We only have 12 days left in my first 12 for ’12 Kickstarter drive, so it’s time to make a special announcement. One of the most frequent requests I’ve gotten for new rewards is to figure out some way to include copies of the original Brave New World RPG. Because I don’t publish that game — my friends at AEG do — I can’t just toss in copies. They’re not mine to give.

HOWEVER, thanks to my friends over at DriveThruRPG.com, I’m able to give any backers who pledge $25 or more a private link that allows you to grab the PDF of the core rulebook through DriveThruRPG.com for only $5! That’s a savings of $13 off the standard price, or over 72% off.

I’ll send the link out as soon as the drive ends on December 4. I won’t see any of that extra money, but I wanted to do what I could to make sure that those who want a copy of the original game have a chance to grab it cheap.

So, please spread the news far and wide! I want as many people as can to take advantage of this bonus. Many thanks to DriveThruRPG.com for helping me make this offer, and special thanks to all of you who have stepped up to back 12 for ’12. I literally couldn’t do it without you.

Today, three articles about my 12 for ’12 project appeared. In the first, on the Civilian Reader website, I wrote a guest post about “What Is Brave New World?” It’s a question that comes up a lot, of course, and I tried to nail down the answer.

Next, I wrote a guest post for Bryan Thomas Schmidt’s SFFWRTCHT website. (That’s Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Chat, which Bryan regularly hosts on Twitter.) This time, I wrote about how to turn a game into a novel, something I have more than a bit of experience with. I’m so used to doing it, I sometimes forget that it can seem opaque and mysterious to those who haven’t done it, so I tried to shine a bit of light into the corners of that process.

Last up, Robert Wieland interviewed me about 12 for ’12 for The Onion’s AV Club. I absolutely love The Onion and the A.V. Club, so that was a true treat. Rob asked some excellent questions about the project and the game it’s based on, so be sure to give it a read.

I’m still looking for other ways to get the word about the Kickstarter drive out there, so if you know or have any, don’t be shy about letting me know. Thanks!

As part of my efforts to promote my 12 for ’12 project and its first Kickstarter drive (which is up to 191% and lurching toward unlocking Book 2!), I’m doing a bit of a blog tour. Today, I have guest posts that went up on two different websites, and in both cases, I wrote about writing fast.

Over at SFSignal, I wrote a piece called “The Speed of Write.” It’s about how you can write fast and still write well. That’s a concept many people have a hard time grokking, especially when they read about how one great writer or another spent years and years on one of their favorite books. They figure that if long development equals a good project, than the reverse must be true, meaning fast books are rotten.

Of course, that’s not true. Speed doesn’t have much to do with quality, especially when you’re talking about first drafts. Just check out how well the video game Duke Nukem Forever did despite having one of the longest development cycles ever.

To back this up, I wrote a post on Bill King’s site called “The Fastest Novel I Ever Wrote.” This finally puts into print a story I’ve told at many a convention over the years but never wrote down — until now — about how I once wrote a 91,000-word book in 15 days.

Besides being a fantastic and successful writer himself, Bill’s one of the best friends of my life, and he gave me a tremendously kind introduction over there. Sooo, just skip over that first part unless you enjoy knowing that forty-something fathers of five can still blush. But be sure to read the rest and let me know what you think.

A lot of wonderful people have been out there telling folks about my 12 for ’12 project and the first Kickstarter drive for it, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. I’d like to highlight a couple bits today.

First, Cindy Au — who works at Kickstarter — blogged about the project yesterday in her post, “So You Want to Write a Book?” In it she writes, “Part of why Kickstarter exists is because money cannot be the thing that stands in the way of creation. That is not a world we can afford to live in.” That’s an amazing sentiment and one that makes me even happier to be working through Kickstarter for this.

Second, Richard Bliss interviewed me for the third installment of his new podcast about gaming-related Kickstarter projects, Funding the Dream. I had a great time chatting with Richard, and I hope you will too if you listen in.

To cap all this off, the Kickstarter drive now stands at just shy of twice the initial goal of $3,000, and we still have over three weeks to go before the clock runs out. It got a great kick in the pants yesterday when my friend and fellow game designer Matt James pledged $1,000 and grabbed the first of the five available Alpha-level rewards. Huge thanks go out to Matt for showing such faith in the project. I can’t wait to work up his Alpha-level character with him.

Wow, wow, wow.

Just a little while ago, the Kickstarter drive for the first trilogy the 12 for ’12 project—novels based on my Brave New World RPG—shattered its first goal of $3,000. That means I’m going to spend January writing the first book in the Brave New World trilogy! I can’t tell you how thrilled I am about that, especially since we pulled it off in about 48 hours.

The pledge that put us over the top also claimed the first of the limited rewards at the higher levels, and I’m just grinning that I’m going to get to come up with a new Delta character with that particular gentleman. It’s that kind of working with readers and players that makes creating this material so much fun.

Of course, this is just the beginning. The next number we’re shooting for is $8,000, at which point the second novel gets unlocked. With all the support we’ve garnered so far, I have little doubt we’ll be able to reach that. I’d like to get there as fast as we can, though, so we can tackle the later goals with plenty of time to spare.

First, though, I want to thank each and every one of my backers who jumped on this rocket early. I literally couldn’t do any of this without them. For the rest of you, well, the higher we go, the more books we get, and that’s going to make for a wonderful ride. Join us!