Dad, when I grow up I want to be a doctor -
- like Doctor Dre.
One of the coping mechanisms I learned as an actor working for the Renaissance Festival was to imagine myself as someone extroverted. A shy young boy, I played out my part even after the curtain closed, convincing (or at least believing I had convinced) those around me that I was affable and lively. With each new social encounter, I would ask myself what would my alter-ego do if he were here, and played out my role appropriately.

To roleplayers, this is no great feat, just another tool we use in our games, and it permitted me to enjoy what otherwise might have been a terrifying proposition: attempting to entertain an audience of hundreds with nothing more than a goat, a shepherd's costume and some great one-liners.

As I grew older this technique gave way to more honest (and healthier) behaviors, but the ability to recast my life through my imagination has always stayed with me. To this day, when I fall upon difficult times it isn't too difficult to invest the situation with romance. In college I was never a poor student without hope of employment. Instead I was a writer, making sacrifices for my art. It didn't matter if my trashy works of fiction were complete failures, because in the moment I had found a way to be proud of the choices I was making.

To this day I continue to invest my life with imagined romance. Sometimes silly, often melodramatic, occasionally irrelevant. And today, listening to the radio, I hit upon another moment, brought to you courtesy of our dear friend and producer, Doctor Dre:

"...Now all I get is hate mail all day
saying 'Dre fell off.'
What? 'Cause I've been in the lab,
with a pen and a pad,
Trying to get this damn label off?"

Flash. Mild mannered Grimbones becomes writer, editor, publisher, hustler*, trying to get this damn anthology off.

*cackle* I love it.

I am such a geek.

Anyhow, things will be bumping this week so if we don't have many updates it is because all the magic is taking place behind the curtain. Send me any of your questions, but otherwise assume that our collective project is picking an insane amount of momentum and will soon explode onto the fantasy scene with the best damn stories and art yet collected by mankind.

That much I have control over. Whether or not GT sells is beyond my control (which is why I'm so rabid about the "no money" mantra). But the stories and art are first rate.

See you in the bookstore...word. ;)

P.s. If any of you recall Mrockwell from the WotC boards (or know Marce first hand), stop by and send her some love. She should probably have brought another child into this world by now.



(*For the record, you don't get much "whiter" than Grimbones. My skin is actually translucent. Wanna-be gangsta I am not.)