Protospiel Update

Protospeil’s front page now lists me as the guest of honor for this year’s convention in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I’ve never been to this show before, but it sounds like a blast. It’s the only American convention I know of that’s dedicated to gathering aspiring board game designers, which seems like a great way for people to test ideas and get a lot of learning packed into just three days.

Michael P. Bledsoe Dies

Michael P. Bledsoe passed away on May 4 at the age of 50. He hadn’t been involved professionally in the gaming industry for some time, but back in the ’80s he designed the Dr. Who Roleplaying Game and the second edition of the original Star Trek Roleplaying Game for FASA. According to his obituary, he was buried near Biloxi, Mississippi, today.

I didn’t know Michael, but I enjoyed his work. His widow asks any of his friends from his days in the gaming industry to sign his online guest book.

Sextuple Hoax

This story’s a bit old, but I’m just now getting around to poking into it. On April 12, a couple that claimed to have given birth to sextuplets admitted that it had all been a hoax.

As the father of quadruplets, I’m not surprised that someone tried this kind of a scam. People ask us all the time “what did you get” for having so many kids at once. There’s a modern myth that if you have so many kids at once the big companies get together and hand you everything you could need.

Maybe that happens with sextuplets and septuplets, but quadruplets are old hat these days. We didn’t get much from companies at all. I think a three-month supply of formula was about it.

The people in our community, though, poured out the support for us. We had dozens of people coming in and out of the house at all hours to give us a hand with the kids: feeding, diapering, doing laundry, cleaning up, and more. At one time, we had 30 to 40 volunteers coming through every week.

This is the kind of support that matters more than money. It’s one thing to get cash to help out. Money always comes in handy. But we could not have purchased the sort of help that these wonderful people gave freely.

That’s what tripped up these hoaxers. When their community started to rally around them, the media got involved, and the whisper-thin web of lies they’d woven unravelled.

To me, this illustrates both what’s wrong with the world–and what’s right.

Origins of the Knights

Over on the forums at Essential-Eberron.com, new Eberron author Marcy Rockwell asked how I happened to get into writing young adult fantasy novels.

Hey, Matt, I was wondering–how did you get involved writing the Knights of the Silver Dragon books? Did you come up with the idea and pitch it to Wizards, or did they say “we’re looking for YA stuff, show me what you’ve got”? I’m curious, because it doesn’t seem like you’d really done YA stuff before this (not that I’ve memorized your bibliography), so it might have been a bit of a stretch for Wizards, especially starting off a brand new series…not all good fantasy writers turn out to be good YA writers, so Wizards certainly chose wisely with you!

I answered: Thanks! Secret of the Spiritkeeper, the first in that series, was my first mass-market novel, which makes it even more of a stretch. I’d signed on with Wizards to write one of the Iconic series, the thin tomes by house name T.H. Lain. When they cancelled the line, Steve Winter asked me to pitch them something for a YA series instead.

It took me two or three tries before I figured out how to structure the series, which was the real breakthrough. I came up with a set-up (medieval fantasy teenagers as young sleuths) and a cast of heroes and villiains, but the trick came when I realized what it meant that I wouldn’t be writing all the books. I had to treat it as episodic television.

I said, “Here’s the setting, the characters, and the basic hook. Riff on that all you like, but when you’re done playing with the toys, be sure to put them back where you found them, in roughly the same shape.” That worked.

Also, any idea why I can’t find these books in the bookstore? We’ve looked everywhere, and have had to resort to ordering off of Amazon. Getting books in the mail just isn’t as fun as buying them from a bookstore, where you get to manhandle them a bit first.

Hopefully it’s because the books are flying off the shelves. If you can’t find a book, and you have a bookstore you’d like to support, I suggest ordering the book through the store. This tells the store that there are people who want the book and that they need to keep it in stock.

I understand the lure of Amazon though. It’s so easy, and it’s as close as your web browser.

Keillor Nails It

Garrison Keillor (of the radio show A Prairie Home Companion) hits the nail straight on the head when he says “Writers, Quit Whining.” If anyone out there catches me complaining about what I do for a living, feel free to give me the metaphorical smack upside the head.

Even on its worst days, writing novels and creating games makes me one of the luckiest people around. That’s not meant as a boast but an expression of gratitude. Many thanks to all of you who buy my games and books and make it possible for me to make a living at this wild and crazy excuse for a career. I couldn’t do it without you!

Survey Says?

GAMA needs your help. In partnership with Ohio State and the Wargamer, they’ve set up a website through which they hope to survey adventure gamers of all kinds. If you qualify, be sure to take the survey and be counted!

Scribe Awards Now Open

The International Association of Media Tie-In Writers just announced the opening of its first Scribe Awards. If you, or anyone you know, has a tie-in novel due or already out this year, be sure to submit your work for these inaugural awards. As a charter member myself, you can be sure I’ll be putting my books in the judges’ hands.

Because of a lack of sufficient entries, the Origins Awards won’t have a fiction category this year. The Scribe’s Speculative Fiction: Original category fills that gap perfectly. You authors of game-related novels out there, get yours in!