New Roads
Sorry for leaving that last post up so long. It took Cath to kick me out of my slump, which is saying something. Not out of character though, if you've known me for a while.
[self-righteous rant deleted.]
So where are we? The next box set is coming out in late March/April. I’m proud of this, not so much for the writing, but for the cartography. One of the chief criticisms I get about DCC World is that the sucker is just too darn large to be useful. Whether or not that’s true, this next box set (and the one following) go a long way towards making a specific section of the world manageable.
Roads. Detailed histories of small towns. NPC personalities. Cool things that are fun to write and give a world life.
The product isn’t for everyone. One of our chief design goals for DCC World was to ensure that you didn’t need to go out and buy the GM’s Guide to Áereth, and the Player’s Guide, and the Elf’s Guide, etc. just to feel like you weren’t missing out on anything. It’s all there in the box set. Any GM can write towns for themselves, and they could probably do a better job that I can. Drawing roads just requires an image editor. You get the idea. But for anyone new to the line this is a chance to pick up 5 DCCs, and some more background material on Áereth, all for a measly $20.
So anyhow. Thanks for putting up with me, and hanging through to the end. But you and I know you should really be writing.
//H
7 comments:
H, I'm sorry you got stuck in this particular limbo. It's not uncommon for an agent/editor to hang onto a manuscript for-freaking-ever, but in most cases you can follow up after a decent interim with a note of inquiry, or you can withdraw your work from consideration and send it elsewhere. But a contest is what it is, and ends whenever they say it ends. Which sucks.
A friend of mine was tempted to submit a literary novel to a contest being held in the UK, but their end game was nebulous in the extreme. They specified no notification date whatsoever and part of the submission requirement was signing an agreement that the novel would not be submitted elsewhere until a decision was reached. When it comes to legal documents, my attitude is that one should always assume the worse possible allowable scenario. In this case, they could put her ms in limbo forever. Your situation isn't substantially different, UNLESS your contract has an exit clause of some sort that allows you to withdraw your ms after a certain date if no decision is announced. If so, it might ease your mind a little to know that at some point in time, you have the option of withdrawing the ms, filing off the shared-world serial numbers, and submitting elsewhere. Even if you don't really plan to do this, options are good things to have, if only to assuage the sense of helplessness and lack of control that are, all too often, a writer's reality.
As writers, we play weird head games with outselves. We know we do it; in fact, it's quite deliberate. I read your last post not so much as whining, but as an attempt to shift the attitude so you COULD move on. It's entirely reasonable to tell yourself, "Okay, I took a chance, passed two rounds, and got paid (a small amount) to do it. Bottom line is, I didn't win. [Yet.] Time to move on. If it turns out that I'm wrong, I'll be pleasantly surprised, but I need this assumption for closure." It's very, very difficult to ignore that parenthetical "yet", but it's a lot easier to proceed with "semi-closure" than none at all. Does that make sense? I'm caffeine deprived, so I'm not entirely sure I'm being articulate. Or even lucid. Hell, the jury's still out on "awake."
Yanno, (even though your post is deleted I still can reply- hah!) I had to do a similar thing when not getting into schools last year. It's a matter of revaluing your life and looking at your expectations, deconstructing them, and then reconstructing similar values in a different structure. Which is a strange and difficult thing to do, but in the end it made me much happier.
It's uncomfortable and shitty when things don't work out, and I hate that dumb "everything works out the way it's supposed to" philosophy- so! Even if this isn't how it's supposed to be, it can be rebuilt into a better understanding of self and your needs and desires. At least it was for me.
Maybe I'm just thinking about structure and desire because of Lacan though. Could be.
[self-righteous rant deleted]
Heh. If every writer did that, all at once, the sudden increase in bandwidth would probably be drastic enough to rip open the time/space continuum. Or words to that effect. :)
I also caught the [self-righteous rant deleted] before it went bye-bye ... honestly, I wouldn't worry about it. It's a frustrating situation, to be sure.
One of the hardest things I've learned (or, to be more accurate, am still learning) about being a freelance writer is letting go of projects - ideally, I want some sort of finality to one project before committing to the next one. But that almost never happens.
I totally get why you'd want WW to make a decision about the novel before you gear up to start a new one.
At GenCon this year - we can swap stories over a beer or three about projects that stay in limbo. Palladium once held a manuscript of mine for over three frickin' years before making any sort of decision with it (apart from the monthly "thanks for sending it, we'll make a decision shortly" notification I got).
[self-deleted rant] Heh. It makes me happy to know the people I wanted have read it, did. Good timing, all. :)
//H
Well, here's what I have to say:
[perfect morale-boosting counter to Harley's self-righteous rant deleted]
And that's all I have to say about that.
As usual, you all are better to me than I deserve.
//H
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