Snowflake, Kensei and Mad Scientists

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Just a few bits of newsly stuff, mostly stuff announced elsewhere but not here.

First off, I have donated a story to Fighting for Gwen. Every other week they will be providing a short story to help raise legal funds for Gwen, who is a high functioning autistic eight-year-old who has been discriminated against by a school district in California. Some really top notch writers are pitching in to help, so I really encourage you to subscribe to help raise money. Or just donate if you’re feeling donatey. The story I submitted is “One Giant Leap for Panda-kind.” It’s the first Snowflake story I ever wrote and its original title was “Snowflake War Journal.” The folks at Timid Pirate loved it but didn’t have a home for it yet. So I sat on it without a good plan for it. I figure this is a good home for it. I don’t know when my story will see the light of day, so you’re probably better off signing up for six months.

Second, I got to see some early concept art for Kensei. I don’t have any to share yet, but it looks pretty sharp. I hope to have more stuff to show soon.

Third, I’ve been slowly getting started with my first e-zine, Mad Scientist Journal. I’ve gotten some excellent submissions and aim to start publishing a story a week starting in April. Very exciting! It’s also been interesting to see it n the editor end of things. A startling number of submissions do not follow the submission guidelines. This has not been a clear indicator of whether the story has been publishable. Some have been extraordinarily out of line with the submission guidelines, but I did also have an excellent story from a SFWA author who submitted a story that fit with the zine but did not follow the formatting requests. She’s also someone I know personally. I’d give her a hard time, but submissions have been so slim that I’m just happy to get a story that solid.

Potlatch 2012 After Action Report

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This year I went to my first Potlatch, which is a very small SF convention that has moved up and down the Pacific coastline for twenty-one years. I gather it has some degree of unofficial connection to Clarion West, but I have no evidence of this beyond proceeds from the auction going to support a Clarion West attendee. I’d heard about this for a while and, as I’ve gotten to know more local writers, have considered attending. So I finally broke down and went this year. It was February 24-26 at the Best Western Executive Inn, which is right next to the Seattle Center. Lacking a coffee shop, it earned my disdain. But it was near some neat little restaurants in that fringe area north of downtown and east of Belltown, including the Five Point Cafe.

At one point before the con, they emailed people to see who wanted to be on panels. As part of my half-assed attempts to build my marketing “platform,” I tossed my hat in the ring. I made the note that I was a novice writer, but would like to help out. So this recap will do just a broad overview of the convention and then cover the panels I sat on.

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Life in Fast Forward

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It’s been a while since I’ve done a news post instead of an after action report. The last few months have been a little nuts and so I’ve let some stuff pass without notice. So, in no particular order:

  • “Snowflake’s Chance in Hell,” the tale of a sentient panda versus evil tstchotchkes appeared in Cobalt City Dark Carnival.
  • “A Necessity of the Present,” my tale of high fantasy noir was republished in Future Imperfict: Best of Wily Writers, Volume 2.
  • “Kiss of Death,” the incredible story of two necromancers in love came out in Arcane. 
  • I’ve handed off the first draft of my book, Kensei, to the folks at Timid Pirate Publishing. This is a young adult piece set in the superhero shared universe created by Nathan Crowder. It’s part of the series of YA books that they are producing called “Cobalt City Rookies.”
  • I’ve opened up to submissions for my experimental e-zine, Mad Scientist  Journal. Here’s to hoping I get enough people to get it off the ground.
In less publishing and more gaming related news, it turns out I may be running another kids game. This time it’s because a friend has been vocally hoping a few times that I’d run another game so that his fourteen year old daughter can play. I finally figured out where I might have room to do it and have a few other kids that may be interested in playing, so now it’s just a matter of logistics.
Of the things I’ve tossed out, Star Wars seems like the strongest option mostly because it’s a better known intellectual property. Sadly, there’s not currently any Star Wars game in print. My favorite to date, Star Wars Saga Edition, is out of print. Used copies of the core rules are selling for $60+ on Amazon. I don’t need the rules, but it’s always helpful if players have copies of them. Granted, the kids in the previous game didn’t take the initiative to read game rules until they were much older.
I had also started the first group off on Star Wars. They’re all in their early 20s now. I asked them what advice they’d give to a new band of kids playing Star Wars with me. Here’s what I’ve gotten so far:
  • Don’t drive vehicles when you don’t have the driving skill.
  • Don’t go back in time and kill the main antagonist when they were a baby. Breaks the universe.
  • Don’t kill everything in sight. It’s not GTA.

And, in reference to a completely different game:

  • Don’t let Jeremy make up your backstory for you.

I feel like I’ve traumatized the last batch of kids. And I’m kind of proud of that.

 

RustyCon 2012: After Action Report

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This weekend represented the first convention I attended in which I got to appear as a panelist. RustyCon is one of the smaller conventions in the Seattle area that caters to the general fan community. The impression I got is that they consider themselves a bit more of a family friendly convention compared to Norwescon. According to their site they have membership of about 500-600. It didn’t seem that crowded to me, but then there were parts of the convention we just never went to.
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NaNoWriMo 2011 Aftermath (with special guest star Mark Teppo)

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I hit 50K on the very last night of National Novel Writing Month. I’d started November off on vacation and then got sick. So a very slow start and then very slow progress due to raw exhaustion. I didn’t see the doctor until the day before Thanksgiving and got antibiotics. So over the course of the last week of November I wrote over 25,000 words. After that I feel like someone’s been beating me in my sleep.

For this year’s NaNoWriMo, I relied entirely on the crude outline I created in the one-day workshop I did with Mark Teppo through Clarion West‘s one-day workshop in early October. For a lot of reasons, mostly involving the build-up to November (including World Fantasy Con and AmberCon Northwest back to back), I didn’t get a blog post about my experience with his workshop. Since the novel came out of the work I did in his workshop, and it’s a great chance to see how that worked for me, I figured it was best to combine those two posts.

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AmberCon Northwest 2011 Recap

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For those of you who I’ve only recently met, let me first explain a little about AmberCon Northwest.  ACNW is a yearly game convention based mostly around Erick Wujcik’s Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game. Which in turn is based on Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber series. Over the years, the strict adherence to only playing Amber Diceless has slackened. There continue to be Amber games, but there are also lots of other off beat games that now get run there. There are several of these cons each year. I’ve only been to two of them, and this is my favorite of them.

The convention is run at the McMenamin’s Edgefield, a beautiful resort just east of Portland, OR. Not only does the Edgefield have an on-site brewery, distillery and winery, but it also has a spa and salt-water soaking pool. The convention has no dealer room and almost never has panels. Instead from Thursday through Sunday the weekend is all about gaming.

The community of 120 some odd people is very open and welcoming. New people often speak of how friendly and helpful people are, and many of the people I’ve gotten to know over the last twelve years feel like family.

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My First World Fantasy Convention

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I didn’t quite know what I was getting myself into when I signed up a year ago for World Fantasy Convention. I had friends that were going to be there, Neil Gaiman was a guest of honor, so that was all a big selling point. My confidence slackened a bit when my wife told me she didn’t think she could manage the vacation time. But I had the ticket so I figured, “Why not?” Besides, with only 500 people attending, I might actually get to meet Neil Gaiman. I’ll be honest: I didn’t really meet Neil Gaiman, unless you count running into him and getting him to sign a copy of Stardust for my wife. But really what I got out of the convention was much cooler than meeting Neil Gaiman. SRSLY.

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World Fantasy Con and Other Newsly Bits

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I’ve been really busy working on the novel(la) I’m writing for Timid Pirate, so I haven’t been blogging much. I have many blog posts in my head, just no time to work on them. No contract will likely be signed till I have the full first draft done, but I sent what I have to my wife so she can make suggestions before I send it off to my beta readers. With NaNoWriMo coming up, I’ll be taking a break to work on something else for a month.

Today I’m catching a plan to San Diego for World Fantasy Con, with guest of honor Neil Gaiman. I didn’t make it onto any panels, but looking at the list of authors that did I’m not insulted. There’s a metric butt ton of awesome writers there. It’s so outside of my league it’s ridiculous. But I did manage to squeeze my way in as an author for tonights informal meet-and-greet at Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore. I’m only a lot intimidated by the notion of being on the same docket of authors as Mary Robinette Kowal, Emma Bull, David Brin and Will Shetterly. I have this small secret fear that they’ll realize I don’t belong.

I’m delighted to see that they listed one of the anthologies I’m in on their site, though. Specifically Crossed Genres Year One. I’ll be stoked if they actually have it on sale at the store. I’ll be even more stoked if they have the Timid Pirate anthologies I’m in.

Speaking of Timid Pirate, Cobalt City Dark Carnival is out soon-ish. I channel my inner angry panda for my story, “Snowflake’s Chance in Hell.” Not sure what the exact release date is, but I know it is pretty damn soon.

Arcane Magazine, which purchased my short story “Kiss of Death,” has changed format to being a yearly anthology. Their Web site now points to Cold Fusion Media. I recall hearing that the anthology would come out January-ish, so hopefully that’s when my story will be there since my new contract gives them a year to publish the story before rights revert to me. Getting information about this has been tough.