New Work, Plus Some Odds and Ends

It’s always a good day when I get offered new writing work; in this case, I got TWO offers in less than a week – both in the gaming industry. One is a short bit of work filling in some technical details, and the other is — something else. Not sure how much I can […]

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It’s Friday! and a Book Recommendation

It’s always Friday somewhere. After missing a week on my blog, I’m now back on track — if a little later than my usual Tuesday post. Things have been happening in the last two weeks: I attended Teslacon 4, and thanks to the largesse of my wife’s new job, I attended my first ever college […]

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The Waiting Game, Part 3,642

So I finished some work for Achtung! Cthulhu recently, and now the waiting game begins. I’m dying to see what the finished book will look like, and I’m also looking forward to the paycheck I will receive — once the book is published. Freelancing is like that most of the time; I end up having […]

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A Gamer’s Life For Me!

I’ve been a gamer since I was a kid. My family played board games around the kitchen table after supper many, many times, and from those experiences I learned valuable things about patience, waiting your turn, and yes, a fair amount of strategy and how to bluff. Also important, having to read instructions and rulebooks […]

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The Self-Publishing Basket

There is considerable wisdom in this maxim: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. In this particular instance I’m referring to authors who only make their work available for Amazon.com’s Kindle e-reader. The reasons one SHOULD consider listing your self-pubbed/produced creative project are obvious: Amazon (and by extension, the Kindle) are the combined 800-pound […]

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New Personal Best!

Recently I finished up some freelance writing for British RPG company Modiphius on the Pacific Theatre guide for Achtung! Cthulhu. At over 30,000 words, this was my biggest single writing project to date. Many of my writer friends would scoff at that number – it’s not even the length of a full novel – but […]

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Why Support Independent Stores?

There’s been occasional pulses of information encouraging everyone to “buy local”, and I’d like to add my two cents’ worth on the subject. It’s important to consider, particularly in this day when being price conscious can be the difference between eating and not eating for many people. The first question that comes up is: “What […]

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Responding to Negative Reviews

We’ve all seen them, and all writers had them at one time or another. Negative Reviews can be infuriating and frustrating and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, but they always give you a slightly sick feeling, like someone just punched you in the gut. Being a writer is tough. You sit in a room — by yourself, […]

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Why Authors Should Be Cautious About Sharing Too Much

Here’s a chilling tale from fellow writer Anne R. Allen: “As some of you know, I broke my own rules recently and let my inner Atticus Finch speak up at an ill-advised moment. (Never try to reason with rageaholics: you’re only volunteering to be their next fix.) A legal team who monitors online hate groups […]

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E-Book Piracy

I was discussing ebook piracy with some folks at GeekKon over the weekend, and I made a couple of points to these folks (who were newly-minted publishers looking for ways to market their RPG books) about piracy and the ebook market, which they were reluctant to enter because of piracy fear. 1. People who pirate […]

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