Most writers start writing because because he or she was inspired by something she’d read. There was another storyteller who’d left an impression and became who they wanted to be.
I didn’t think about such things when I was a kid. I generally consider my starting point as a writer to be when I was twelve, and because I wanted to write an adventure story set in my favorite video game. But at about that same age I really got into reading. My dad encouraged my brother and I to read, and agreed to pay half of any book we purchased, which made books affordable entertainment in comparison to video games.
Not that it stopped my love of video games, but I read, a lot.
My first Anne McCaffrey book was actually Dinosaur Planet, chosen because it was quite obviously a science fiction story involving a planet full of dinosaurs, and how could you go wrong with that? I still remember the day I bought the book. A brand new bookstore had opened in town and my dad took me there for a look around. It wasn’t a very large paperback, and there were tons of books on the shelves, but I picked that one. I still have it at home.
Then, when I was a little older in high school, I discovered the school library had an amazing selection of science fiction and fantasy. It had volumes upon volumes of these dragon books by Anne McCaffrey. I liked dragons, so it wasn’t a hard sell. The problem was which one to start with.
I figured the one called Dragonsdawn was a good place to start, given the title, and fell in love with the genetically engineered dragons and their riders. I was disappointed to discover that the rest of the books in print at that time (the Chronicles of Pern collection would later revisit the First Pass) took place centuries if not millenia later, and I had to adjust to a new cast of characters, but I read nearly every Pern book in the school library (skipping only Nerilka’s Story).
After I graduated I continued to read all the way up to 2001’s The Skies of Pern. I read her other books too; The Rowan and Damia, The Ship Who Sang, Decision at Doona.
One of the reasons I thought Writers of the Future was the awesomest contest ever was because Anne McCaffrey was a judge, and the thought that she might one day read my writing was amazing.
Though I won the contest in the biggest way possible, she was not one of my judges, and by then her health no longer permitted her to travel the distance it would take for her to get from Ireland to California for the award ceremony. I wish I had met her.
But she remained an inspiration to me. There is no other author I’ve read more, and I have no doubt that a part of what makes me a writer today came from her.
Farewell, Dragonlady of Pern. And thank you.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Solaris Rising Now Out in Stores
The anthology Solaris Rising: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction is now in stores (Amazon, B&N, Mysterious Galaxy)! Thanks go to my fellow WotF winner Adam Colston for giving me a photo of the copy he found in the wild. I haven't been in a bookstore since my local Borders closed so it was a pleasant surprise to know the book's out.
I've been a bit hermit-like the past couple weeks, working on writing in between weekend events (took some time off from the day job), but I have good news. I've been contracted to do another story for Story Portals, this time for their upcoming Qi Lin property. Just got the signed paperwork back a few days ago.
And my previous Story Portals story, "The Nightmare Beast," has been collected into the ebook anthology of Katya, Lady Assassin stories: The Taste of Waterfruit and Other Stories.
I had a fantastic time at Blizzcon last weekend, and it turned out more useful from a writing standpoint than I thought. Richard Knaak and Christie Golden, who I read while I was in high school, were both there doing book signings as well as on a panel discussing their tie-in work with Blizzard.
I've been a bit hermit-like the past couple weeks, working on writing in between weekend events (took some time off from the day job), but I have good news. I've been contracted to do another story for Story Portals, this time for their upcoming Qi Lin property. Just got the signed paperwork back a few days ago.
And my previous Story Portals story, "The Nightmare Beast," has been collected into the ebook anthology of Katya, Lady Assassin stories: The Taste of Waterfruit and Other Stories.
I had a fantastic time at Blizzcon last weekend, and it turned out more useful from a writing standpoint than I thought. Richard Knaak and Christie Golden, who I read while I was in high school, were both there doing book signings as well as on a panel discussing their tie-in work with Blizzard.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Upcoming Travels
October's a busy month for me. Fortunately the day job is winding down so I should be able to take a vacation soon. First up is a wedding, second is BlizzCon, and third is the World Fantasy Convention.
BlizzCon is purely for fun since I'm a World of warcraft player and I'll be attending with a few of my guildies. If you happen to going and would like to meet up, I'd be happy to do so, though I'm not there in any writerly capacity (though if Blizzard is looking for another writer for their books I'd be happy to talk about it!).
I mostly plan on being a fan that weekend and soak up all the WoW and Diablo III news I can. Oh, and attend the Foo Fighters concert that closes out the con. I just hope my ears will be able to take the screaming.
WFC will be my first major spec fic convention and I hope to meet a lot of fellow writers I've only met on forums up until this point, as well as a few familiar faces from Writers of the Future. Again, I'll be happy to meet up sometime. From my understanding, WFC is on the small side since the number of attendees is restricted, so it shouldn't be difficult for find people.
After that, in November I plan to be at LosCon, the local LA convention, again. I'm really more of a stay-at-home type, so this is mind-bogglingly busy for me.
BlizzCon is purely for fun since I'm a World of warcraft player and I'll be attending with a few of my guildies. If you happen to going and would like to meet up, I'd be happy to do so, though I'm not there in any writerly capacity (though if Blizzard is looking for another writer for their books I'd be happy to talk about it!).
I mostly plan on being a fan that weekend and soak up all the WoW and Diablo III news I can. Oh, and attend the Foo Fighters concert that closes out the con. I just hope my ears will be able to take the screaming.
WFC will be my first major spec fic convention and I hope to meet a lot of fellow writers I've only met on forums up until this point, as well as a few familiar faces from Writers of the Future. Again, I'll be happy to meet up sometime. From my understanding, WFC is on the small side since the number of attendees is restricted, so it shouldn't be difficult for find people.
After that, in November I plan to be at LosCon, the local LA convention, again. I'm really more of a stay-at-home type, so this is mind-bogglingly busy for me.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Writing "The Nightmare Beast"
My first work-for-hire story, "The Nightmare Beast," is available now to the general public at Story Portals. This is not the first time I've written in someone else's universe (my story "By Whatever Means Necessary" was an Honorable Mention in the first of Blizzard's annual writing contests for their Starcraft/Warcraft/Diablo properties), but happily enough, it's the first time I've been paid to do so.
"The Nightmare Beast" stars an assassin named Katya, the lead franchise character over at Story Portals. One of the best, Katya finds herself on a variety of dangerous jobs over the course of the series. In "The Nightmare Beast" she finds herself meeting an old acquaintance who hires her unaware of who she really is. She's asked to assassinate a man and steal package he neglected to deliver to her client, but the job can't be that simple, can it?
Doing work-for-hire can be fun since a lot of the world-building is already done, I can just cut loose and write, and I was able to write the first draft much more quickly than I could my original work.
"The Nightmare Beast" was also my trial run using Scrivner. I don't normally do first drafts on computer anymore, since I find the lure of the internet to be too distracting, but I didn't want to write "The Nightmare Beast" in longhand in my notebook because it would end up getting mixed in with the novel project I was working on at the time.
Scrivner has a feature though that allows the entire screen to be covered with nothing but a big white sheet, reminiscent of a typewriter, that hides everything else in the background. At first I thought it was a silly feature, but when I used it, I found it really did do a good job of blocking out distractions. The only problem was that the "typewriter" didn't advance with every new line (I was using the Beta) so I was usually writing at the bottom of the screen instead of the middle.
I’m not a complete convert, but the program might be used another time in the future if I need to avoid getting my notebook cluttered with multiple projects again.
I listened to several songs to get into the mood for writing Katya. Songs used for "The Nightmare Beast" were "Teenage Dream" by Katy Perry, "According to You" by Orianthi, and "Who Knew" and "Please Don't Leave Me" by Pink.
"The Nightmare Beast" stars an assassin named Katya, the lead franchise character over at Story Portals. One of the best, Katya finds herself on a variety of dangerous jobs over the course of the series. In "The Nightmare Beast" she finds herself meeting an old acquaintance who hires her unaware of who she really is. She's asked to assassinate a man and steal package he neglected to deliver to her client, but the job can't be that simple, can it?
Doing work-for-hire can be fun since a lot of the world-building is already done, I can just cut loose and write, and I was able to write the first draft much more quickly than I could my original work.
"The Nightmare Beast" was also my trial run using Scrivner. I don't normally do first drafts on computer anymore, since I find the lure of the internet to be too distracting, but I didn't want to write "The Nightmare Beast" in longhand in my notebook because it would end up getting mixed in with the novel project I was working on at the time.
Scrivner has a feature though that allows the entire screen to be covered with nothing but a big white sheet, reminiscent of a typewriter, that hides everything else in the background. At first I thought it was a silly feature, but when I used it, I found it really did do a good job of blocking out distractions. The only problem was that the "typewriter" didn't advance with every new line (I was using the Beta) so I was usually writing at the bottom of the screen instead of the middle.
I’m not a complete convert, but the program might be used another time in the future if I need to avoid getting my notebook cluttered with multiple projects again.
I listened to several songs to get into the mood for writing Katya. Songs used for "The Nightmare Beast" were "Teenage Dream" by Katy Perry, "According to You" by Orianthi, and "Who Knew" and "Please Don't Leave Me" by Pink.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
RPG Talk: Lunar: Silver Star Harmony
Platform: PSP
Year of Release: 2010
The original Lunar: The Silver Star holds a special place in my heart. I was sixteen, loving console RPGs, and at an age when games were finally powerful enough to start including complex stories and cinematic moments. Lunar was one of the first RPGs to feature a well developed cast of characters in a setting that was unique enough to not be just any old fantasy land and featured a plot with something more personal at stake than just saving the world.
It also featured the first RPG villain that I really felt sympathy towards. Until then all the villains I'd seen in games had been fairly cartoony or quite thoroughly evil. Ghaleon was amazing. He was a former hero who had a legitimate reason for hating the Goddess Althena. While I disagreed with his means, I could not disagree with his reason, and that cemented him as one of my favorite villains of all time.
Perhaps as a testament to the story's enduring appeal, Lunar: The Silver Star has been remade a number of times; Lunar: Silver Star Story, Lunar Legend, and now Lunar: Silver Star Harmony. With four versions now in existence, there are variations in how the tale has been told in each one, though the later remakes tend to follow SSS more than the original TSS.
I recently finished playing through Silver Star Harmony and there are some things to be appreciated considering that the game was brought over from Japan by the third company to localize it. Perhaps knowing that many of the people buying it would be players who remember it from childhood (seventeen years passed between the original TSS and the release of SSH) the names of the characters use the changes and spellings used by the original localization team, even when they did not match the Japanese.
Name changes are much rarer in RPGs now, with fans demanding fidelty to the Japanese as much as possible, but Lunar continues to skate by, and so Fiddy continues to be Quark, Killy is still Kyle, etc.
I was initially reluctant to buy yet another copy of the same story, but was convinced to open my wallet when I found out about new material added in. If there's anything the Lunar remakes have done, it's that they add their own tweaks and turns, as if to tell the repeat player this story really is a legend and there are many variations to it.
Comparing this to a more recent property, Lunar: Silver Star Harmony is much like Harry Potter in that the actions of the previous generation echo down into the present and nothing that happens now would have happened if not for what happened before.
Lunar has always had the Four Heroes in every iteration; Dragonmaster Dyne; the sage, Ghaleon; the pirate, Mel; and the heir to the magic guild, Lemia. Every version tells how Dyne went off on one final adventure with his best friend Ghaleon and never returned, and only Ghaleon knew what had really happened. (And no, he didn't kill him.)
Silver Star Harmony's addition to the legacy allows the player to go through a new prologue sequence as the Four Heroes (image above). I wonder if this was perhaps an apology to fans who've requested a Four Heroes game in the past and never got one, instead getting three other games set in different time periods with different characters. The prologue is decently involving, its two boss fights surprisingly punchy, and features a fair deal of new "lore" in gaming parlance. We learn of a Black Star for the first time and finally know the name of the villain who made the Four Heroes household names.
Though there is an aside later in the game that refers back to the prologue, sadly I don't think the writers took as much advantage of the new material as they could have. The prologue villain Eiphel prophecizes that Ghaleon will fall the same way as he did, but there's only one other line of dialogue in the first third of the game that refers back to it. I would have liked Ghaleon to recall that warning at the end of the game to bookend with the beginning and it seems too good a writer trick to miss.
The rest of the game hews fairly closely to the first remake, Silver Star Story, though the dialogue may differ a bit.
The mysterious event that led to Dragonmaster Dyne's disappearance and presumed death, is what sets the story of Lunar in motion, and the main character, Alex, is a village boy who aspires to one day be a Dragonmaster like his hero. On his journey he meets the daughters of the Four Heroes Mel and Lemia, and the main cast is rounded out with a pompous young magican who is apprenticed to Ghaleon and a sleazy bandit.
Now that I'm older and no longer a teenager, what follows is decent enough adolescent quest to rescue a childhood friend who happens to be the key to Ghaleon taking over the world. The story is bright-eyed and optimistic, hearkening back to a simpler time when belief in the human heart is enough. Even when bad things happen, they are obstacles to be overcome and the heroes never completely lose heart, though they may at times falter.
The heroes are perhaps a bit unrealistic in their faith. Ghaleon certainly believes so, and not just because he's the villain. Lack of belief in the human heart is the cornerstone of why he fell (in the remakes). And that brings me to what really stood out for me now that I'm older.
This guy here is Nash. He looks pretty sure of himself, doesn't he?
Nash is probably the least popular of the five main characters. It might be because he starts the game as an arrogant snotbag, overly proud of being apprentice to Ghaleon, the most powerful magician in the world. But it's mainly because of something else Nash does in all versions of the game.
He betrays the party. (Methods vary depending on version, but rest assured he will do it.)
I remember other players saying that after Nash betrayed them they never could forgive him. They didn't want him back in the party.
But the thing is, Nash is probably the most realistic of the main characters. The problem is that he doesn't fit in the mold of having faith and hope that somehow they will emerge successful. He betrays the party because he calls it as he sees it. Sure, Ghaleon isn't a nice guy, but fighting against the most powerful magician in the world, who is capable of single-handedly capturing or killing dragons and enslaving the goddess? It's suicidal.
Nash wants to live, and he wants to protect the girl he loves (fellow party member Mia). In Silver Star Harmony he sabotages the party's airship not just to prevent the group from attacking Ghaleon, but to prevent Mia from getting close enough to be killed.
That might make him out to be a misguided hero, but Nash isn't entirely selfless in this. There is a part of him that appreciates the idea of being special, of having a place in Ghaleon's new order. We find out midway through the game that Nash prizes status because he's from a peasant family and he wanted his parents to be proud that he became an elite magician.
Still, it's Mia that matters the most to him, and it's because he realizes that he's hurting her by fighting on the wrong side that he choses to come back to the group.
(As an aside: I much prefer the original TSS version of Nash's snapping out of it to the slapping Mia gives him in all the remakes since he comes to his senses on his own. It's visually less dramatic since there is no special sprite animation for it, but the guts it must have taken for Nash to return to the party, almost at the cost of his life and knowing they might not take him back, made a much stronger emotional impact.)
All the characters except probably Alex (who is as noble in the end as he was in the beginning) grow, but it's Nash who grows the most, saying that "We can't value people only for their power, magic, or wealth" in defiance of what he'd once believed.
He's a refreshing voice of reason, and once Nash was ready to believe in the power of the human spirit, I found I was too. He might not have been liked by a lot of players (in this forum poll he's in a three way tie across two Lunar games for least favorite--ouch!), and he's certainly not a character to aspire to be, but I wonder if players will find him more understandable, if not necessarily likable, with age.
If we were real people in the story of Lunar, I think a lot more people would be a Nash than an Alex.
Images courtesy of IGN, which amazingly enough provides links so external sites can embed their images.
Year of Release: 2010
The original Lunar: The Silver Star holds a special place in my heart. I was sixteen, loving console RPGs, and at an age when games were finally powerful enough to start including complex stories and cinematic moments. Lunar was one of the first RPGs to feature a well developed cast of characters in a setting that was unique enough to not be just any old fantasy land and featured a plot with something more personal at stake than just saving the world.
It also featured the first RPG villain that I really felt sympathy towards. Until then all the villains I'd seen in games had been fairly cartoony or quite thoroughly evil. Ghaleon was amazing. He was a former hero who had a legitimate reason for hating the Goddess Althena. While I disagreed with his means, I could not disagree with his reason, and that cemented him as one of my favorite villains of all time.
Perhaps as a testament to the story's enduring appeal, Lunar: The Silver Star has been remade a number of times; Lunar: Silver Star Story, Lunar Legend, and now Lunar: Silver Star Harmony. With four versions now in existence, there are variations in how the tale has been told in each one, though the later remakes tend to follow SSS more than the original TSS.
I recently finished playing through Silver Star Harmony and there are some things to be appreciated considering that the game was brought over from Japan by the third company to localize it. Perhaps knowing that many of the people buying it would be players who remember it from childhood (seventeen years passed between the original TSS and the release of SSH) the names of the characters use the changes and spellings used by the original localization team, even when they did not match the Japanese.
Name changes are much rarer in RPGs now, with fans demanding fidelty to the Japanese as much as possible, but Lunar continues to skate by, and so Fiddy continues to be Quark, Killy is still Kyle, etc.
I was initially reluctant to buy yet another copy of the same story, but was convinced to open my wallet when I found out about new material added in. If there's anything the Lunar remakes have done, it's that they add their own tweaks and turns, as if to tell the repeat player this story really is a legend and there are many variations to it.
Comparing this to a more recent property, Lunar: Silver Star Harmony is much like Harry Potter in that the actions of the previous generation echo down into the present and nothing that happens now would have happened if not for what happened before.
Lunar has always had the Four Heroes in every iteration; Dragonmaster Dyne; the sage, Ghaleon; the pirate, Mel; and the heir to the magic guild, Lemia. Every version tells how Dyne went off on one final adventure with his best friend Ghaleon and never returned, and only Ghaleon knew what had really happened. (And no, he didn't kill him.)
Silver Star Harmony's addition to the legacy allows the player to go through a new prologue sequence as the Four Heroes (image above). I wonder if this was perhaps an apology to fans who've requested a Four Heroes game in the past and never got one, instead getting three other games set in different time periods with different characters. The prologue is decently involving, its two boss fights surprisingly punchy, and features a fair deal of new "lore" in gaming parlance. We learn of a Black Star for the first time and finally know the name of the villain who made the Four Heroes household names.
Though there is an aside later in the game that refers back to the prologue, sadly I don't think the writers took as much advantage of the new material as they could have. The prologue villain Eiphel prophecizes that Ghaleon will fall the same way as he did, but there's only one other line of dialogue in the first third of the game that refers back to it. I would have liked Ghaleon to recall that warning at the end of the game to bookend with the beginning and it seems too good a writer trick to miss.
The rest of the game hews fairly closely to the first remake, Silver Star Story, though the dialogue may differ a bit.
The mysterious event that led to Dragonmaster Dyne's disappearance and presumed death, is what sets the story of Lunar in motion, and the main character, Alex, is a village boy who aspires to one day be a Dragonmaster like his hero. On his journey he meets the daughters of the Four Heroes Mel and Lemia, and the main cast is rounded out with a pompous young magican who is apprenticed to Ghaleon and a sleazy bandit.
Now that I'm older and no longer a teenager, what follows is decent enough adolescent quest to rescue a childhood friend who happens to be the key to Ghaleon taking over the world. The story is bright-eyed and optimistic, hearkening back to a simpler time when belief in the human heart is enough. Even when bad things happen, they are obstacles to be overcome and the heroes never completely lose heart, though they may at times falter.
The heroes are perhaps a bit unrealistic in their faith. Ghaleon certainly believes so, and not just because he's the villain. Lack of belief in the human heart is the cornerstone of why he fell (in the remakes). And that brings me to what really stood out for me now that I'm older.
This guy here is Nash. He looks pretty sure of himself, doesn't he?
Nash is probably the least popular of the five main characters. It might be because he starts the game as an arrogant snotbag, overly proud of being apprentice to Ghaleon, the most powerful magician in the world. But it's mainly because of something else Nash does in all versions of the game.
He betrays the party. (Methods vary depending on version, but rest assured he will do it.)
I remember other players saying that after Nash betrayed them they never could forgive him. They didn't want him back in the party.
But the thing is, Nash is probably the most realistic of the main characters. The problem is that he doesn't fit in the mold of having faith and hope that somehow they will emerge successful. He betrays the party because he calls it as he sees it. Sure, Ghaleon isn't a nice guy, but fighting against the most powerful magician in the world, who is capable of single-handedly capturing or killing dragons and enslaving the goddess? It's suicidal.
Nash wants to live, and he wants to protect the girl he loves (fellow party member Mia). In Silver Star Harmony he sabotages the party's airship not just to prevent the group from attacking Ghaleon, but to prevent Mia from getting close enough to be killed.
That might make him out to be a misguided hero, but Nash isn't entirely selfless in this. There is a part of him that appreciates the idea of being special, of having a place in Ghaleon's new order. We find out midway through the game that Nash prizes status because he's from a peasant family and he wanted his parents to be proud that he became an elite magician.
Still, it's Mia that matters the most to him, and it's because he realizes that he's hurting her by fighting on the wrong side that he choses to come back to the group.
(As an aside: I much prefer the original TSS version of Nash's snapping out of it to the slapping Mia gives him in all the remakes since he comes to his senses on his own. It's visually less dramatic since there is no special sprite animation for it, but the guts it must have taken for Nash to return to the party, almost at the cost of his life and knowing they might not take him back, made a much stronger emotional impact.)
All the characters except probably Alex (who is as noble in the end as he was in the beginning) grow, but it's Nash who grows the most, saying that "We can't value people only for their power, magic, or wealth" in defiance of what he'd once believed.
He's a refreshing voice of reason, and once Nash was ready to believe in the power of the human spirit, I found I was too. He might not have been liked by a lot of players (in this forum poll he's in a three way tie across two Lunar games for least favorite--ouch!), and he's certainly not a character to aspire to be, but I wonder if players will find him more understandable, if not necessarily likable, with age.
If we were real people in the story of Lunar, I think a lot more people would be a Nash than an Alex.
Images courtesy of IGN, which amazingly enough provides links so external sites can embed their images.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
"The Nightmare Beast" Now Available at Story Portals
My story "The Nightmare Beast" is now available for registered members at Story Portals (and registration is free!). It will become available to the general public in a week.
In "The Nightmare Beast," accomplished assassin Katya finds herself hired by an old acquaintance, who is unaware of her hidden identity as a killer-for-hire. But Katya is not the only one with secrets and the assassin soon discovers she's not the only one who's changed since they last met.
In "The Nightmare Beast," accomplished assassin Katya finds herself hired by an old acquaintance, who is unaware of her hidden identity as a killer-for-hire. But Katya is not the only one with secrets and the assassin soon discovers she's not the only one who's changed since they last met.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Story Portals Going Live!
Story Portals is a new hub for fantasy adventure stories, set to go live on September 1st, which for most of the world, is already today!
The launch character is Katya, a lady assassin and the sole remaining follower of the goddess of love and death, Shi'in. For those who read a lot of D&D novels, at least a couple of the names on the roster for writing Katya will look familiar, such as Marsheila Rockwell and Richard Lee Byers.
Ten stories are going to be available at launch with an eleventh available to registered members, with new stories to come. I'm happy to say that one of them will be mine.
The launch character is Katya, a lady assassin and the sole remaining follower of the goddess of love and death, Shi'in. For those who read a lot of D&D novels, at least a couple of the names on the roster for writing Katya will look familiar, such as Marsheila Rockwell and Richard Lee Byers.
Ten stories are going to be available at launch with an eleventh available to registered members, with new stories to come. I'm happy to say that one of them will be mine.
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