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NaNoWriMo

November is here again, and that means NaNoWriMo. The National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), lays down the challenge to write 50,000 words of a novel during the month of November.

Like the last four or five years, this year I will again be watching on with a sense of melancholy induced by my lack of participation. I have a range of good reasons: November is a busy time for my family, with a number of birthdays, and an anniversary. As a school teacher it is also the month during which I have school reports to write, and usually a school camp to attend. They are all good reasons, and the reasons why, yet again, I won’t be attempting NaNoWriMo, but it does leave me with a sense of sadness.

50,000 words over 30 days means around 1667 words a day. Each reason represents nights away from the keyboard, too many of those stacked up pushes the word count required per day into unattainable territory. Now, I wouldn’t wish away those reasons (well, maybe the reports and camp), but by the same token, I would dearly love to participate in the NaNoWriMo.

Why? Well, there is a drive and a strength that comes from participating in an activity to which so many others are committed. Of course, I could aim to write 50,000 words in any given month, it doesn’t have to be November, but NaNoWriMo is a Thing, and being a part of a Thing is a source of impetus, comes with a sense of community or belonging, instills a sense of shared purpose and lends drive.

It could be any other month, but November is the month, and for whatever reason it just doesn’t feel the same when pushed to some other time. Perhaps this is a thing I need to shake from my mind, just shove the mental hurdle aside and set a goal for February or March, or some other time of the year and have at it. Perhaps…

It’s a thought to come back to. For now I need to focus on getting my freelance writing done, my reports completed, and finish off my next micro-RPG: Corsairs. Everything I already need to get done is enough to contend with, sure, but I still look in on NaNoWriMo wistfully…

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One Ring to Rule Them All…

Cubicle 7 have been teasing artwork for their upcoming release of The One Ring, Second Edition, and to my eye, it looks amazing.

Over on their website they have been posting regular updates showing off the artwork for the cover, interior, and the playable cultures, like this one, which shows off the Men of Minas Tirith, Hobbits of the Shire, and the High Elves of Rivendell.

The cover for the new edition looks fantastic, vibrant, full of action, and even includes a certain iconic wizard. The art piece was created by Johan Grenier, and is part of a larger piece, which can be seen here. Very cool, and even better, it ties in to a free adventure that will be released alongside the new edition.

Even more stunning that this though, is the cover and art for the Collectors Edition. It reminds me very much of the art and style of the very best hard cover versions of The Lord of Rings.

The Collectors edition comes in a slip case, and the whole production looks amazing. You can read about on Cubicle 7’s website here. The Collector’s Edition Cover is by Rachael Macken, and the map that is spot highlighted on the slipcase is by Jared Blando.

I have been thrilled to have had the opportunity to write for The One Ring Second Edition line, including contributing to The One Ring Starter Set, and the upcoming title Tales from Middle-earth. As a long time lover of the Lord of the Rings and Middle-earth, it has been a real thrill! That everything Cubicle 7 has shown off for the Second Edition looks so good is just icing on the cake!

All the images in this post are the property of Cubicle 7 ©

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Devil’s Run Update

How would you survive in the mayhem and anarchy of a post-apocalyptic world? A wasteland of scarcity, danger, and dominated by gangs? Red Scar have just updated the Quickstart for their role playing game: Devil’s Run. Devil’s Run is a fun and crazy post-apocalyptic setting, with all the chrome, oil stains, shell casings and mayhem one would expect of the wasteland.

The Devil’s Run Quickstart includes rules for Modiphius Entertainment’s 2D20 system, which powers Star Trek Adventures, Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of, John Carter of Mars, Infinity the Role Playing Game, and more, as well rules for running it with the Savage Worlds SWADE system, from Pinnacle Entertainment.

I didn’t contribute anything to the Quickstart, but I did write some pieces for the soon-to-be-released core book. The game is a lot of fun, and well worth checking out. You can find the updated Quickstart, for free, on DriveThruRPG here.

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Haqqislam…

So nice to see some of the books I’ve worked on getting released into the wild. The latest of these is the Haqqislam source book for the Infinity RPG. I know I’ve written it before, but it really is amazing to see all the work of so many talented people coming together into a final product. The Haqqislam source book looks fantastic, and I’m very proud to have been a part of the team that contributed to its creation.

I love the cover art work, but the book is also choc full of great information, background, rules and art.

I worked on the Bourak chapter, and had a lot of fun exploring the planetary home of the Haqqislamite empire. The Bourak chapter is only one part of the book however, many other writers contributed to make this a wonderful source book for the Infinity RPG.

The Haqqislamite movement found traction in a world riven by political turmoil and economic crises. Its greatest messenger, Farhad Khadivar, advocated a new ideology that wove together the many complex threads of the old into a New Islam. This philosophical and theological revision of long-standing interpretations, which shed intolerance and oppressive dogma in favour of humanism and a concept known as the Search for Knowledge, laid the foundations for a golden age of reforms and advancements that propelled a nation across the stars.

Since finding a home on Bourak, Haqqislam has experienced a rebirth of artistic and scientific pursuance that is the envy of their rivals. Gardeners refine terraforming techniques that have reshaped an arid world, doctors perform miracles with pioneering surgery, and biochemists cultivate new synthetic wonders with Silk. Though often considered one of the smallest of the G5 nations, Haqqislam remains unrivalled in several arenas.

A Silk monopoly and extensive trade routes have spawned a nation of traders that often draw the envy and ire of competitors, though the Sword of Allah stands ever ready to smite the enemies of the Word. With new insights into the New Islam and its proponents, this sourcebook will take you further into the Search for Knowledge than ever before!

  • Details on Bourak and its diverse regions — Al Medinat, Funduq, Iran Zhat Al Amat, Gabqar, Norouz, and Alamut.
  • Focused Lifepaths that allow players to tread the Search for Knowledge, including Akbar Doctors, Khawarij, and new Hassassin careers.
  • Additional armour, equipment, and adversaries specifi c to Haqqislam, including the famed Akrep TAGs of the Maghariba Guard, and stats for the enigmatic Husam Yasbir.
  • New rules and campaign guidance for plundering the space lanes as a corsair in the employ of Haqqislam.
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Writing Group

A friend and I have been talking about our respective writing journeys for some time. Tonight we had our first writer’s group. Perhaps it is better to refer to it as a meet up, since there was just the two of us, but calling it a writing group make it feel like more of a commitment, more official.

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He is currently plugging away at a webnovel (which you can find here), while I have been motoring along with my freelance work in the Role Playing Game world (which is mostly listed in my bibliography here). Both of us are wanting to write a novel manuscript.

We had previously talked about getting together and comparing notes, offering ideas and criticisms, sharing resources, and tonight was our first step in that direction. We spent the first portion of the night discussing our goals and what we wanted from our meetings, and then both read a little of each other’s work and made some comments. It was good, and while my work was woefully underdone, I walked away with a real drive to ensure that I’ll have something closer to ready for the next meeting. It was nice to be able to sit down and talk about our goals, about our writing habits, and about the things we needed to change in order to achieve our goals. The act of meeting up in order to compare notes places an onus on action, and this added incentive is something I am looking forward to especially!

 

Some links I found useful while we were planning out what our meetings could and should look like:

Writing Group Starter Kit

Jeff Goins, on Writing Groups

Inked Voices, Writing Groups 101

Joseph Massucci, 15 Tips on Writing Groups

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Setting a path…

I finished a novelette at the start of the year, the first piece of fiction I have started and finished for a while. It’s not that I haven’t been writing, as a freelancer in the games industry I have spent most of my evenings writing, but I haven’t written a piece of fiction that wasn’t directly related to a table top miniatures or role playing game for a number of years. Then things got busy. I intended to write more fiction, had plans in notebooks, word docs, on scraps. I intended to write on this blog on a weekly basis, but my freelance work kicked back into gear in early February, and I have been occupied. It may not seem much by the standards of many writers out there, but I have written and submitted around 100,000 words over the course of the year so far, for seven or eight different books that will see publication over the next year or two. At the start of the year I had the goal of drafting a novel, and now, in September, I am worried that I won’t be able to hit that goal.

I went back recently and started to edit through the story I wrote at the beginning of the year. Aside from a general tightening, there are still things I am thinking of changing, aspects of characters, aspects of the setting, and as a science fiction story, I am concerned the descriptions of spaceflight are scientifically inaccurate despite my research. I am still mulling over whether to cut it down to 6000 words and make it a short story, or whether to continue the story (I have plenty of ideas), and make it part of a larger plot. I also have a bunch of story ideas that have been kicking around and variously demanding attention. In short, I am getting the itch to write fiction again.

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This is a repeated refrain: I want to write fiction. I need to make sure I am disciplined enough to make it happen, to dedicate time to it. I also have freelance work I need to get done. I should also make a point of writing here more regularly than one lone update every few months. What is that stops me writing fiction? I have freelance work to get done, a family to spend time with, a day-job to do. I procrastinate over which idea I should write. I worry about slowing down on the freelance work. I am concerned my fiction just isn’t very good.

I know what I need to do, but doing it is difficult. Stop worrying. Easier written than done. Stop worrying and move at my own pace. Don’t do too much, at least so much that I am dragging myself from bed in the morning or have a hard time engaging with my family after work. I need to permit myself to slow down on the freelance work and give myself time to write the fiction I want to write. I need to understand that my fiction probably isn’t very good, but it won’t get better if I don’t do it. I need to be better disciplined in using the time I do have. I need to pick something and just write it, knowing that it might go no-where, be no good, or need to be changed substantially. But as I wrote above, knowing some of the steps is not the same as walking the path. We shall see…

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Furious Fiction

An evening spent poking around various websites related to writing eventually landed me at the Australian Writers’ Centre. There I found they were running a monthly competition called Furious Fiction, a competition for a 500 word story with a number of criteria. This month the criteria were: the first word must be ‘music’, the story must include an invitation of some kind, and the story must include singing in some way.

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Image from the Furious Fiction site, linked above.

I found the site with about an hour and a half remaining in the deadline, and with a lazy Sunday evening stretching before me, decided to give it a shot. I am under no illusions that I’ll place or win, but it was a fun exercise.

500 words was not much to play with, and the various criteria stretch your thinking in novel ways. I quite liked writing my little piece, though as I stated above, I have no expectation of doing particularly well with it.

Given it was rather enjoyable, I signed up, and will be trying to post an entry each month as they come up. Writing under restrictions, or with the requirement to include a set of specific things is a fun and interesting experience, I highly recommend it!