largely because of that quiet conversation between loving husband and wife in the middle. There’s no fight. There’s no fireworks. Just a moment of raw, painful honesty that opens the door to both liberation and destruction.

So give it a read. And think twice before your next meeting.

 

Tally Sheet

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Last year was a little bit of a lull for me, writing-wise, as I concentrated on laying the groundwork for new projects and personal matters. But, I vowed to hit the ground running in 2025, and I like to think I have done that.

So far, I have done the following:

  • Started a new job as Narrative Director at Romero Games, and I am having a blast doing so.
  • Written the bulk of the manuscript for The Video Game Writer’s Guide To Surviving an Industry That Hates You, and done edits and final proofs.
  • Finalized the concept and wrote the script for my first graphic novel, a 124 page horror comic for the French publisher Delcourt, done in conjunction with the legendary Matz.
  • Finalized the contents of a new short story collection, including an all-new Reb Palache story.
  • Wrote 7 short stories so far and counting.
  • Managed to pump out 2 essays a week on game narrative and writing over at LinkedIn
  • Laid the groundwork for a few more upcoming projects.
  • Promised to kill at least one person horribly in a story or novel for charity.

I’m now gearing up for starting another novel, and I have a few more stories in progress I need to complete. And there will be at least two big announcements coming up before the end of the year.

No rest for the wicked, or their typing fingers.

Going To The Mountains to Read

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Saturday, May 31, I’ll be part of a group reading at the Story Parlor in Asheville, NC to support Brother Wolf Animal Rescue. It goes without saying that western North Carolina got absolutely hammered by a hurricane last year, and while the folks out there have done a great job of rebuilding, they’re not getting a hell of a lot of help from Washington right now. So if you’re in the area, swing by and help out a little, because the lineup is great and so is the cause. And if you can’t make it, maybe check out Brother Wolf and see if you can help them a bit anyway.

Hope to see you there!

A List Of My Literary Murders

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Earlier this year, I donated an item to a charity auction for the fine organization Nuci’s Space that combined a signed copy of Firefly Rain with the chance to get brutally slain in an upcoming writing project. As I’m about to start writing the new book, I revisited the topic today to try to get a sense of how exactly the lucky winner wanted to get offed. This then led to a wider discussion of making a charity donation in exchange for being brutally murdered, and with that in mind, I thought I might lay out some of the options for folks.

In the past, I have committed on paper the following crimes:

  • Murder by severing unnatural psychic connection to the land.
  • Murder by man-eating Sasquatch in a top hat.
  • Murder by farmland infused with the spirit of a murder victim
  • Murder by Cthulhu, ‘cause you gotta do Cthulhu
  • Murder by aspiring writer
  • Murder by otherdimensional drug-fueled partiers in the next hotel room over
  • Murder by evil sentient kudzu
  • Murder by insane talking water bird
  • Murder by haunted lawn
  • Murder by an army of fallen leaves
  • Murder by evil alien invaders who hate noise, and while I am at it I would like to point out that I published that story at least fifteen years before A Quiet Place came out, damnit.
  • Murder by evil French hotel
  • Murder by unnamed thing in dark, abetted by magical fat dude on a passing airplane
  • Murder by sentient house
  • Murder by dybbuk
  • Murder by feeding someone to an ancient evil in a well after middle school one day
  • Murder by the Devil, who actually shows a lot of restraint about this sort of thing in my work
  • Murder by evil steampunk industrialists and their strike-busting thugs
  • Murder by pre-Permian time warp and ancient cosmic horrors in a swamp
  • Murder by sea-going zombie
  • Murder by being thrown off a zeppelin
  • Murder by mob angry over the desecration of their site of ritual human sacrifice
  • Murder by evil guy intent on drowning kittens
  • Murder by brother-in-law (Not mine. I like mine.)
  • Murder by giant invisible cat
  • Murder by various high fantasy methods including stabbing, hacking, casting evil spells, and feeding to monsters
  • Murder by DIY flamethrower-wielding vampire
  • Murder by shooting with a wide variety of high-end firearms
  • Murder by stake through the heart
  • Murder by zombie cannibal ocelot
  • Murder by escaped video game character
  • Murder by small child who makes an unholy bargain
  • Murder by suburban cannibal
  • Murder by loving spouse
  • Murder by legendary cinematic monster
  • Murder by bad management meeting

I’m probably missing a few, but it’s a start….

The Paranormal Ranger: Book Review

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The Paranormal Ranger: A Navajo Investigator’s Search For The Unexplained, by Stanley Milford, Jr.

I read this book on a recent work trip to Ireland, as it seemed like an interesting take on the “supernatural memoir” subgenre that I rather enjoy on occasion. Upon due consideration, I think the best way of phrasing my reaction to the book is that I really enjoyed most of what was there, but I missed what wasn’t.

Let me be clear: It’s a really interesting book. Milford does an excellent job of framing his professional experience in terms of his Indigenous heritage and upbringing, and how an early encounter with what he identified as a skinwalker was foundational in his later professional life. Even more interesting was the way he outlined his approach to the paranormal aspects of his job once he became one of the elite Navajo Rangers. Milford’s logic was that it didn’t matter if someone was reporting a Bigfoot sighting or a possible case of witchcraft, they deserved respect and for their story to be heard, with a serious investigation of the story even if it turned out to be nothing, or a hoax. That won him a lot of points with me, and I particularly enjoyed those chapters where he went into detail on specific cases. And the way he interacted with the person who had made the report was equally as interesting as the followup investigation. Of particular note was one story of investigating the case of a woman who thought that witchcraft was being used against her at her isolated hogan. No spoilers, but both the approach and the resolution demonstrate what an excellent officer Milford was and what a great storyteller he is.

My main issue, honestly, is that the book wrapped up far too quickly. Milford did a great job of setting the stage for his role as the “paranormal ranger”, and I was excited by the possibility of what kind of stories he’d bring his thoughtful perspective to. But there were relatively few cases discussed, and I was left wanting more. Then on the back end there was a brief summary hypothesis of his theory of the paranormal, and a quick nod to his post-Navajo Ranger exploits on the UFO/paranormal convention circuit.

Do I regret having read it? Absolutely not. There’s a lot of food for thought in there, and the stories Milford does tell are engaging. I just wanted more of them.

Call it maybe 7/10, and particularly recommended to folks who want a more grounded take on some of the spooky stuff.

 

 

Off To Ireland!

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I’ve been a whole lot of places for work and conferences over the years. China, Brazil, Sweden, France….even Wisconsin. But never before have I had the chance to go to Ireland.

Today, that all changes. I’m headed over to do a narrative summit with my team at Romero Games, and I could not be more excited. Looking forward to the adventure!

Bridgewater

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I have been a comic book fan since I was a kid. I know waaaaay too much about the mid-200s issues of Incredible Hulk, I have a complete run of the Denny O’Neil Question series, and until its mysterious disappearance, I had an original sketch of Malekith the Dark Elf by Walt Simonson gracing my office. But my efforts to actually write comics always sort of foundered. I did a couple of short pieces for White Wolf back in the day – the example of play in Wraith 2nd Edition and the opener to Corax – but mostly it was stuff like my former employer asking me to write comics scripts for tie-ins to a game I had worked on, receiving the scripts, and then claiming that they never existed in the first place and I had no idea what I was talking about.

So it gives me great pleasure to announce that coming soon from Delcourt will be my first official foray into writing a graphic novel. I am co-authoring a horror project called Bridgewater with the legendary French graphic novelist Matz. Art will be by the mighty Aurélien Morinière. And it’s going to be creepy as hell.

Looking forward to telling you more!