This got a little long, so I’m putting it behind a cut.

The last week hasn’t been as much of a writing phantasmagoria as anticipate. The special lady friend is out of town, which often opens up more time. But she left on a week where I had other things going on:

Sunday was mostly eaten up by coding work on the game book for ACNW. Monday was eaten up by crashing early in order to recover from working on the game book.

I had my appointment on Tuesday and more hijinks with the bus than I’d prefer. (I blame the new game I downloaded for my iPhone.) Then when I finally got home I had to bang out the final changes on the game book. Wednesday was dinner with a friend. Last night I had the type and gripe, where I got some writing done and some good brainstorming with my friend Nate.

Lunches have been pretty good writing. I’ve gotten some gym time in, but my leg joints have been acting up more than I would like. So I’ve used that as an excuse to bag on exercise and get some writing in. My waistline and risk of diabetes probably don’t appreciate it, but I’m pretty happy with the creative productivity.

I’ve finished a first pass on “A Christmas Sutra.” I don’t know what I’ll do with it. I had at one point thought it would be novella length, and thought I might be a good serialized novella at Crossed Genres, but looking at their submission guidelines, it’s about half the length of their minimum size. It’s a little long for a short story. And, I’ll be honest, it’s a little weird. I haven’t vetted it to other people so I don’t even know if it’s good. I’m afraid it’s a little preachy. It was originally conceived as a Buddhist-flavored re-imagining of “A Christmas Carol.” I may just polish it up and splat it up on the Internet under a vanity domain name and maybe a pseudonym. Not really sure though.

Currently I’m working on on a short story for an anthology that Nathan Crowder is working on. I won’t really be making anything off of it, aside from a free copy of the book. But it’s a good chance to get my name out there a bit more and help out a friend who’s been great support as a fellow writer. He’s part of the core of the Wayward type and gripe, and we gotta stick together.

I’m really jazzed about this short. It’s a pretty geeky concept on a lot of levels and, better yet, Nathan seems really jazzed by it. And it’s a chance to write, basically, authorized fanfic. That’s a realm I haven’t put my toe into in nearly 20 years.

(Yes, in junior high, I wrote fanfic. Video game fanfic. Novel length video game fanfic. The world is probably not ready for a novel length Gradius/Metroid crossover. Nor is it ready for a Ninja Gaiden/Golgo 13 crossover. I wish I could say I was making this up.)

The anthology should be out by this winter, so I’ll give more details then. It’s not my project, so I’m hesitant to say a lot.

Oh, and I’m getting money for some writing I did! Several years ago, when I thought I wanted to be a game designer and writer, I took a royalty-only project for a company called Seraphim Guard. They were known at the time for a small game book called Heartquest, a game of romance in shoujo manga. I got tapped to write a game book for fantasy anime called Spell-Slingers and Sword-Saints. I wrote it. The book went into limbo. The company changed hands a few time. I parted ways with them finally under bad terms.

About a year ago, the new owners of the company contacted me because they realized they had the rights to publish this game book. After some time, the decision was made to have someone else finish the missing bits of the manuscript and just cash me out rather than deal with the royalties. So, yay! Money!

Ten Day Forecast!

Today: Got writing done at lunch, but the rest of the evening will be spent cleaning the apartment so the special lady friend will be delighted to be home.
Tomorrow: Gaming and a birthday party in the evening. Also have to do game prep for Sunday. Not much writing anticipated.
Sunday: Gaming!
Monday: I think my evening is free. Writing?
Tuesday: Writing at lunch and in the evening.
Wednesday: Date night.
Thursday: Writing at lunch and in the evening.
Friday: Driving down to Portland for Lovecraft Film Festival. May get some writing done in the passenger seat.
Saturday: Film festival. Up late, probably exhausted.
Sunday: Film festival still. Probably will still be fried.