Skate or Die for the Literati
While I was working the booth at GenCon, a dear friend pulled me aside and told me that a cabal of friends was concerned if I was still writing. Now, with rough math, one might point out that 200,000 or so of Harley’s words debuted at Gennie, so of course Harley is still writing. Writing, and editing, and developing, and proofing maps, and the dozen other odd tasks called for by heading up the DCC line.

But what he really meant was: am I still writing fiction for publication? Given my spectacular near misses with Wizards and then White Wolf, it’s a fair question. As my dear friends march ever onward into the annals of authorship, they can be forgiven for suspecting that I had given up the ghost.

Quick answer: Of course not. Writing is what I do.

So where are the blurbs about the mystery project? What’s the novel about? Where’s my word count meter? For this project, the usual metrics and teasers aren’t terribly important. It might take me 5 months or 5 years to finish this bugger off --- not due to word count, but to smithing. I’ve been under one deadline or another for the last 3 years, and so the chance to craft a project sans deadline is a blessing. How many projects have I turned in that could have used another month’s worth of rewriting? I’m too afraid to begin to number them.

Even better, with the advent of 4e, I have a little bit of a lull. Yes, there’s a 90k Stroh project coming out in 2 months, and 3 other projects that I need to get in before May, but nothing breathing down my back.

And best of all, since it isn’t slated for a shared world line, it gets to be uniquely mine. This is what I’ve been itching to do ever since Realms of the Dragons II.

Ah, the pleasures of being without a contract. Who’d have guessed it?

So, dear readers, hopefully some among you are camped along with me, atop that same precipice of “would-be novelist.” Is it a long shot that we’ll ever get our books published? Of course. But there are also key opportunities that, if we do succeed, we might never enjoy again.

Take your time. Write a great book. You’ll have the rest of your life to be under deadline.

//H