Friday, October 20, 2017

Miralee - New Paperback Reformatted for a Lower Price

I recently reformatted the paperback version of Miralee: A Shadow Knights Tale, a Young Adult Fantasy novel. The result was I was able to lower the page count without making changes to the content, and therefore I was able to lower the list price from $15 to $9.99 for the trade paperback. Amazon has not yet reflected the price change, but you can get in on the price change early by going to the CreateSpace store. Here is the link.




Saturday, October 7, 2017

Dexter of Pozzelby is in Paperback

I published DEXTER OF POZZELBY a few years ago as an e-book, the first story I wrote in the land of Ereth. Now it is revised and available on Amazon for just $9.99. There is also a revised version of the e-book on Kindle/KDP Select available for only $2.99. Links to both are above.

Other news from the writing front--

I am re-formatting the paperback of MIRALEE: A SHADOW KNIGHTS TALE to reduce the page count and lower the price to the $10 range as well. That should be happening in the next week or so.

I have finished a lot of material all at once. I have been querying my Middle Grade Novel, THE SEA CROWS. I have three short stories, URINE RAINBOWS, PREYING FOR THE HOMELESS, and THE BABY BOILER, that have all been submitted to magazines or anthologies. And I recently completed the rough draft of a picture book! All the while working on the first edit of a YA Fantasy Novel that I finished the rough draft of a month or two ago. It was a busy summer.



Friday, October 6, 2017

Early Campaigns: Early World Building

It is no coincidence that so many people working in Hollywood today are coming out as long time players of Dungeons and Dragons: The game embodies acting, story telling, and the creation of fabulous characters and worlds.

For me, gaming and writing have always gone hand in hand. Elements of gaming have always gone into my writing and vice versa.

In Dungeons and Dragons, the person most responsible for the creation of the campaign world is the Dungeon Master. For those who may not know, players of the game create characters with a specific class, like fighter or magic-user, and race, like human or dwarf, but that is only the beginning. Player characters can be as simple or detailed as the player wants. Most people who play the game go for detailed, with elaborate backgrounds and personalities. But it is the Dungeon Master who creates the worlds and adventures the characters engage with, and is the arbiter of all interactions with that world.

Creating worlds takes time and tons of work. Therefore, my first effort was to take The World of Greyhawk Campaign Setting created by the game's creator, E. Gary Gygax and to make it my own. This sort of hybrid is a great option for new DMs. One can easily take an existing framework and make it their own. I played a long running campaign in such a setting.

Once you've gotten comfortable with this it is time to create your own world from the ground up. Next time we'll look at a few strategies on getting your game world started.