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Journal Entry: Tuesday, June 19th

See how I’m doing that? Posting every morning concerning the day before? It looks funny with the headlines, but I think it’s a better way to do things than trying to remember to post something just before bed.

Yesterday ended up with kind of a rough evening, but up until then it was a pretty cool day. As most of you will have noticed, I got Sleeping Kings updated during the day yesterday. I have one more scene (roughly 3 posts’ worth) before going into the big montage, followed by the climactic Great Battle, followed by the You-Have-to-See-it-to-Believe-It season-ending cliff-hanger. I’ve decided to go ahead and post this next scene, in spite of what I’d said before. It’s got clean breaks, and should make for good posts, and it’s a better stopping spot to tide people over while I take a month or two to write the end. Yeah, yeah, I should’ve thought about better stopping spots for any of my previous several-month hiati, too. But none of those was intentional….

Anyway, got some major huge news at work (regarding organizational structure above me, not me personally), but it’s too early to guess exactly what impact it’ll have. I suppose it could still turn out to be a false rumor, too, but that doesn’t seem likely.

Then I got home, and we ran to Blockbuster for some movies (I got Reno 911 against my better judgment — I’ll let you know how it turns out), and dropped by B– and E–‘s place, too. The new house is a lot cooler with their stuff in it. I can’t wait until they’ve had a chance to settle in. Should be a lot of fun.

When we got back home, A–b– was having trouble eating and that generates a lot of frustration (in her and us), so there was that to deal with. Kind of a long evening, really, but everything’s good now. It’s lunch time, now, and I’m going to see about getting a couple pages written for SK.

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Journal Entry: Monday, June 18th

A long day at work yesterday. Mondays always are. I’m working on the Air Conditioner mod Technical Issuance (TI, which is a maintenance manual, really), and will be at least until the middle of July. It’s really a lot of work. I’ve been spending all my time in Section 3, so far, and it’s well over 100 pages. Most of the others won’t be that long.

I think what I want to do on Sleeping Kings is post up the last scene I have written out longhand, and then stop trying to do the daily, 1000-word posts. Instead, I want to just get the novel finished, in a traditional style. I’m sick of it being this close to the end, and unfinished. Still, as any writer will tell you, ending a book is the hardest part. Have you ever read The Chronicles of Amber, by Roger Zelazny? If not, you should. But writing a book or story is a lot like the way he describes walking the Pattern. With each page you finish, it gets harder to write the next one, until the ending is just a monumental task to put down each paragraph. There’s Great Arcs, too, but I don’t want to belabor this too long.

I think I’ve decided not to kill off Carlos. I’m not making any promises for the finished version, but I’m going to leave it out of the rough draft, and see how it goes. Before I killed Adrian, I didn’t intend for that to be an emotionally significant death, but it became one within the narrative, so maybe that’ll serve the purpose Carlos’s death was supposed to. We’ll see.

Last night I got home and mostly crashed. T– made tacos, I played with A–b– on the floor (and watched her scoot, which is almost like a crawl, except lamer), and then N– invited us over for Texas Yumyum, which is a sort of dessert. And while we were there, we Guitar Heroed on K–‘s new XBox. Apparently, I did pretty well for my first time. I can see how it would be very challenging at harder difficulty levels, though.

All in all, a really fun evening. We got home at ten, and I went to bed as soon as I was done feeding the kittens.

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Journaling

I think I’m going to start posting on this blog as a blog. Well, more like a journal, or diary. I first started it with the intention of putting down on paper all my many diatribes, in essay form, but that didn’t take as long as I thought it would, and wasn’t nearly as interesting as I hoped.

I’m not exactly done with that, but as I haven’t posted an essay in about a year, I’m clearly not sticking to it consistently.

One thing I think I’d like to do, is start writing more mundanely, posting daily-ish what’s going on in my life, what I’m working on, that sort of thing. From some stuff I’ve read, it’s extremely valuable to have that sort of a record, to look back on years later. I recently went through all my old scribble books, and got sort of that effect.

So, y’know, most of the stuff I’ll post up here won’t be very interesting. I’ll try to include details whenever interesting things happen, for friends and family to keep up, but mostly I’m hoping to track on my major projects, and self-improvement-type goals.

Here’s a quick list of the big projects I’m working on now:
Publishing:
Taming Fire was rejected a couple months ago. I’d like to get a new submission sent out before July.

From a personal publishing point of view, I think I’m going to let the NewMyth project die.

Writing:
Sleeping Kings and King Jason’s War are both nearly finished, but completely stalled. I hope to get back in gear on SK, at least.

Dan and I are also cooking up a fascinating fantasy series, based on the conventions of old comic books. To my knowledge, we don’t have a name for the series yet, but we’ve done two or three months of prewriting work so far, and I think we’ll start on the first pages of the first novel sometime late summer or early fall.

Programming:
Toby suggested reviving our old Magic: The Gathering project as something more manageable, based on a game he’d recently played. I’m excited about this project, too. Around the same time he suggested it, I was reading a series of articles about adding compelling storyline to video games, so I decided to put that in practice, in what could easily have been a story-less game.

I think the story I’ve come up with is pretty cool. As I was trying to develop a very rudimentary model of the map that would allow for symmetrical gameplay (no matter which starting character you choose), I ended up developing the board game I listed below.

One thing I think is really cool about that: I’ve always wanted to make up a game for characters within a fantasy story to play (in the same sort of way that we play Chess or Monopoly), that would make sense within the fantasy world’s history. Every time I tried, though (and most of the times I’ve read other writers who tried), it comes off either as way too close to a real-world equivalent, or completely cheesy (or both). So generally I gave up on the idea.

In this case, it makes perfect sense. The game board is based on the real map simplified, and the abstracted gameplay represents a historical challenge that fits within the culture. Woohoo!

Other:
I really want to start teaching/leading a college-level Creative Writing class, modeled after the ones I had, for friends and family. Obviously, it wouldn’t be good for any credit, but it seems like I know half a dozen people who really want to start writing, and basically what they need is a good CW class.

I’ve been making plans for this for the last month, that all revolved around using intended (but not yet implemented) functionality within the NewMyth project. Now, I’m starting to make the decision to cancel the NewMyth project, and I’m not sure what impact that will have on the writing classes. We’ll have to see.

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My Boardgame

Okay, it’s basically a pentagon-shaped game of Risk, mixed with Othello (or, if you’re Japanese, Go), mixed with Pente, mixed with, I dunno, Chinese Checkers and darts.

It’s for 1-5 players. It can be played with flat-sided beads (like the ones used as counters by many Magic players, but I’m sure they’re sold for some more common purpose), or marbles, but would require a special tabletop or board to play marbles, since otherwise they’d roll off. It could probably be played with Risk tokens. I believe there are 53 infantry.

Okay, having written out an overview of the game (which is probably called Tirnoval, but maybe I’ll come up with something else…like “Pentagon”), it turns out it’s a very long and complicated walkthrough of the game and its rules. If you’ve already heard most of that info, or if you don’t care that much but are mildly interested, here are the 3 pictures I’ll be using as illustrations. You can skip everything else.

Empty game board: Game board ready to play: Green player quick win:

The Very Long and Complicated Walkthrough of the Game and its Rules
The basic board is a pentagon divided into concentric…pentagons. You start at one of the outside corners, and the goal of the game is to be the first player to reach the center. If you’re playing solitaire,you’re playing for points (which are scored based on the number of marbles you own, the number of marbles you’ve displaced, and the number of turns it took to get to the center).

Here’s a completely empty game board:

As I said, you start at one of the corners. You can see the starting tokens at each of the corners. When you first start the game, you choose which color you want to play. As you can see, every tile on the board is marked with small notches (3-7 notches per tile, increasing as you approach the center) of various colors. These notches indicate the initial marble value of the tile. At the beginning of the game, each tile gets one marble of the appropriate color per notch on it (for a total of 53 marbles of each color, not counting player tokens).

Here’s a table that has been set up, with all of the marbles in place. In the rest of this post, I’m going to describe a playthrough as the green player, which starts at the big green token on the left side of the image.

In the first turn, you can choose to move into one of the two tiles that touch your corner. You goal for the turn is to capture the tile, which requires eliminating all the marbles on that tile that aren’t your color. There are 2 ways to play the game. The method I’m going to describe here uses a single 6-sided die.

In your first turn, you have no marbles (the starter token doesn’t count), and you’re trying to move into a tile that has 3. You first choose which tile you want to move into (in this case, you either take top-left or bottom-left — for our example, we’ll go bottom-left). If there are any marbles of your color in that tile, you immediately capture them (this is a military simulation game, so generally it’s said that they join your army). Then you roll the die to find out your score.

Your score on the die determines how well you do. Ideally, it should be greater than the number of marbles left in the tile you’re moving into. Whatever your roll, you can immediately remove up to that number of marbles from the tile (they go to the starter area for their respective colors). After that, you can (and must) remove one marble from the tile for every marble in your army (on the first turn, there are no marbles in your army). If there are STILL marbles in the tile, then you can choose to remove one more (but you don’t have to) and your player token returns to the starting spot.

That’s a little complicated, so I’ll list it out in bullet points.

Tile Capture Process:
———————–
1. Choose a target tile
2. Any same-color marbles in that tile join your army (move to your currently occupied tile)
3. Proceed through the following steps until there are no more marbles on the target tile:
A. Roll the die, and remove up to that number of marbles from the target tile.
B. Sacrifice marbles in your army (marbles in the same tile as your player token) to remove marbles from the target tile.
C. Sacrifice your own token to remove one more token from the target tile. You may choose not to remove the token, but if you have not already captured the tile, you MUST return your token to the starting tile.
4. If you have successfully emptied the target tile (without sacrificing your player token), move your token into the new tile. Take with you as many marbles as you want from the tile you’re leaving (it’s recommended to leave one in each tile except the starting spot).

Every turn, you repeat this process until you reach the center of the map. As you can see, there are some tiles that have a LOT of your color tokens(which would increase the size of your army, which increases your odds of capturing the next tile). Usually, you have to move a significant distance to reach these tiles, though, so you must choose whether you want to build up your army, or rush toward the center.

At the center, there will be a significant stack of marbles (not shown on any of the pictures). I’m not sure how many, but I’m thinking 10-20, and none of them join you. Generally, you either have to take multiple attempts, or spend time building up your army (or, in multiplayer, get lucky timing) to capture the center.

I mentioned multiplayer.The game is designed for multiplayer. In a multiplayer contest, your goal is to be the first to capture the center tile, but there are various ways to do this. Any player can move into an empty tile, but once a tile has been captured by a player if that player leaves even one marble to claim it, another player cannot move through that tile UNLESS the tile’s starting colors match the invading player’s color. Does that make sense? In our example, we’re playing through as green.Well, if Blue had already captured a tile, then instead of the starting marbles on it, it would just have one blue marble. But we couldn’t move into that tile (and displace the blue marble) unless one of the colored notches on the tile was green.

So, one of the ways of winning(like Othello or Go) is to create a path that makes it impossible for your opponent to reach the center. Given the number of tiles that match each color, this will be a pretty rare victory condition, but it’s certainly a possibility.

Another way is to be the first to capture the center tile. As I said, this will usually require multiple attempts (and after a failed attempt, your token moves all the way back to the starting area, which takes a minimum of 6 turns to return). If you are the first to attack the center and you don’t win, you will leave it considerably weakened, which only helps your opponent. In the same way, if another player tries to take the center and fails (but, say, gets a really lucky roll of the die), he may leave it weak enough that you can easily take it in one attempt.

This image shows a quick win (that is, a fairly direct charge from the starting spot to the center) for a Green player playing solitaire. It’s safe to assume that he lost his first attempt to take the center, which sent him back to the start where he was able to take all of the green marbles he’d lost along the way with him as he followed his own path back to the center, and then won this time (although still taking some losses).

(It may also be possible to win by moving into the same tile an opponent is occupying, in which case you would play it out the same way as normal,but if you win, your opponent is removed from the game. Of course, if you lose that fight, you probably lose the game, too.)

I think that sums up everything you need to know to play. Some additional rules I’m considering:

*With the exception of the very first move (out of the starter spot), you can only capture tiles that share a SIDE with your current tile,not a corner (or, in other words, you can’t move diagonally).
* Each turn, if you have an unbroken chain of occupied tiles that leads from your current tile back to the starting point, you can add one marble from anywhere in the chain (including the starting area) to your current army.
* If an opponent chooses to enter a tile you posses (which, remember, he can only do if that tile is his color), you may choose to defend that tile, in which case you move your player token and as many marbles as you want from your current tile back to the tile he’s attacking.This would play out just like the attacking-to-win battle described earlier.
*Possibly, instead of direct player-vs-player encounters resolving the game, it just sends the losing player back to his starting spot. Or, possibly, that is only true for the attacking player (the defending player must defend successfully or he is completely destroyed).

Additional notes:
*I mentioned two ways to play, and described using a 6-sided die in this description. The other would involve direct comparisons of army size, rather than including an initial set of free points (the roll of the die). In this case, the game would probably start with the outside ring(the 3-point tiles) empty, and each starting token would have its 3 marbles already available in its army.
* For reference purposes, I’m naming each of the tiles in clockwise sequence, from outside in, using a numeral to indicate which ring, and a letter to indicate the tile’s position within its ring. Clockwise, as I said, starting at the 12 o’clock position. Given that, the win path in the above image would be described as 1D-2N-2M-2L-3I-4F-4E-5C-6(center).

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Story Idea

As the result of several weeks of work on a collaborative writing effort with Daniel, I was thinking about a Bible passage this morning:

“You will be hearing
of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those
things must take place, but that is not yet the end.”

Matthew 24:6. And what I was thinking, specifically, was how valuable that specific anti-prophecy was, because pretty much all of our end-times myths, from every culture, culminate in a final battle style of thing. Armageddon, Ragnarok, wars of that nature.

But then, even as I was congratulating Jesus on predicting that particular misunderstanding and setting his followers straight, my thoughts jumped to another passage, which sort of does the opposite.

I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor
does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the
trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When
the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

I Corinthians 15:50-54. Okay, well, I’m not one of those who remembers every verse of the Bible in perfect numerical order, so I got the wording mixed up a little. I was actually thinking of only the second verse in that selection, the “not all of us shall sleep” bit, and I sort of mixed it up with some other verse where Jesus was speaking, saying something to the effect of, “it could be any minute now.”

Anyway, anyway. I was mainly thinking of the wording from Corinthians, “not all of us shall sleep,” taking it in the literal sense (and, as I said, thinking that it was Jesus saying, “not all of you shall sleep,” implying the second coming within one generation.

And, y’know, clearly that wasn’t what the prophecy meant, and the “us” was a bigger crowd than just those present at the sermon’s initial delivery, but I thought another fun interpretation would be if, in that pronouncement, Jesus had made the Apostles immortal (or, since it was Corinthians, Paul admitted that Jesus had previously made the Apostles immortal) .

So, then, the story idea was for a superhero-type story about the immortal Apostles. I’m thinking probably not as Christian missionaries, because they got that business taken care of a long time ago (and it doesn’t make for a very interesting story). Also, both of those passages I referenced had context before or after talking about lawlessness as a bad thing, so I’m thinking typical superhero as defender of law and order fits within the demand of the characters….

I was also thinking maybe this one group of immortals made up the clusters of genius that we see throughout history (Renaissance artists, for one example).

Also, for the actual mechanism of their immortality, I was thinking a cool way to write it would be to take the vampire theme — not for their behavior day-to-day, but just in the temporary death sense. Then, from temporary death (and this already being a Jesus-story inspired idea, I think a fun way to handle it would be to just have them never stay dead for more than 3 days. They all rise on the third day, always. And, over time, this could get pretty inconvenient with mausoleums and vaults and whatnot, so they get in the habit of checking up on each other from time to time, and performing prison-break style rescues when one or another of them ends up getting buried somewhere he can’t escape from.

I dunno. Could be fun. Maybe for a lark sometime.

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Journal Entry: April 12, 2007

This afternoon, I got a rejection letter from Tor. They don’t want King Jason’s War. I didn’t say here, but I got a rejection letter three weeks ago for Sleeping Kings. That just leaves Taming Fire, but they’ve already rejected that one four times, so I don’t have a ton of hope left….

Sigh. Sad sigh. Anybody know anyone in publishing?

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Journal Entry: February 23, 2007

I wrote a new song.

I wanted to share it with you guys, but there’s something very important for you to understand, first. You see, a song is a literary work. It’s just like a story — it can be true, while still being a fabricated thing. There is a narrator in a story, and there can be a narrator in a song.

We’re all used to hearing Garth Brooks sing about how sad his life is, y’know? I mean, just because a story is told in the first person, doesn’t make you think that story happened to the writer. But it’s harder to remember that sometime with songs. So just because the song is in the first person, I don’t want you to think it’s about me — that I’m coming here and posting something embarrassing or strange about the working of my own inner mind. God forbid, no. It’s just a song.

If you promise to keep that in mind, then you’re allowed to keep scrolling, and read the song I wrote.

Here goes:

Anna, A-N-N-A
-belle, B-E-L-L-E
Annabelle, Annabelle,
That is me! (Cheering, as appropriate)

(And, yes, there’s a second verse)

Grace, G-R-A-C-E
Is my middle name
Annabelle Grace is
My full name!

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The Love Story in King Jason’s War

Jason immersed himself wholly in his quest for Miriam’s attention. He devoted even more of his time to studying, learning the topics that interested her and reading anything he hadn’t already seen. He attended every class offered at the Academy, and did everything he could to engage in the conversation whenever she was there, to draw her into it as well.

One day, when they were both reading in the Cathedral’s sprawling library, Jason looked up from his book and asked Robert, “How does a boy land a girl, here at court?”

“Piles of gold usually does the job,” Robert said. He shrugged, “But sometimes the just use gemstones.” Jason glared at him for several long moments before Robert noticed. When he did, he laughed. “To be honest, I’ve never paid close attention, but the tradition where I come from is for the father of the boy and the father of the girl to have a polite discussion in a stuffy sitting room, and two years later everyone’s married. Something to that effect.”

Jason sat back, and sighed. “So that leaves me where?”

“That leaves you chasing after a girl whose father has already had a polite discussion with one of the most powerful men in the kingdom, even without land. She’s promised to David.” He grinned. “It’s not unheard of for promised girls to go sneaking off with young men in the last years of their freedom, though. You could hope for some of that.”

Jason shook his head. “Could I meet with her father? She once said that he likes me. Maybe if I could convince him I’m something special–“

“Oh, you are that,” Robert said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “You go get that girl.” He set his book down, one finger marking his place. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “I hear her father is in town for a Council meeting. Perhaps you could arrange a meeting.”

Jason did, and only two days later he found himself waiting in the stuffy sitting room in a rich manor off High Street. He’d arrived early, and was beginning to regret it as he waited, his stomach dancing with nervousness. Servants bustled past in the halls, the noise of life filling the halls, but Jason sat quietly in a side room and waited for his appointment.

And then there came a smell of roses and violets, light on the air, and he raised his head to see Miriam standing in the doorway, considering him with a small smile on her face. He met her eyes, and still she stood there for a moment or two, then she stepped into the room, and drew the doors closed behind her.

“What’s this foolishness, then?” she said, her voice light and teasing.

Jason rose from his chair and nodded to her, then sank back down. “I’ve come to speak with your father, while he is at Court. I hear we may have some opinions in common, and, umm, some similar concerns. I thought it might be fun to–“

She shook her head. “You’re going about this all wrong,” she said. “For one, you should have worn your red shirt. He likes color, and all the black, no matter how fine, won’t really impress him.” Jason only stared, and after a moment she blushed, but her voice held the same confidence. “And the red shirt is quite flattering.”

He smiled, “Thank you,” he said.

“More to the point,” she said, coming around in front of him, “it’s all a waste of time, really. Unless you really do want his opinion on affairs of state.”

Jason sat back. He met her eyes. “What exactly are you….”

She shook her head. “I thought you were a southern boy.” She moved directly in front of him, and sank down onto the footrest in front of his chair. “You should know better.”

Jason laughed. “I was seven when I left, and my childhood wasn’t the sort that left a lot of room for cultural niceties.”

She smiled. “I like it when you use phrases like that.” She shook her head again, a smile on her lips. “Okay,” she said, “Here’s how it works. The Lords of the Ardain are a jaded bunch, and they’ve all heard the stories of forbidden love one too many times to put up with it anymore. These days, they always let their sons choose their first wives. Promises don’t really take effect until the first marriage falls apart. So you’re wasting your time with Daddy.”

Jason considered her. “You really are a little too smart for me,” he said. “You’re dangerous.”

She shrugged. “A girl’s only got so many defenses.”

“So,” Jason said, “you’re saying that David gets to choose his own–“

She stopped him with a narrow finger on his lips. “Stop drawing conclusions,” she said. “No, I’m not talking about David at all. Daddy hasn’t got a son, and he’s never let it bother him. I’m his legally adopted heir, and he treats me like one.” She sat back. “I’ll choose my own first marriage.”

“Ah,” Jason said. He tried for a charming smile, and she laughed.

“You could be fun,” she said. “I’ll consider you.” Her eyes narrowed, and her voice grew serious. “You could be a great man, Jason. I can already see that in you. You already have one of the most amazing stories I’ve ever heard, and I fully believe there’s more in store for you.”

Jason thought for a moment. He said, “I want you to be a part of my story. It will be a happier story, with you in it.”

She smiled. “You’re still reading too much Anton.” She sat forward, elbows on her knees, her face inches from his, and said, “Will you make the world a better place, Jason?”

“I will,” he said. “With every opportunity I am given.”

She said, “I’ll hold you to that.”

He moved forward, mere inches, and kissed her lightly, once, on the lips. “Choose me,” he said, as she gasped in surprise. “I’ll show you things you’ve never seen.”

She rose, fighting her smile, and looked down on him. “I shall consider it,” she said. As she crossed toward the door, there was a light knock on it, and she turned back, smiling now. “That’ll be someone to announce Daddy’s ready. Have fun discussing politics.”

Jason smiled. “I’ll try.”

It needs another 500 words or so, but that’s the root of it. Who needs long drawn-out romance plots in a book about war?

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Journal Entry: December 5, 2006

I’m starting on the Bible again. Wish me luck.

I’m starting on my Meaning of Life book again. Wish me luck.

I’m starting on Sleeping Kings again. Wish me luck.

I’m starting on the SK website again. Wish me luck.

I’m starting on Neverwinter Nights module development again (after a five year break). Wish me luck.

I’m starting on the Remnant game again (part of that last one). Wish me luck.

Also, I’m thinking about picking up King Jason’s War again, y’know, to fill some of my spare time. Oh yeah, and I’m about to have a baby.

…

Wish me luck.

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Journal Entry: November 2, 2006

Some of you will have heard all this already. These topics have been very much on my mind over the last few days….

There are a lot of people who turn to literature (or art or entertainment in general) as a form of escapism. Especially the fantasy genre. There are many, many artists who create art as a form of escapism. Again, especially in fantasy. I guess the basic idea is, “This world sucks, so I’ll go spend some mind-time in a world over which I have complete control.” The two sets don’t necessarily overlap. A lot of time you’ll find artists using their escapism, asserting their control, to create a world that is very not escapist. The really dark and unpleasant and depressing stuff can be completely relaxing to its creator. Better to give than to receive, and all that.

Anyway, I think writing-as-escapism is, for the most part, just assumed. I know I always did. Sometimes it would confuse me, but it just made sense that the reason I’d dream up all these stories was to get away from the real world.

It’s really not true, though. Not for me. I’ve come to recognize that fact more and more over the last couple weeks.

A lot of writers turn to their fantasy worlds when their real life gets too real. I’m the opposite. I really cannot write, cannot invest myself in my fiction, unless my real world is in good order. All of my history of writing supports that, and…I dunno. It makes sense to me. It fits with who I am.

I have a family history of susceptibility to addictive behavior. My parents made sure I was well aware of that, growing up, and it’s a big part of my self-awareness. I keep an eye out for that. I drink, and some evenings I drink a lot, but I am constantly watching myself, paying attention, wondering if maybe it’s become an addiction.

It’s not. It could be, and I can see how easily it could be, but alcohol isn’t really my weakness. Not drugs, either. Maybe food, sometimes, but even that…not really. Video games, probably. Not writing, though.

In high school I had a counselor suggest that I make up my stories to hide from the real world. I think, at different times, both of my parents sat me down and talked with me about that, too. And I’m sure I could have gone that way, but I didn’t. You see, I’ve always taken my writing very seriously. Parable of the Talents, and all. I think of my storytelling as a way to impact the world, to make it better.

I can’t do that if I’m hiding from the world. So I don’t. If the world is challenging me — if I’m truly stressed out — then I can’t find my way to my fantasy world. Back in high school, I wrote The Poet Alexander as a sort of catharsis, describing my whole relationship with Trish (by whom I’d been dumped, at the time) in the characters of noble and brilliant Alex, so stricken by the cruelties of the woman who had spurned him.

I dunno. Catharsis has just never really been my game. I couldn’t finish the book, as much as I wanted to. Trish and I got back together in our junior year, though, and I finished the book all in a rush. A hundred and twenty pages in a week, over half of that in a single night. (It was a crazy night.) I didn’t really change the story, but it had hope. The ending was still sad, in its way, and Trish never appreciated that, but it took that…peace, I think, in my real world, to let me write at all.

Taming Fire was the same way. I wrote it during my happiest time at college. Two years later, I decided to give it a full rewrite, and I was blazing along on that, doing an awesome job (and making good time), until the second semester of my senior year hit, and suddenly I realized I had no job prospects. I had no idea what I was going to do, and I had a family to feed. Ugh. I spent most of that semester in panic, and I barely wrote a word. I think I got a C in Creative Writing that semester.

Yeah.

Got the job at Lowrance, which paid way better than I’d expected. Then we got Trish through with school, and she got a job, and everything settled down and was looking good (this was before I realized I hated that job), and I tore up on the rest of that rewrite. It was really some of the most productive writing I’d ever done. I even got some major work on King Jason’s War done before work started to wear at me, and then I stopped. And work got worse and worse, and for two years I didn’t write a thing.

I’ve been thinking about these things, as month after month goes by without us getting a rent check on the Tulsa house, and Sleeping Kings goes unfinished, and I open up Word to write, and find I have nothing to say. I can’t get into the story, I can’t go there, because there’s too much unfinished here….

And I always thought maybe I’d be a writer now, if things had been different. Maybe if I hadn’t married Trish, I would have tried the starving artist thing. I don’t think so, though. I dunno, maybe it would be different if I didn’t have a family to feed. Maybe I’d be willing to give in to the escapism, to sacrifice the real world for my imaginary one, but I really don’t think so. I think my parents raised me with too great a sense of responsibility, in that regard at least.

I need stability, I need comfort, I need peace, before I can go to that place where the U. S. is falling apart and golden ages burn, where civilization itself threatens to crumble. It’s a pretty strange situation.

I think I’m proud of myself for that, though. But, yeah, I hope things get better soon. I would really like to get to the part where everything blows up, y’know?