The First Shotguns & Sorcery Story

Back in 2010, my pal Robin Laws asked if I’d be interested in contributing a short story to an anthology he’d concocted called The New Hero. The theme of the book was based around Robin’s literary theory of the iconic hero. In many stories, the hero is supposed to go through some kind of change, a character arc, as it’s often called. We know, though, that many heroes – especially in series fiction – don’t change much if at all. Instead, as Robin theorized, they change the world about them by being true to themselves.

Think of heroes like Sherlock Holmes, Batman, James Bond, and so on. They aren’t affected by their environments nearly as much as they affect them. Robin charged me and the other authors to come up with heroes like this for our own stories and, hopefully, to use them in later stories too.

For mine, I turned to this Shotguns & Sorcery setting I’d had in mind for a long while, and I created a hero to fit it, a hardboiled ex-adventurer by the name of Max Gibson. I enjoyed writing about his adventure so much I wrote another one for the Carnage & Consequences anthology edited by Marc Tassin, and I later made it the subject of one of the trilogies for my 12 for ’12 challenge.

But it all started with that story, and it’s going to be published later this year through Stone Skin Press. They’re running a Kickstarter for their debut set of anthologies right now, including The New Hero 2, in which that first Shotguns & Sorcery story, “Friends Like These,” will appear. At the moment, it only has 36 hours to go, so head on over and check it out fast.

Stone Skin Press featured Max and his friend Moira on its website today, including a short snippet from that tale. Head over there for a quick taste of it. Check after the cut here for the actual start of the tale.

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The Turndog Interview

Over at Turndog Millionaire, Matthew Turner interviewed me via Skype about writing and using Kickstarter to fund self-publishing. We had a great conversation, so if those kinds of things interest you, head on over and give it a watch. Because the software Matthew used to record it meant I couldn’t see him during the conversation, I didn’t look straight at the camera too often, so if I seem a bit more distracted than usual, that would be why.

ENnies Dream Date Me at Gen Con

Once again, I’ve been asked to be a Dream Date for the ENnies Awards at Gen Con this year. They recently posted the auction for this on eBay, but they forgot to mention that I won’t be able to stick around for the entire ceremony, just the cocktail hour. If hanging out and having a drink or three with me before the awards sounds like fun, get on over there and put down your bid. Remember, the money all goes to support the ENnies, which is a fine thing to do.

The Gamers Play Dangerous Games

My friends at Zombie Orpheus and Dead Gentlemen just launched a spanking-new Kickstarter for The Gamers: Hands of Fate, the third installment in their series of The Gamers films, excellent comedies about – you guessed it – gamers. I’ve long been a huge fan of The Gamers and The Gamers: Dorkness Rising, and I’ve known the people involved with them for many years, so I’ve been looking forward to news about this for a while.

Best of all, when I was running the Dangerous Games Kickstarter drive, Ben Dobyns and Matt Vancil contacted me with an idea for a way to crossover the two projects. Since Hands of Fate is also set at Gen Con, it seemed like a natural match, and I jumped up and down (more than) a few times as I agreed. (Okay, I practically pogoed around my office.)

As they say on their Kickstarter page:

DANGEROUS GAMES — Renowned novelist, comic book writer, and game designer Matt Forbeck recently completed a Kickstarter campaign for his “Dangerous Games” books, a murder mystery trilogy also set at Gen Con Indy. We spoke with Matt and discovered that with both stories set at the con we had the opportunity to do a really cool crossover: Matt Forbeck and Matt Vancil are sharing scripting notes with each other to allow the character of Leo (Scott C. Brown) to cross back and forth between the novel and the movie! We’re offering ebooks of the Dangerous Games novels as an EXTRA below that you can add to your pledge to get the full story of Leo’s encounter… with murder!

To top that off, they’re selling copies of the standard edition of the Dangerous Games ebooks as extras for their drive. As I explained to them, I always put my Kickstarter backers first, so these won’t be autographed and won’t the Kickstarter-exclusive editions that my backers get. However, if you didn’t get in on that drive, here’s a chance for you to preorder the standard editions and get them a bit before I put them up for sale to the public.

Either way, do yourself a favor and go check out The Gamers: Hands of Fate Kickstarter. It’s bound to be fun!

Writing Standing Up

After thinking about it on and off for a few years, I finally took the plunge last night and set myself up with a standing desk at which I can write. In fact, I’m typing these words at it right now, and so far it’s all right. My feet hurt, but I’m told that goes away in a few days. I’m willing to stick it out to see if that’s true.

I’ve suffered from upper back pain (in the neck and shoulders, really) for years. It reached its peak when the quads were younger and spent a lot of time hanging off of me. Now that they’re 10 years old, I’ve almost entirely cured them of that, but the realities of sitting at a desk and writing for eight or more hours a day means that the pains come back regularly anyhow.

Ken Hite called this “Writer’s Back,” which tells me I’m not the only one who suffers from it. I usually control it through ibuprofen, icing the sore spots, and trips to my favorite chiropractor, Andrea Gonstead. Still, on the bad days, it’s enough to slow me down, and I hate that.

Spurred on by that and the fact that standing burns more calories, helps you stay more alert, and – according to a recent bit of research – can add years to your life, I decided to give the standing desk a try. However, I didn’t want to spend several hundred dollars on a fancy setup for something I’m still not absolutely sold on. After poking around a bit on Lifehacker, I realized I could build a custom standing workstation for cheap.

I hit Walmart and grabbed an obscenely cheap end table for my monitor, then went to Menards to pick up a shelf and a set of brackets. Altogether, it cost me a grand total of $26.71, and it’s light enough that I can take it down and go back to sitting at my desk instead in under a minute. I also grabbed a chef’s mat to stand on, and that set me back another $14.73.

I’ve only been using it for a few hours, and it’s comfortable. My feet hurt a bit, but I hear that goes away in a few days. I plan to give it a try for a couple weeks and see how it goes. Lots of great writers used standing desks, including Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, and Ernest Hemingway, so it seems this has been a solid solution for writers for a long time.

Twenty Great Years

Today is the twentieth anniversary of the day my wife Ann and I got married. I can honestly say these have been the best two decades of my life, and she’s been the biggest part of that. Marrying her was the best thing that ever happened to me, bringing not only a beautiful, smart, kind, and loving partner permanently into my life but also five wonderful kids I can’t imagine being without.

We’re taking it easy today but will celebrate with dinner and play at the always excellent American Players Theatre this weekend.

Here’s to many multiples of twenty more.

ENies Nominations Are Out

The nominations for the ENnies – the fan-based tabletop RPG awards from ENWorld.org that are handed out at Gen Con – were announced earlier today. The list is long and filled with great games and related things. Among them, two things I worked on that came out last year earned a few nods.

Tales of the Far West – a short story anthology from Adamant Entertainment, based on their Kickstarted RPG Far West – grabbed a nomination for Best RPG Related Product. That’s about as un-fun a category title as you can find, sure, but it’s a catch-all for anything cool that’s related to RPGs. That puts the book up against a fun and eclectic array of  competitors, including a soundtrack, a book on game design, a board game, and wrapping paper with pictures of Cthulhu on it.

In a more traditional vein, the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game racked up three nominations: Best Game, Best Rules, and Best Product of the Year. That’s a hell of a trifecta, and all credit for it goes to line developer Cam Banks, who did most of the heavy lifting for the game.

As the ENnies site states: “Voting begins on Friday, July 20 and runs to Sunday, July 29. The ceremony itself will be on Friday, August 17, in the Union Station Grand Hall at 8pm with the cocktail reception beginning at 6:30pm.” Depending on my schedule, I may once again serve as a dream date for that cocktail reception, although I may not be able to make the ceremony itself.

Congrats to all the nominees. It’s a fine list of games and “related products,” and I’m looking forward to seeing the final results at Gen Con!

 

More Kickstarter Stuff

Two more cool projects to add to the Kickstarter pile from earlier today.

My fellow Alliterate Steve Sullivan just launched a drive for his Tournament of Death 1 & 2 writing stunt. He’s setting up a live-writing event that pits fantasy characters against each other to coincide with the Olympics. He pulled it off in 2008, and he’s reprising it this summer too. He wants to start at the same time as the big games, so this is a short one, only 14 days in the whole drive.

My pal Greg Stolze is running Transmit and Other Stories, the latest in his Kickstarters that combine it with his ransom model. (Once he gets the money, he releases the story to everyone for free.) He’s already cracked open “Transmit,” and now he’s pushing for the other stories. Read some of his other work, and if you like it, give him a boost.

Ghosts of Ascalon on Sale this Week

For the week of Comic-Con (that’s this week, folks!), Simon & Shuster has put the ebook edition of Guild Wars: Ghosts of Ascalon on sale for only $3.99. That’s 50% off, until July 15.

This is the first-ever novel based on the Guild Wars game, and I wrote it along with my pal Jeff Grubb, whose day job is to serve as one of the game’s primary lore masters. It’s gotten great reviews (averaging 4.5 stars on Amazon with 77 reviews, for instance), and it’s a great way to get into the world and get revved up for the upcoming release of Guild Wars 2 at the end of August.

Speaking of Comic-Con, much as I love the show I won’t be attending this year. I just got back from a week’s vacation near Watersmeet, Michigan, with my wife and kids, and I have many books to write instead.

Kickstarter Recommendations

I’m just back from a week’s vacation up near Watersmeet, Michigan, and I’m plowing through my in-box to catch up with everything that’s been happening while I’ve been gone. Among those things are a number of Kickstarters I’d like to recommend.

First off, my pals Robin Laws and Simon Rogers over at Stone Skin Press have launched a drive for a set of four fiction anthologies. I have a story in The New Hero 2 anthology, which was the first Shotguns & Sorcery tale I wrote, and I came up with a short fable in The Lion and the Aardvark too. The books are crammed with all sorts of other great tales, and I’m looking forward to reading them all.

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