Update Three: Return of the Pen
It’s the last Star Wars themed title I promise.
I started drawing again. No, I will not be posting anything here, at least not for a while. Drawing is a skill that I have not spend a ton of time developing, but I’m not sure that is its purpose for me. I find it therapeutic to have a hobby that is just for me: no expectation to share, monetize, improve. A hobby with no pressure. (There is some essay here about the state of both our current grind culture and how my personal psychology fits in to said culture, which I will leave as an exercise to the reader.)
We survived PAX: I wrote two different posts about my past and current experiences *vis-à-vis* navigating such spaces in thrall to those cute and demanding members of our species we call “children”. It was a hard won success: the kids left mostly happy and my wife and I left mostly exhausted.
For me specifically, I left with a renewed sense of creative publishing. I have all these books, but I haven’t been great about sharing. I think most of that is based on a particular view of how publishing works, and part being my general apprehensions of how my work will be received. But looking at PAX and I realized that though many of these games aren’t for me, they are for someone. Every booth was busy, everyone was enjoying themselves. And yet, there was no “perfect” game.
So I’m going to look for ways to get the words on my Ulysses notes into your eyes with whatever methods are available. I’ll keep querying for agents, but I’m also looking at the many types of alternative publishing, Patreons, Kickstarters, (and the offer still stands that I will send a free copy of any of my books if you agree to provide feedback as a beta reader.)
Project Status
The Skeptic: Working through one more edit (as it’s been years since I’ve read it), and then the plan is to hire a professional editor and then… let’s look at the cards… “Future uncertain but promising. Beware those with silver tongues. It might be a good time to make new friends. Your lucky numbers are \[Value not detected, check]”.
The Hand of Sorrow: The queries continue, though I’m probably taking a break for the holidays.
The Eye of Fury: At 19k words, and that finished the first section “Book Five”. (The Hand of Sorrow was Books One thorough Four, Eye of Fury picks up at Book Five.) This is about ready to send to the beta readers who read Hand of Sorrow.
The Gods Are All Liars: somehow, without conscious effort, this is over 18k non-linear words.
Other projects (Quinthack, Tarot): these remain wistful dreams.
