Revenge of the Gamer

My latest Evil GM Tricks is up over at www.gamegrene.com .  You can read it here if you’re interested!

My first column at www.rpg.net was published today!  You can go read it here if you’re interested.  It’s not my best work, but it’s a neccesary step for the column I’m writing.  I decided to cover some of the more basic techniques to help new GMs before getting into the fun and devious tricks an Evil GM should have in their toolbox.  Regardless, it still feels good to have my name in print on such a large site.

The campaign I mentioned in the last post is really taking off.  I’ve found three players, and the game’s first session is scheduled for July 11th.  I’m pretty excited as its been a long time since I’ve run a game.  My Campaign Website  has been a pretty big hit so far!  I’ve always wanted to use a website for a game, but this is the first time I’ve actually done it.  Its so much easier having all the information in one place, accessible to all the players at once.

The novel is also doing very well.  I’ve reached a stage I’ve never been at before, which involves creating new scenes and editing old ones.  Basically I look at each character and the story in general, and I try to identify things that are missing.  For instance, I need to show Yuri as a master salesman so I chose to interject a scene with him selling a cargo stolen from merchants. 

All told I’ve added six new scenes so far, with between four and six more to write.  Once I’ve finished all of them I get to start back on page one of the novel.  Then I give the whole thing a final edit, and at long last I’m done.  I’ve been working on the same project since February, and as much fun as its been I’m eager to finish.  

The largest reason for that is being able to show this thing off.  The novel is light years better than anything I’ve ever finished in my life.  Thanks to help from Saul, Jeff and Shannon the scenes flow a lot better now.  The whole thing makes a lot more sense, and the characters are far more developed than any I’ve created in any other work.  I’m genuinely excited to see what people think of the final product.

Saul and I have also launched another ambitious project.  Both of us want to finish an original novel, and have set a timeline to have our rough drafts finished by December.  Six months ago I’d have been terrified by the thought, but now I’m filled with confidence.  It took me five months to complete the rough draft for Yuri Silvertongue and the Violet Spire.  I see no reason why I shouldn’t be able to accomplish something similar with the Faelands novel, especially given that the plot was written in my head years ago.  I just need to bring it to life!

Looks like its going to be a busy summer for me, and I have all sorts of news.  To start with in my last post I promised to give more details about the novel, so here goes.

Back in February I started playing in a friend’s Exalted game.  I decided it would be fun to write a short story about the character’s background, but found I just couldn’t stop writing.  Within a few weeks I had over fifty pages of fiction, and I decided it would be a good idea to convert my story into a novel.

Bear in mind that because the novel is based in White Wolf’s Exalted universe I won’t ever be able to publish it, at least not with the intent of making any money.  Knowing that I decided to write the novel anyway, but purely for practice. 

Fast forward to last night.  Just under five months after starting the Exalted novel I’ve finished the rough draft.  It’s been one hell of a ride, and I learned more about writing than I ever would have expected.  Now I need to go back and edit the whole mess, and I’m hoping I’ll have it finished by the first week of August.

After that I plan to use my new found skills to work on my first original novel.  Its based in the game world that I created back when I was eighteen, and has been kicking around in my head for the last fifteen years.  Its time for it to see the light of day, and by Christmas I’m hoping to have the rough draft finished.

I have other good news as well!  I applied for a columnist position over at www.rpg.net and was accepted.  I put together the first three articles in a series I call GM Fundamentals, and the first one should be up in the next few weeks.  I’ll make sure to post as soon as its up!

I also had a spot of bad news.  Aaron decided to end the Exalted game that I was playing in, which means the character that inspired the Exalted Novel will no longer be played.  The good news is that this clears up my schedule, and I’m now putting together my own Exalted campaign.

Its been over a year since I’ve run a game, and the itch has been getting stronger so this is good timing.  I went ahead and created a Meetup Group as well as a website for my players.