New Project

So as of yesterday -- the 2nd of February -- I've been invited onto the team at Pure Steam RPG to write two companion novels to their d20-licensed gaming system for Pathfinder.

If you're not familiar, here's the run-down. Pathfinder is a system that is based on the Wizards of the Coast new release of D&D 3.5 rules set. (For those of you who aren't gamers, that's Dungeons & Dragons). It is a unique system with its own worlds and rules and is highly adaptable to a variety of worlds and eras. It was started in 2009 by Paizo Publishing and has a pretty good following in the tabletop rpg circles.

So I've been asked to help Pure Steam market and promote their material with two companion novels about a major character (or two) from the world to help shape the gaming world. It'll be like my own Drizzt or Elminster (look them up; they're cool characters).

I'm pretty damn excited about this. I even get to work with a guy named Crockett. I mean come on. Boone & Crockett. That just sounds like a bad-ass cop-drama team. Way better than those guys from Hawaii Five-0.

I'll keep you all abreast as I learn more and as we progress through development. Thankfully, I am still working diligently on the "Charles" novel, which is going through some of its own major changes. But it's working out well, and I'm exciting for the new material I'm writing.

Successes & Failures

It's always surprising -- though not shocking -- how things come in droves when they do come, whether good or bad. So here are some updates -- both the good and the bad -- and don't worry, there's some writing-related bits at the end.

1. After a very long and packed Spring planning for WriteCamp, we were rewarded with a great turn-out for the event and an even better response to it this year than last. There will most certainly be a continuation of the event for years to come, which has been my hope since it's inception.

2. After six years of marriage, my wife asked me for a divorce, which I must say will be on the biggest changes in my life to date. It's been a year filled with family tragedies, and this will certainly be something more to add to my list of life experiences. Life gives us a lot of hurdles to jump over; this is but another of those, and I will prevail.

3. For those who don't follow me on Facebook or Twitter (and you should), I had another story published on 365 Tomorrows' website. It's my first Steampunk piece, and I'm very happy about it. It's probably one of my most polished and experimental pieces.

4. With the success of WriteCamp -- as mentioned above -- I've decided to turn The Milwaukee Writers Workshop into a full-fledged organization, and I'm in the process of incorporating it in order to apply for non-profit status. That way (I can hope), we'll have a much easier time next year and years to follow to get more and bigger sponsorships from folks for WriteCamp and other events we might hold.

It's always friends and family that help me through the ebbs and flows of my life, and I thoroughly appreciate their presence right now. While many things in my life seem wildly out of control, at least I am kept sane by the continued mental benefit of my writing. I'll write again soon -- I promise.

In Which I Rant

The Milwaukee Writers Workshop met this past Sunday. As is typical, I got into a discussion with one of the members about something writing-related. That day's topic: the literary elite. Oh boy do I love this conversation - and my opinion on the subject has changed since the years when I was in college.

My basic thoughts:

1. Yes, there is a literary elite.
2. No, they don't sit around discussing how bad your writing is. Nor do they even talk to one another about bad writing.
   
3. There are better things to worry about.

There was a lot of brew-ha-ha surrounding a discussion of the literary elite in reaction to Jason Sanford's essay in the New York Review of Science Fiction. Without perpetuating the argument, I will say a few things in line with what our discussion was at the group.

The "literary elite" that we think of today was born out of the canon that was put together in the early part of the last century with the standardization of education and schools here in the States. It wasn't intentionally meant to drive a wedge between various fiction genre (save maybe for the overwhelming mass of pulp that was being published at the time), but it did, and that mentality has stayed. Unfortunately, yes, there is a sense of superiority with a great deal of scholars in this country when it comes to "literature" and "genre fiction" or any other type of fiction that doesn't fall into their parameters of what makes fiction become literature.

In today's age of marketable fiction (competent fiction with little sense of art to it), it's difficult to see past one's own bitterness about not getting published. For a long time, I was very jaded by the "literary elite" because I felt like my fiction was being overlooked simply for it's status as genre. Well, I was sorely mistaken. My fiction was being overlooked because it was bad. Maybe it's because I'm published now, and I can more fully understand the process of getting published and why the concept of the literary elite isn't as prevalent as most people believe. Yes, that sense of superiority by a lot of authors is down-right aggravating, but it can be overcome.

If you continue to have fiction returned to you with rejections, then it's probably not that the editors at those publications are snobbish twits who mock your writing; it's probably a matter of your needing to polish your work more thoroughly, have it looked at by a good group of writers, and maybe do some studying. Very few people get published right away; even fewer people make a name for themselves as writers; even fewer become obscenely wealthy. Write because you enjoy writing.

"Better to write for yourself and have no public than write for the public and have no self"

-- Cyril Connolly.