Son of Flame, Son of Hak


Part one of Son of Flame, Son of Hak has been published for Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign setting. You can find it in the downloads section:

http://www.dablackmoor.com/MMRPG

As always, feel free to get in on the forums and let them know how much you hated/loved it. DABlackmoor.com uses different forums from zeitgeistgames.com, so you will have to re-register to use the DA Blackmoor forums.

I'd love to hear what you folks think about this one. In my opinion, it's weaker than "A Night in Maus," but you never can trust the author.


The Road Home


Now, I know you all know that "Realms of the Dragons II" is out, but I'm only going to get a chance to do this once in my life:

I can walk into nearly any bookstore, thumb through the stacks, and find one of my stories in there.

I'd be lying if I said my story was brilliant and that reading it is best thing you could do with your time today. But I'd also be lying if I said that I haven't been dreaming of this moment from the time I cracked open my first Dragonlance book.

Will this story feed the orphans and promote world peace? Probably not. But every time a childhood dream comes true, that motivates the rest of us to pursue our own childhood dreams.

Maybe that's reason enough.

Coming in May ...


Ed Gentry, the Don King of Shared World fiction, succeeded in selling a Realms of the Dragons II article to Dragon Magazine. Five or six of us contributed to the piece, which will be appearing in the May issue, #332. (The image I used is actually the cover of issue #331.)

If you’ve been a gaming geek since you were 8 years old, you understand how cool this is. Even though the article is short, even though I contributed only 250 words or so, even though most of those words were "wacky," "sidekick," and "titillation," getting a byline in Dragon Magazine is just plain exciting.

Selling articles to Dragon is something real writers do.

Somehow they haven’t spotted the pretender in their midst. I’m just going stay low, avoid turbo lasers, and see how long I can hold out.

Show us some love ...
H and I were back East for 2 weeks, with her family. Now I'm headed back up to Wyoming for more construction work. That leaves a load of unanswered emails. If you're one of those folks, please be patient just a bit longer.

"You can't, you won't, and you don't stop."
It's somewhere between 1 and 2 a.m., and sleep just made its dodge check. I can't complain because Ashlock is awake and New York is 2 hours ahead of Colorado.

Up at 2 in the morning, listening to the trucks pass on the highway. We have a finite number of days on this earth, and each time you let go of one, *poof* that's it. Of course, it's a mental trick --- all the disciplined writers I know get their work done between 6 a.m. and noon. It's just us hacks that sit awake, clinging to the night.

"Legacy of the Savage Kings" goes to the printers tomorrow. The proof editor passed along her compliments and a request for a sequel, which is always nice to hear. If you've read any of my work you know that it comes with more than its share of errors. Like Ed said: "If Harley sends you a story he claims he wrote, and there aren't any errors ... he's lying."

Finite lives. And people choose to spend them reading stories that you and I write. That’s enormous. As authors we incur a responsibility for those finite hours, to share and to teach, or at the very least, to entertain.

But enough of me wasting your finite life. Go out and write something wonderful, that only you could imagine. I can’t wait to read it.

Into the Wilds
My current assignment is a 30,000 word module. That's 6k above the usual count, and trust me, I need every word I can get. I'm only 1/3rd of the way done so far, but I'll post more about the project as it begins to firm up.

Fogey Quiz: Saurus and Ashlock, name the module with the worg-riding goblin leaping out of the cover...

100 Word Flash Fiction
I did my part and contributed to an 11 author story that will be submitted to Wizards for web-publication. It's damn tricky to get much done in 100 words, but I gave it my best shot --- and set Ed Gentry up for a heck of a recovery. Ask him about it. ;)

Anyhow, we'll let you know if WoTC bites.

Gone but ...
It will be 3 to 6 months before John Handy has a proper grave marker, so H and I built a cross for his grave. It is a very simple affair, painted white with routered edges. The extended family met to place it before his grave this afternoon.

Tomorrow night we catch a red eye home to Colorado. It will be good to be home for a number of reasons, not least of which is the measly $100 in my bank account and the alleged royalty checks waiting in my mailbox.

Thanks again for all the support, guys and gals. H and I appreciate it.

John Handy died on the morning of March 5th.
He will be missed.