D20 Writing Fun!

Having trouble coming up with creative aspects when writing? To short story writers as well as my novelist kith: This one's for you! I took the idea from Orson Scott Card's M.I.C.E. quotient and from a gamer's 20-sided die, ground both finely in a mortar and pestle, mixed with a little art from my drawing book and baked in a well-greased blog at 451°F until readable. 

The concept is simple: Look at the first selection (Mileau), roll your D20 and follow the number to the corresponding number, and VIOLA! You have the setting for your story. Then, follow the same directions for the Idea selection. BOOM! You have your idea. Character is a little different as it has a bonus section for creating a more indepth character. Roll again on this section to add a point of inner conflict for the character. A 'Disgraced General' could be fun, and the implications of having a 'Priest' that has a drug 'Addiction' means a whole different set of issues for a 'Drug Lord' with the same 'Addiction'. And just watch what happens when a 'Disgruntled Sycophant' gets fed up with his 'Abusive Government Leader'! Finally, go to the Event selection and roll to find out the flux of your new character's outer world.

 I hope that you have fun with this as you prepare to write in 2015!

Waxing On

I change culturally and mechanically, often taking form and function from nature and nurture and then forming friction from my last presupposition. By degrees, I stray from what is natural and move toward the mechanism. Enamored often with myself and with what vapid concoction with which I enforce and define my flux. To defend my disfunction, dispel my critics and insolate my invention. And the invention is not mine. I inhabit the measure of path to which my foot is most firmly nestled and think it safety. It is certainly not safe. Nothing along the path is safe, but dangerous. The deadliest however, is the unwillingness to change. I know this, culpable for my response. My soul knows too little to go. I know too much to stay. My soul only knows what I tell it. Or, at least, what it's been told. And it's been told of an illusion of safety and forgets the reward of risk. It knows the mechanism; The machine. It knows what I've allowed. So, it is my responsibility to expose it to the possibilities. To feel the future, thinking forward and give it a singular option: Go!

It is not in the rearview or bathroom mirrors. It is outside my ken. In the realm of the impossible-unfathomable.

Post-NaNoWriMo... Er... Post.

Well, after the rigors of NaNoWriMo, I have done a lot of soul-searching-- In the past four days. I am pretty sure that after the first day or so of soul-searching, I realize that it then moves to fruitless navel-gazing and then on to sour-seaching. I meant to take a week off from writing at all, you know, "to rest". But, I really miss writing. And I am itching to see what it is that I actually wrote. So far, it's various degrees of rapidly cooling passion that seemed better in my head than type on a page.

Yep, I know that it is part of the process but, I want it to be finished. My vision for the book was an action-packed, alt history, weird west/steampunk fantasy, un-romance. I'm probably not seasoned enough to tackle any two of the descriptive genres at the same time, let alone one. But, herewego.

I hope to have a readable second draft ready for my beta-readers by the first of the year. I am excited to have it in the works and published in ebook shortly after that and finally in solid form by spring. If I can get on the stick, I can have The SkyRift ready by then, too. If you want to read the first 5,000 words, you can click here to read it.