In case you don’t feel like you have enough me in your life (and, honestly, not even I have enough of me), you can check me out on the Rho Pi Gamme podcast chatting about podcasting, gaming, SEP, and stuff.

Listen here.

I’m sure that everyone is pining for my words of wisdom.

Just let me have my delusions.

You can head over to Black Gate to read another article on the business of RPG PDF publishing.

Be seeing you.

One of my major failings as a writer is that I don’t want to torture my characters. A great way to keep a reader invested in long-form fiction – be it a novel, a series, or a novella – is to have horrible things happen to characters to which the reader has grown attached. The worse it is for the character, the better for your readers.

I hate doing that. I hate it when horrible things happen to people at all. When they are characters I have created, characters that I also love, that I have built, I just have a really hard time doing nasty things to them. In short fiction, I can usually throw enough curves to make it through without doing really shitty things to them. In long-form fiction, I tend to create reversals, but nothing too major. Nothing really horrific.

I need to work on that. I need to become a real bastard.

Just like life.

Cross-posted at Sword’s Edge Publishing.

Here’s the deal. My daughter is fundraising for the Heart & Stroke Foundation through her school’s Jump Rope For Heart. Don’t know how many of you out there have a few spare dollars, but if there’s anything in the SEP PDF catalogue that you would like (other than Sword Noir or Kiss My Axe, as I owe people money on those), I’ll be happy to send it along as a thank-you for any pledges.

This offer is good until 0600 GMT on Thursday 12 April 2012.

I’m pretty sure the donations page provides some information on who is donating what, so if you donate $50 or more, I’m going to offer you one of two “rewards” for your generosity.

First Option: I will run a game over Skype or Google Hangout for you and up to two of your friends. If there is more than one $50 donator (I have my doubts this will be a problem), maybe we can all join in together. The game will be for a minimum of 3 hours, and I can run it using Sword Noir, Kiss My Axe, Centurion, Head Crushers, Sword’s Edge System, Old School Hack, or True20. You can pick the genre, if you like.

OR

Second Option: I will write you a short story on the subject of your choice with the main character of your choice, minimum of 2,500 words. If there is more than one $50, (again, highly unlikely) I may have to do a mashup, with the highest donation providing the main plot and character and any other donations providing secondary characters and subplots. We’ll work something out whatever the case.

So, if you are feeling charitable and want some SEP swag, now’s the time to donate. Please follow the link below to donate before 0600 GMT on Thursday 12 April 2012.

You can find the donation page here.

I’m not here to apologize or explain where I’ve been or promise that you’ll be seeing more of me in the future. Nope. Not doing that.

I’m here to tell you what I’ve been doing.

I’ve been busy with a bunch of things, but I’ve also made sure to continue submitting stories and writing.

I’ve been following the Heinlein method of submissions. This is possibly totally untrue, but that’s immaterial – if one of Heinlein’s stories got rejected, he allegedly didn’t bother re-reading it or trying to touch it up, he just sent it out again, immediately. Now, Heinlein was so good, he likely didn’t need to re-read or proof his stuff. Me? I do. But I’ve done that before it gets sent out the first time, so I’ve been following Heinlein’s technique. If the story is out long enough (as in over two months), I will give it a re-read, because I will have grown unfamiliar enough with it to maybe catch problems or mistakes. Otherwise, I just find a new market and send it right back out.

I have four stories that are making the rounds. If I don’t find any takers for 3 cents per word or more, I’ll just pull them. I’m not willing to sell my stuff for 1 cent per word, or the $10 or even $5 that some places offer. Call me arrogant or vain. I likely am. I also know my price, and that ain’t it.

The writing I’ve been doing is a revision of a novel I already wrote. It’s rather short for a modern novel, so I’m fleshing it out. It was also written with an incomplete knowledge of where it was going, so it needs a little tinkering to make all the pieces fit better.

I have no intention of trying to get an agent or a publisher with this particular work. I have other plans for it, plans which will only come to fruition if I can actually finish the overhaul. At the speed I’m working, that may take a while. A long, long while.

Don’t hold your breath!

Pretty sure he’s kicking ass.

I always enjoy watching Sean Bean in a movie or on TV, even if he does get killed a lot. I also enjoy watching terrorists or assorted bad guys get gacked in inventive or kinetic ways. Can you imagine my joy at discovering Sean Bean in a movie that looks like Taken but with terrorists instead of human smugglers?

Behold, Cleanskin. Weird name, but I’m willing to ignore that if you offer up Sean Bean beating the holy hell out of baddies.

Yeah, pretty jacked.

However, given that movies with awesome premises and great casts can still suck, I will not succumb to the kool-aid.

Yet.

Bask in the awesome.

I fondly remember Space: 1999 as one of those shows I watched in syndication along with Star Trek TOS and the Starlost in order to glut my sci fi hunger back in my younger days. To my young mind, Space: 1999 seemed the most cerebral of those shows. Having watched the pilot again recently, I have to say that if it were updated with modern SFX (and fashions, yeesh!) I’d likely watch it. I’d still think the premise was stupid (how fast is that moon moving?) but I’d watch it.

And so that’s just what is happening. Soon we shall be getting Space: 2099. Here’s hoping they do fix the SFX, fashion and basic premise (the moon can move, yes, but let’s have some kind of warp or something getting it from system to system – something only slightly more plausible than an FTL orbiting body, granted, but give me something). Let’s also hope they get a quality cast, delivering quality performances based on quality scripts.

I’m expecting way too much, aren’t I?

Are Canadians too apathetic to have nice things? Our politicians, as bought and paid for as every other nation’s, are trying to screw innocent citizens by providing corporations with the same kind of powers that have led to abuse and presumption of guilt in the US. Megauploads was a piracy site, no question, but that did not give Universal the right to issue fraudulent take-down notices to Youtube. There were no repercussions, so why not? Do you want the government to remove the presumption of innocence and provide corporations with the power to shut you down if they don’t like what you are saying? If not, do something about it. Frankly, this is about the least that you can do, but if you can’t be bothered to protect our internet by calling or writing a pen and paper letter to your MP and the relevant ministers, at least do this.

I couldn’t resist the pun. Yes, I likely should be punished.

I have enjoyed the Bournes movies, though I enjoyed the original more than the later two. Paul Greengrass’ shakey-cam was confusing while Doug Liman’s carefully controlled shakey-cam was visceral. I could still follow the fighting in the Bourne Identity. I also think it was a superior movie. Not that the Supremacy and Ultimatum were bad, I just found the first movie better.

And now the Legacy.

Well, I’ve liked Jeremy Renner in the Hurt Locker and the Town, and he certainly delivered in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, so that’s a plus. Tony Gilroy wrote all three, but I haven’t seen any of the movies he’s directed, so who knows if he’s a good director.

There’s little to no chance I’ll catch this in the theatre, but it’s pretty much a certainty that I’ll catch it on DVD.

Have you seen the trailer?

The word is that we can get a look at the Wolverine, the new Wolverine movie supposedly set in Japan, come 26 July 2013. That’s a long damn wait. However, if they deliver a better move than X-Men Origins: Wolverine, it’ll be worth the wait.

The sad thing is for such a tepid piece of film mediocrity, XOW (just made that acronym up and I love it already) made $373 million USD worldwide on a budget of $85 million. What does that say about audiences in general. If that includes the sales  on DVDs, I guess I somewhat put my cut in, so I guess this is “pot calling the kettle” and all that. Mea culpa. But I dig Wolverine. I wasn’t back there in the beginning, but I was hooked with Frank Miller’s Wolverine mini-series.

And if this new movie set in Japan takes its cues from that story, we might be looking at something pretty darn cool.

My main question is: when the fuck do I get my Planetary movie?