Next weekend, I’ll be in Wheeling, IL, for Capricon 32. It’s the first time I’ve been to the show, but I’ve heard excellent things about it. My schedule for the show is below. If you’re in the area, come on out and join us!

Saturday, February 11

1 – 1:30 PM: Reading Probably something from Carpathia

2:30 –4 PM: Autographing with Paul McComas

7 – 8:30 PM: Writing Is a Business
As aspiring writers enter the field, they will do almost anything to become published. This attitude often can lead to others taking advantage of their work. These professionals will share advice about agents, contracts, retirement, and…gulp…taxes.
Tim Akers (M), Richard Chwedyk, Matt Forbeck, Gene Wolfe

Sunday, February 12

10 – 11:30 AM: Take That, Gutenberg! New Publishing Models in the 21st Century
Clay tablets, roaming minstrels, mimeographs, Big Publishing Houses, corner bookstores, ePubs, self-publishing, and Kickstarter are just some examples of how we’ve financed and distributed stories over the years. How have stories gotten from the author to the reader, how is that model changing, and why? For whom is this a good change or a bad change? Why is how we get our books important?
Cory Doctorow (M), Matt Forbeck, John Klima, Les McClaine, John O’Neill

12 – 1:30 PM: Gaming Is Research for My Novel!
Who said gaming isn’t good for your writing? For these writers, role-playing games helped hone their skills as storytellers. How can role-playing help your writing? What are the pitfalls?
Matt Forbeck, E.E. Knight (M), Jennifer Lawrence, John O’Neill

1:30 – 3 PM: The Wide World of Comics Media
There are more ways to get a comic book or graphic novel these days besides picking one up at your local comic book store. Let’s look at the various delivery methods for comic books and graphic novels and how that changes their impact. We will look at this from the perspective of the reader, writer, and artist. Excelsior!
Matt Forbeck, Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Barry Lyn-Waitsman, Les McClaine, Bill Roper (M)

I spent most of this week in Austin, Texas, at GDC Online (which isn’t really online much at all, despite the title). I’d never been to Austin before, but the city welcomed me in and treated me like an old friend: it fed me well and kept me up drinking and chatting all night.

I got in late Sunday morning and wandered around town until my room was ready. That evening, I met up with a bunch of folks from the IGDA Writers SIG, plus longtime tabletop industry friends Jesse Scoble (now with Kings Isle in Austin), Thomas Reid, and Scott Haring. (It’s free to join the Writers SIG mailing list, by the way, and a great means of networking with other video game writers.) Afterward, I had dinner with the other speakers in for the Game Narrative Summit, followed by a pilgrimage to the Ginger Man.

GDCO is large enough to support several groups of people involved in video games, but the writers have been wise enough to establish the Ginger Man as the default hangout. Go wander off and have lunch and dinner where you like. Hit a few of the parties in the evenings. But wind up your night there, and you know you’re among friends.

I didn’t have any duties on Monday, so I hung out with Jesse Scoble and hit a number of the seminars, including watching Nolan Bushell (founder of Atari) give the keynote. One of the many highlights of the day was meeting many of the great people at Blizzard and attending their party later that evening.

The next day, I gave a talk called “Building a Transmedia Property.” This sandwiched me in between Geoff Long and Aaron Linde, each of whom gave stellar presentations of their own on the subject, making for a Transmedia Tuesday Triple Threat. I had forgotten the dongle to connect my laptop to the AV system in the room, but I had copied it onto a USB stick in case of disaster. Aaron kindly let me transfer it to his computer for the talk.

The downside was that when the Keynote file opened up, it had lost my custom settings, which would have shown my notes I’d written to go along with the slides. That meant I had to wing it, using the slides as my only mnemonics. I think this worked better, as it kept me from consulting notes and forced me to talk directly to the audience the entire time. Many people complimented the speech, and no one walked out, so I count it as a win.

That night, I hit the WGA West mixer and the GDCO Speakers Party, then had an excellent dinner with many new friends before hoofing it to the Ginger Man once more. Wednesday was a bit more of the same, leading up to heading out for the airport that afternoon. At one point, we had thirty-some people lined up for an impromptu lunch, but we wound up MIRVing off into smaller groups. Mine included Thomas Reid, Sheri Graner Ray, Chris Clark (of Magnificent Egos fame), Brian BlankingOnTheLastName, and Ryan Dancey.

I’d list off all the wonderful people I met, but I’m sure I’d forget more than a few of them. I do want to shout out a special thanks to the Game Narrative Summit Advisory board, including Tom Abernathy and Lev Chapelsky and especially my old pal Richard Dansky, who encouraged me to submit a talk and come out in the first place.

Next week, I’m off to Austin, Texas, for the Game Developers Conference Online. (Which is not actually online, but is about things online, it seems, which is why I must haul myself down to Austin to it.) I’m giving a short speech called “Building a Transmedia Property,” which is about how to build yourself a story/world that has the best potential to work in several different media. Heady stuff.

If you’re going to be at the show, be sure to let me know. I’ve never been to Austin before, and I’m looking forward to a fun few days talking about stories and games!

This weekend, I’m a guest of honor at Gaming Hoopla, a local gathering of tabletop gamers held in Janesville, Wisconsin. I should be there Saturday afternoon from noon to 4 PM at the least. If you’re around, come on out and join me and fellow guests Tom Wham and Jim Ward at the event. I’m looking forward to chatting with friends and fans and maybe even sneaking in a game or three.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ll be at Geek.Kon up in Madison, Wisconsin, this weekend. It’s bound to be a blast, with all sorts of guests, including my friends Bill Bodden, Troy Denning, Jim Frenkel, John Kovalic, Matt McElroy, Aaron Pavao, and Monica Valentinelli. It all kicks off this afternoon, and the fun goes straight on through Sunday.

I can’t make it up tonight or Sunday, but I will be there all day Saturday, starting at 9 AM and running through the night. Check my schedule for details. I hope to see you there!

Tomorrow night, I’ll be joining the Gamerati Tour at Noble Knight Games in Janesville, Wisconsin. I should get there around 6 PM and will spend the rest of the evening hanging out, chatting with friends, and maybe even playing a game or two. If you’re around, come on out at join us!

A few people recorded a number of the seminars in which I took part at Gen Con. I don’t have details for all of them yet, but right now you can go listen to a whole bunch of the seminars over on Jason Pitre’s site. Scroll down there, and you’ll see “The No-Nos of Game Design,” on which I joined Stan!, Jeff Bellinger, and Daniel Solis. Give it a listen and let me know what you think.

You can tell this one was early in the convention, as I still have most of my voice left. I always get hoarser as the days roll on.

I had a fantastic time at Gen Con this past weekend. My eldest son Marty came along for the entire trip, and Ann drove the quads up for the rest of the weekend on Friday. The little ones (who are now 9) had never been to Gen Con before, but they’d heard all about it — and a lot of my friends at the show had heard all about them.

I’m jamming on several deadlines at once at the moment, so I don’t have time for a full recap right now, but the highlights include:

• Hosting the Diana Jones Award party and announcing that the award went to Jason Morningstar’s RPG Fiasco.
• Celebrating my birthday at Gen Con the next day — along with Rob Schwalb, who shares the day with me.
• Playing in the True Dungeon VIP game on Saturday with Marty, along with Mike Selinker, Monte Cook, Colin McComb, Eric Harshbarger, Ray Vallese, and a fistful of other game designers. Even with that kind of dream team, we got barbecued by a red dragon at the end, but we had a ball.
• Having my wife and kids with me at the show for the first time ever.
• Catching up with old friends.
• Making new ones.
• Sitting on the writing and game design panels. I always learn as much as I offer up.
• The Friday night Reactor 88 Studios after party.
• Meeting puppeteer Jim Martin, who also directs on Sesame Street.
• Playing games with Marty, Ron Magin, and Brad McWilliams in the Mayfair Games suite.
• The way the Steve Jackson Games team treated my kids like royalty, especially Andrew Hackard, Paul Chapman, Phil Reed, and even Steve himself, who hadn’t been to Gen Con in 10 years. Blame John Kovalic for turning my brood into Munchkin addicts.
• Hanging out with my ENnies Dream Date a bit on Wednesday and Thursday nights — and then seeing him for five minutes during the actual cocktail party we were supposed to attend together.
• Watching Jeff Tidball and Ken Hite fight crime, ’70s style.
• Giving a complete stranger the shirt off my back at a party while my consigliere Ken Hite negotiated the details of its return.
• Having Dan Tibbles hand me a 24k-gold-plated Iron Die. Shiny!
• Doing some actual business.
• Having so many of my great friends meet my kids, who’ve they’ve heard me blather on about for years, especially John Zinser, who made sure to fill their arms with games.

I recently added another panel to my Gen Con schedule: Capes, Capers, and Cannons: Margaret Weis Productions Q&A. This is Friday at 1 PM, and while I cannot guarantee I’ll be there for the whole two hours, you can bet I’ll be around for the big announcement of their new roleplaying game license. Join us if you can!

I host a few parties at Gen Con, notably the Diana Jones Award Ceremony shindig, which is for industry professionals only. (If you qualify and need details, just ping me for them.) Over the past few years, I’ve also helped out with the Reactor 88 Studios afterparty, traditionally held on Friday at the SubTerra Lounge (250 S. Meridian St., in Indy). This starts at 9 PM and is open to any and all who care to join us.

That’s been such a success that the Reactor 88 folks have decided to expand the party to Saturday night as well. Join us at the same place and the same time, just the next night. Hope to see you there!