Vikings & Valkyries: I'm on a podcast?

See, I'm not the only one who makes bad decisions sometimes.  A friend of a friend, whose judgment we must surely question, invited me to participate in an ongoing podcast.

It's called 'Vikings & Valkyries', and it's an actual-play podcast.  With my (very) old friend Bill, and new friends as well, we're trying out the tabletop RPG by Ian Stuart Sharpe.  He's taking us through an adventure in a magic-and-technology-filled world where the Vikings rule the Earth and beyond.

How are we doing?  Frankly, we're incompetent at being Vikings.  We keep blowing things up -- including ourselves -- and we keep getting our guest players killed.  We're really sorry about that last part.

The other players seem to know what they're doing (or at least they act like it) whereas I confess it took me a few episodes to figure out what end of the sword (or microphone) went where.

We're having a lot of fun!  My character 'Eir' contributes the occasional useful magic spell, while I personally contribute a selection of totally-unsolicited smartass remarks.  I think that might be my idiom.

If you're looking for something fun to listen to that involves adults acting like idiots while being bad at a game, you might just be in luck.

'Vikings & Valkyries' via the Vikingverse website

'Vikings & Valkyries' via the Apple podcast site thingie

Where the hell did the year go?

Here at the Compound, it doesn't know whether it wants to be autumn or winter.  It's currently above freezing and rain is coming down.  Normally I would've said that sort of weather was unusual for the end of December, but I think the range of what's 'normal' is changing, as far as the weather is concerned.

The book I've been working on -- the fourth in the 'What Was Lost' series -- is now in a new draft.  I've set it aside for a while so I can come back to it with fresh eyes and (ideally) see all the typos that have been hiding from me all this time.  I'm also working on a cover for it.  I'd prefer to make the cover follow the theme of the first three books in the series, but that won't be possible due to a surprisingly-thorough set of computer problems earlier in the year that wiped out the Photoshop files for those covers plus both sets of backups.  So instead, I'm probably going to be making entirely new covers for all the books in the series including the new one.

Although I plan to write another in the 'What Was Lost' series (or a few more) in the future, my next book will instead be a pivot to fantasy, where I'll be working on a sequel to 'Summoned'.  I'm in a necromancy sort of mood (who isn't?) and there's a story for Donza and Katryn that wants out.

I've got a few other things on the go which are keeping me super busy, but more on that later.  For now, it's farewell to 2024 and hello to 2025, a number that sounds incredibly futuristic.  I still think we should've had flying cars and holidays on the moon by now.

Happy New Year!

Scribble-edits

After an alarming amount of scribbling, I've finished the latest edit for the current book, still called Six-Bits or some variant thereof.  My next task is going to be to take all those scribbled edits and put them into the Word doc, to create the 4th draft.  Or maybe it's the 5th.  I'm not entirely sure how I should be counting these things.

Once that's done, I'm going to put the manuscript aside for a month or two so I can come back to it later with a fresh mind.  In the meantime, I'll start working on my next project.  Because I have to have a project on the go at all times.  Or two.  Or ten.

I'm leaning towards moving ahead with the outline for the sequel to Summoned, my one and only fantasy novel.  I think Donza and Katryn have another story (or several) to tell, and I'm liking the idea of going back and visiting them.

As mentioned last time, I'm now involved in far too many other projects.  I'm playing one online D&D game, one occasional in-person D&D game, I'm in one RPG podcast currently in production (details to follow), one online gaming stream (details to follow), and of course I'm DMing a weekly D&D game with the chuckleheads I've known since forever. 

In the last session, the chuckleheads (who call themselves the 'Party of the Damned') were in a foreign city and happened upon a dinosaur race.  There were four dinosaurs ready to go, and four party members.  Also, betting on the race was encouraged.  This all went much better once it was explained to them that, if all four of them raced, they could control the outcome of the race.  As in, rig the race.  As in, make large bets on yourself and get rich.  They then proceeded to -- I kid you not -- spend half an hour arguing/discussing who was going to ride which dinosaur.  

Bit of a pileup in Turn 1.  Plus claws and teeth.

When the race eventually happened, one of them took off ahead to win by a mile (as agreed) while the others either went nowhere, got into a fight, or were unseated and trying to survive being attacked by their own now-homicidal mount.  As one does.

Sure, it all keeps us scrambling to improv what comes next.  It keeps the creativity flowing.  I think?

Like Boards in a Picket Fence

Somehow, I've survived another breakneck lap around the Sun.  If these laps get any faster, I'm going to get dizzy.

The second (third? second-and-a-bit?) draft of the next 'What Was Lost' book is still in an early form, but I've got some great feedback so far and I think it's going to be in good shape.  There are a thousand and one little corrections to make, as usual:  wrong words, or wrong paragraphs, or places where I edited a sentence and then somehow left both versions in the text, or places where a left out a detail and as a result a bit of dialogue made no sense.  It's all obvious, once someone takes the time to patiently point it out to me.  And then it's easily fixed.

While the super-early version of that book is being looked at, I'm already thinking ahead to the next one.  I've got two outlines I'm working on, apparently because I like to torment myself:  one is the next book in this series, and the other is a jump over to my lone fantasy book Summoned, which feels like it's crying out for a sequel.  I might do both at the same time, because there's no way that would be confusing at all.

In other news, I've gone from very little D&D to a whole lot.  As mentioned before, a friend of mine is getting set up on startplaying.games as a DM for hire, which is a new thing I've learned about.  I think it's a great idea.  He's got a couple games ready to go, I think, and there may be more in the works.  If a little D&D with a lunatic fun guy sounds like it's in your wheelhouse, check him out here:  clicky.

While poking around on that same site, I found a game to play as well, and we're now two sessions into a D&D 5th Edition adventure with us playing pirates morally-problematic seafarers.  In our first adventure, we were tasked to go sneak up on a rival ship full of pirates legitimate maritime capitalists and learn what they were up to.  That may have ended with us stealing their ship; I'm sure nothing bad will come of that.

This fun, in turn, led to me poking around with D&D Beyond, the browser-based virtual tabletop and game management system that is super neato.  And of course one thing leads to another and I'm going to run an adventure for some friends I've known for many many many years.  More on that later.

Also also, I think I'm getting involved in one or more actual-play podcasts, which should be fun.  More on that later, too.

But my first objective is to keep putting more words on paper.  Always more words!

 

 

So Much Red Ink

So I've given the first book of the new series its first editing pass.  Apparently, when I called it a 'rough draft', I was serious about the 'rough' part.

Blurred a bit because spoilers

But that's good!  I'm happy with the current shape of it.  I do my editing on paper, so that means all my edits have to be manually done in the Word version, which will take a while, but things are absolutely going in the right direction.  I've spotted some good stuff for every character, and a few things I can really, as they say, 'lean into'.  

Regrettably, my D&D group hasn't met in ages, because the universe is conspiring against us.  And in a curious development, a friend of mine is looking at getting into DMing D&D games on a paid basis, which is apparently a thing.  I had no idea this was a real thing.  But it makes perfect sense for people who want to play but don't have enough/any people in their area to sit down with.  Another friend and I have spent a few hours doing a test run with him, and there has been a lot of hilarity while we fumble with the online systems and occasionally beat up a monster or two.  More on this later, I think.

The weather here in the compound is decidedly un-July, which makes sense considering that every month this year has not been following its normal trend.  I'm sure if we do nothing it'll all be right as rain in no time.

Six-Bits (working title): First draft

There's a new trilogy in the works, and the first book is done.  That is to say, the first draft of the first book is done.  It took about 7 months, which is slower than I'd like, but work and life and adulting are taking up a lot of time.  What can you do?

The working title is "Six-Bits", but I might change that to something like "Shipwright & Six-Bits" because a lot of the story is told from the point of view of Mell, the shipwright from the previous trilogy.

I'm going to let it sit for a week or two, then start with a first round of edits.  When I'm more or less satisfied, it'll be time to start the second book in the trilogy.  

I wrote the previous trilogy all in one go (not publishing anything until it was all done) and that really made things easier.  So I think I'm going to do that again.  It means a lot longer (another year? two?) before the whole trilogy is ready to go, but I think it's worth it.

I'll keep you posted on what happens next!

Three-hole-punch printer paper is a godsend.

Denouthingy

I'm happy to report that, after a busy weekend of scribbling (and rather a lot of energy drinks), the first draft of the next book stands at 90000 words.  The big crazy climactic scene is done, and I'm happy with the first version of it.

All that's left now is the aftermath/cleanup/denouement, where I clean up the mess I made, tie up the loose ends, complete the story for this book, and get things ready for the next book.  I'm hoping to get it done this coming weekend, but we'll see.

In other news, our happy D&D group continues to find new ways to be silly and/or incompetent.  I'm doing my very best to lead the charge, setting an example of poor decision making for others to not follow.

Our group of lunatics was going cross-country, still trying to get away from the Big Baddie.  During the night, someone got into our camp and robbed us, stealing something valuable from each character.  The next day, a Mysteriously Convenient Visitor showed up to make us a deal:  if we help them, they'll get our stuff back.  I'm still about 99% sure that MCV is the one who took our stuff in the first place, but what can you do?  

We agreed (see 'poor decision making', above) to go break into a home of a local Bad Person and break some magical seals that were preventing the local Good People from apprehending them.  Again, I'm fairly certain that we've got it all wrong, and the Good People are actually the Bad People, and so on.

Arriving at the home of the alleged Bad Person, we had a committee meeting about what to do.  We agreed, first and foremost, to not split the party.

So, of course, we split the party.  Team 'Sneak In Through The Basement' went to sneak in through the basement, while Team 'Try The Front Door', of which I was a part, went to try the front door.  Which had traps.  Traps that shot at party members.  So now the party warlock is on the ground.  And, I think, on fire.  That counts as a result, right?  Can't wait to get back together for more hilariously poor decision making.