"It's a dead game, Jim."

Not that I've mentioned it in a while, but I have this garage cleaning project going on. Possibly, "cleaning" isn't the correct word for it, since you can hardly tell anything has happened in it so far. I mean, I can tell, because I know what stuff I've sold, but I'm kind of making a bigger mess out of things as I go along. None of which has anything to do with what I'm about to get into other than reminding everyone that I'm in the process of selling off my old collectibles and, mostly, using eBay to do that.

Which tempts me to expound on all of the things that are wrong with eBay, but I'm not going to do that. After all, I'm making the choice to use them. Not that there are other feasible options, but, since there are other things that are like options (you know, in the way that people say carob is another option for chocolate or that tofu is an option for... anything), it's on me that I'm choosing eBay, so let's forget about the issue, for the moment, with eBay itself.

No, instead, let's talk about the users. Not all of them, of course, or, even, most of them. It has been, after all, quite a while since I've had... issues... with other eBay users. Then, of course, after going a year or so with no issues at all, I get three in the same month, the first of which we're going to skip due to it being typical opportunistic greed based on a late delivery by the USPS (which I've also had problems with just in the last month after having zero problems with them since I started using eBay again), which eBay, actually, took care of, amazingly enough, without me having to call them or anything. [Maybe there's some problem with June. The heat wave? Who knows.]

However, the other two are a different story and cut from the same cloth, so let's talk about them. I'm sure there's a metaphor in here somewhere. [Actually, I know that there is; I'm just not sure, yet, whether I'm going to point it out or not.]

A lot of my collectible stuff is pretty, I'll call it, mainstream. The greatest bulk, by volume, is comic books, and most of those are Marvel. By piece count, I have more Magic: The Gathering than anything else. Some of my stuff, though, is a little less... usual. Generally, because it's gone out of production so younger collectors, unless they fall into the niche, don't know about the stuff.

Some people, evidently, refer to these as "dead games." Well, the things that are games, anyway.
I also have stuff like this:

(Who would know he would "win" in 2016? Actually, I'd rather have Cthulhu than the current #fakepresident.))

Within the last week or so, I began listing some "dead games": L5R (Legend of the Five Rings) and Neopets, both ccgs (that's collectible card game for those of you haven't lived any in the last couple of decades), though Neopets calls itself a tcg (trading card game). It didn't take very long before I was contacted by buyers interested in the two games (one for each game) if only I would lower my price to next to nothing so that they could buy my stuff. You know, to garage sale prices.
You know about garage sale prices, right? Everything for a $0.25.

Let me be a little more clear about that. Both buyers wanted to "buy" all of what I currently have available on both games at prices that clearly didn't represent the value of the items. Now, I don't have a problem with people trying to get a good deal; heck, I like good deals! So I don't have an issue with people asking me if I would consider lowering my price on something. What made these two stand out is that when I turned down their offers as being too low, they both got mad at me and began arguing with me, both using the "dead game" argument and telling me how I would never find a buyer willing to pay more than they were offering.

And that can be a compelling argument. Sometimes, it's one we even tell ourselves:
"You'll never find someone else who will 'love' you."
"You'll never find another publisher/agent/whatever."
"I'll never..."
Fill it in yourself.

That is the reason my mom married my stepdad, just by the way. According to her, no one else would ever have taken us.

To make matters more interesting, the guy who wanted the L5R stuff kept going on about all of the places he knew of where he could get what I was selling at even lowere prices than what he was offering! And, so, why was he trying to talk me down rather than just buying the stuff for the EVEN CHEAPER PRICES?!? I guess he was doing me a special favor or something by offering me more than what he would have to spend elsewhere. Riiight...

And the guy who wanted the Neopets stuff? Well, somewhere in arguing with me over the price, he let slip that he was interested in re-selling it. Hmm... Re-selling the "dead game" for a profit, which I shouldn't expect because it's a dead game. Later in the conversation, he tried to recant that and tell me he was just offering an example of why someone might want to get something for no money. It made me want to LOL in his face. Which is difficult to do online.

At any rate, to make a long story short, before I even got the L5R auctions posted, a different buyer, one who had purchased some other L5R stuff from me many weeks ago, made me an offer he was worried I wouldn't take (he thought I would think it was too low (but it was what he could afford)) that was for only about half of what I was going to put on auction but at more than double the price the other guy wanted to offer me for all of what I had. The new offer was actually a bit lower than what I wanted, but it was a reasonable offer for a good chunk of stuff that I would no longer have to list on eBay. I took it.

And the Neopets stuff? I did post all of that and, within 12 hours of posting it, had already made more on just a tiny fraction of it (less than 10%) than the "dead game" guy was offering for all of it.

Do I have a lesson in here for you? You decide.
What I will say, though, is don't listen to anyone who is trying to get you to do something with the "dead game" argument.

Clone Wars -- "The Gathering" (Ep. 5.5)

-- He who faces himself, finds himself.

[Remember, you can sign up to join the Clone Wars Project at any time by clicking this link.]
[Well, actually, considering that we're into season five, now, probably no one new is going to sign up, BUT! Hop over to The Armchair Squid for his take on the current episode.]

Okay, on a complete aside, why does it seem that "everything" has to have an episode (or some equivalency) called "The Gathering"?

There's a decided shift in season five away from Anakin and Obi-Wan to Ahsoka as we begin our second arc of the season focused on Ahsoka and her development apart from Anakin. Which is not to say that there won't be Anakin and Obi-Wan, just that Ahsoka is getting some extra attention as the series nears its ending. But, you know, more on that later.

This episode is both kind of cool/interesting and kind of annoying. On the one hand, it's about how younglings acquire their Kaiburr crystals so that they can construct their first lightsabers and move on to becoming padawans. On the other hand, it has a bit of that video game quality to it where you have to pass a series of challenges to achieve the goal. It's not as overt as it could have been, though, which is why it's only "kind of" annoying.

Really, the episode is centered around the younglings and their individual challenges they have to pass in order to obtain their crystals, but Ahsoka is the one in charge of them, though Yoda is there, too.

It's a decent enough episode even if it's not as meaty as the last arc.

Also, I have to say, the wookie youngling is probably my favorite. I do like the Ithorian, too, though.

Last Friday Night (or Friday Night Magic)

If you've been following along this week, you're aware of how this past weekend went and ended, but I left out how it began, so let's go back to last Friday night. Okay, actually, let's go back to April...

Remember how I mentioned that during the midst of a-to-z that my washing machine had broken? Well, it did. Part of dealing with that was rearranging the garage, and part of rearranging the garage was finding things (like that first edition copy of A Game of Thrones). Well, it also meant finding a bunch of my old Magic cards.

As I've stated before, I love Magic: the Gathering. Best game ever made. I love Magic so much that I did a whole series of posts about it and how it relates to writing not all that long ago (you can find part one here). However, I haven't really played it in... a long time. Aside from games with my kids every great once in a while, but, considering that I used to play tournaments and stuff, that hardly counts. For me, anyway. I play it with them to enjoy an activity with them, not because it gives me the kind of game play I want.

At any rate, having unburied all of these cards, I thought it was probably time that I sort them out and sell off all the extra stuff I have. Because I have a lot of extra stuff. But, see, the sorting through them really made me want to play again. I mean play for real again. It is something that I miss doing. So I started checking into the local tournament scene...

There was a big problem with that, a problem I knew would exist, but I was just checking, so I was willing to ignore it for the moment. What problem? Well... see, here's where it gets complicated for those of you (I'm betting nearly all of you) that don't know anything about Magic, so I'll make it as simple as possible: My cards aren't current.

Yeah, I hear all of you non-Magic players out there: "What does that have to do with anything? Cards are cards." Which is true if I just wanted to goof around and play casual games, but it's totally not true for tournaments. To make it simple, due to the large number of expansions and the cost of the older cards, Wizards of the Coast has various formats for tournaments. The most common of these are modern and standard. Modern format tournaments allow cards printed after 2003; I stopped collecting in 2004. Standard format tournaments allow cards from the last couple of blocks of expansions, which means the last couple of years. Basically, I don't own any cards to build decks for these formats of play. That meant that "constructed style" tournaments were out (tournaments where you build a deck beforehand and bring it in to compete with).

Fortunately, in the time since I quit playing draft tournaments have become a big thing (a "draft" tournament is where everyone gets some booster packs of cards and chooses one out and passes it to the next player to choose and so forth until all of the cards are gone); they barely existed back when I dropped out of playing. I'm assuming the rise in popularity is because, theoretically, they put everyone on a somewhat equal footing. And you get to keep the cards you draft, so, even if you lose, you don't come away empty handed. This was exactly the kind of thing I needed. I could compete in a draft tournament.

Except for the one snag.
The draft tournaments are on Friday nights. Friday night is special family time night with a big special meal and all of that.
My wife was not going to be happy.

And she wasn't, but we worked it out. In the end, it was decided that I would take my oldest son, who had never played in a tournament, and go this past Friday night. Probably not the best choice of nights, but it was the only choice of Friday nights anytime around now. The prior Friday night, he was busy. Tonight, he is busy; actually, we all are, because we are going to see him in an improv show with his school drama group. Next Friday night, the whole family is busy, because my younger son will be performing in his school musical. I'm sure you get the picture with our Friday nights. Even with as busy as the weekend was going to be, it was the only Friday night available, so we went.

So, while I was busy working on formatting issues for Charter Shorts, Too and trying to get that finished, my son was looking up rules and stuff. And he kept trying to talk to me about the stuff he was reading, which I couldn't really do at the time. I answered his questions as best I could, but, whenever he would say something like, "hey, listen to this," I told him I couldn't. Now, that's important, so pay attention. In fact, in some ways, it's the point of all of this.

My son and I made it to the store where the tournament was being held at and got all signed up. We were asked multiple times by various employees "have you played in a tournament before?" and "have you played in a tournament here before?" I was very clear about our answers: 1. My son had never played in a tournament before. 2. It had been over 12 years since I had played in a tournament. 3. Seeing that that store had not existed a dozen years before, no, neither of us had never played in a tournament in that store. I kept waiting for some response to that question, or, at least, some kind of clarification as to why it was being asked, but the answer never seemed to get more than a nod, and at no time whatsoever did anyone bother to explain how anything worked.

I became that annoying kid in class that kept asking questions... except I really didn't know what questions I should be asking. And I didn't really get any answers, anyway.

At any rate, being totally unfamiliar with the cards, my son and I began drafting our decks, the slowest people at the table. Of course, once I had my colors worked out (blue and white), I sped up and even had to wait for stacks of cards from the people next to me. My son didn't get any faster and became the bottleneck at the table. But we got through it with only minor difficulties and miscommunications and got our decks built. 60 cards, right? Because that's been the minimum deck size limit since... well, since almost the beginning.

So I played my first match. It was against one of the top players in the store, and it was clear that he expected to win. And he did. Fairly easily, too. But, see, here's where it gets interesting. He took the time to put the cards he'd drafted into sleeves before playing [Sleeves are special flexible plastic covers for the cards so that you don't damage them while playing. I've never been a big fan of sleeves, but a lot of people use them.], so I didn't notice anything about his deck. But, once I had lost, I went over to watch my son in his game, and all I kept thinking was, "His deck looks really small." [Just don't even go there, okay.] So I got worried that he was playing a below minimum deck, but I didn't want to call him on it in the middle of the game. Afterward, though, I asked him, and he was playing with 40 cards.

Which had been one of the things he'd been trying to tell me earlier, that it was just a 40 card deck, because, at home, we always play with 60, because "them's the rules." Except for draft tournaments. Only I hadn't known that which is why that guy beat me so easily. It was definitely a "D'oh!" moment. The only issue I had about the whole situation was that none of the staff ever bothered to give any kind of run down of the rules despite making us repeat we'd never been in one of their tournaments before.

After dropping my deck down to 40 cards, which you can do in a draft tournament--mess with your deck as much as you want between matches (maybe even between games) as long as you are only using the drafted cards--I went on to win my other two matches and take home a prize. My son won his first match but lost his next two, so he didn't get a prize. But, now, he's totally hooked on tournament play. He really loved it and wants to go play again. Except, well, the next several Friday nights are booked.

Moral of the story? Take the time to know the rules and don't expect anyone to tell you what they are, even the people that ought to tell you. After seeing how my modified deck played and watching the guy that beat me play a couple of other games, I feel fairly confident that I would have won that match against him had I known about the 40 card thing. But that's what next time is for.

Have Some Milk with Your Serial

Today is the release of part 4 of Shadow Spinner

"Part Four: The Cop" is available for the Kindle for FREE! Monday, Sept. 10 -11! Go get it now for FREE! Also, just to be nice, "Part Three: The Bedroom" will also be FREE! Monday only. Go grab them now and, remember, click the "like" button and come back later and leave a review. It would be a great help! Thanks!

And, now, on to other things... sort of...

I started this whole serial release of Shadow Spinner as a bit of an experiment. While I'm not quite ready to reveal the details of said experiment (I still need a few more releases to figure out what I'm seeing as results), I will give you some background on the whole serial thing and part of what lead up to my decision to do a serial release.

Marketing is my bane. I hate it. It's something I wish I didn't have to spend my time on, because it takes away from time I could be, oh, working on actual writing like on Brother's Keeper, because, yes, now that school has started, I have several kids a week (at least) asking me when it's coming out. Of course, I'm trying to finish Shadow Spinner first (okay, I am going to finish Spinner first), but they don't care so much about that because they just want the sequel to The House on the Corner. Then there's the part where I'm pretty sure I would have finished Spinner already if I didn't have to spend time doing marketing stuff.

All of that to say that one of the things I've seen kind of over and over again in doing marketing research is that serializations are BAD! Bad in the same way that adverbs are BAD, and not you or anyone else should ever ever ever release a novel in a serial format. It made me wonder WHY.

I mean, why not do it? There is a long tradition of authors releasing their novels in a serial format. Charles Dickens did it. He even used it to get audience reaction to his stories so that he could make tweaks to stuff before the book was finally released as a book. Heck, the whole end of Great Expectations changed between the serial release and the final book release. All of Isaac Asimov's early stuff was released serially. The whole Foundation Trilogy (when it was still a trilogy) was released that way as well as all of his early robot stuff (which turned into I, Robot).

Sure, it's not done so much today, but, really, why not do it?

So here's something about me that you might not know... or, maybe, you've managed to figure it out, I don't know. Anyway... Telling me that something is wrong or bad for no other reason than that it is wrong or bad is a pretty good way to get me to try doing it. Or, at least, to take a closer look at it to see why you're saying that. You need to have a good reason for what you're saying is what I'm getting at here. In a like manner, telling me "this is just how it's done" and so you should do it this way, too, is a good way to make me look at other options. Give me reasons not dogma.

[I just have to throw in here that my first, great Magic deck was built because someone said a deck couldn't be built around the Kird Ape. I became feared in tournaments because of that deck. Yeah, I know that's completely off topic: I blame Michael Offutt for bringing up Magic: The Gathering on his blog recently.]

At any rate, that question wouldn't leave me alone, "Why not do serializations?" I couldn't find any good reason not to, so I decided to try it out.

Which brings me to my point:

It appears that Amazon Publishing is setting up some deals for some serializations under a new imprint they're going to be starting up just for that purpose. First, I didn't realize that Amazon had its own publishing imprints, but they do (several, actually, including one for sci-fi), and, now, they want to add a new one just for serialized novels. They're looking at it as the "logical next step" in publishing, evidently, because people like things in smaller bites, and like them in forms that work on  their portable devices.

It looks like I'm not the only one to ignore the whole "don't do serializations" thing. And this is why you should ignore the whole "no adverbs" thing, too. People just like to say NO for no other reason than saying it. And you can't get good reasons as to why not, because they don't have any; they just know that other people said NO, and that's good enough for them.

I don't know how this whole serial release thing is going to work out in the end, but I'm glad, now, that I'm doing it. Not that I wasn't glad before, but, see, I'm not jumping on any bandwagon here. Not that there will be a bandwagon, but, if there is, I was here first!

Just sayin'...

A Jumble of Nonsense

I was thinking. Yes, that's usually a sign that you need to duck and cover, but, sometimes, I just can't help myself. Usually, it happens on accident, and most of you are pretty far away, so you're probably safe. This time. These blog award things, theoretically, should spread geometrically and infect the whole blogging world. They don't seem to be doing that, so someone must have developed some sort  of anti-viral thing or something. I was also thinking that, for the first time in a really long time, I feel like one of those kids from The Cat in the Hat stuck inside staring out at the rain. I want to do something, but it's raining, still raining, raining to the point where they're beginning to wonder if it's going to have a negative impact on the grape harvest, this year. The house is all closed up (because of previously mentioned rain), 2/3 of the kids are gone, the one that's left is piddling around with Pokemon cards, I have no games on my computer, and I feel cooped up. Let me just say, that the feeling of being cooped up is not conducive to writing. Not even to writing blog posts. Unless, you know, you write about being cooped, which I'm  not going to do. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

>sigh<

In other news, I have some loose ends from this last week I need to tie up. Three loose ends to be precise. I suppose, with three of them, I should make a braid, but I never learned how to do that, much to my daughter's dismay. Not to mine, though. My daughter knows how to braid, but she's part of the 2/3 of the children that are presently missing, so I'm left to muddle through that on my own.

Thing Number 1:
I got tagged by Bess Weatherby to answer a bunch of questions. Part of this is to tag a bunch of other people, see what I was talking about? How is it that anyone escapes? Well, other than people getting re-tagged and stuff, but still! So here goes:

What do you think of when you the hear the word tag?
I think of TAG: The Assassination Game. I always wanted to play that. I mean really play that. I plotted about it with some of my friends when I was in high school, but we all went to different schools, so it just didn't work out very well.

Do you think you're hot?
Actually, no. I spend the vast majority of my time these days being cold. To the point of wearing a jacket in the house on a regular basis. Yes, I could turn the heat up and discomfort my kids, but it's just easier to wear the jacket and not deal with the whining. This is related to why I'm so tired of the rain.

Upload a picture or wallpaper that you're using at the moment.
Um, I can't really do that. I used to have a Star Wars wallpaper on my computer, but a little over a year again, my computer got sick, and I had re-format it, and I've never put most of the stuff back on my computer. This is also the reason I have no games.

When was the last time you ate chicken?
Two nights ago.

The song(s) you listened to recently.
I am, at this very moment, listening to Phil Collins. I wanted to listen to Genesis, but, for reasons that remain unfathomable, rhapsody.com wouldn't load the Genesis stuff.
I just want to add that I highly disapprove of all the anti-Phil sentiment that continues to run rampant these days. I realize that the market got over saturated with him back in the early 90s, but there was a reason for that. Because he was good.

What were you thinking as you were doing this?
Hmm... that I'd rather be playing Magic: The Gathering, at the moment. The fact that my younger son is sorting Pokemon cards isn't helping. Maybe even Risk, but he's right; it's just not fun with only two people.

Do you have nicknames? What are they?
Currently? No. Dad. I grew up Andy, not Andrew, which is me, now.

Tag 8 blogger friends:
Well, I'll do my best not to tag anyone else that's recently been tagged. And, I'm assuming, no tag backs.
1. Shannon Lawrence
2. Rusty Webb
3. Jennifer
4. Barbara Kloss
5. Alyssia Kirkhart
6. Marie Rearden
7. J R Pearse Nelson
and last but certainly not least, not by any means,
8. Michelle Davidson Argyle

Who's listed as No. 1?
Well, that's rather obvious to anyone that can read, which I'm assuming you can, since you're here. If not, well... Seriously, Shannon was the first person I thought of. I love her blog. I'm still waiting for her to let me read her book. I mean, she's read mine.

Say something about No. 5.
She lives down in my old stomping grounds. I empathize with the heat and humidity she's experiencing, at the moment, but I don't miss it. Well, maybe some of the heat, but certainly not the humidity.

How did you get to know No. 3?
Jennifer's blog is great. I love her sense of humor. And she always comments on my posts, so, really, how can I not like her? I strive to be included in her BBFs.

How about No. 4?
I stumbled across Barbara's blog post about Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkin and had to warn her away from the rest of that series before she got inescapably sucked into it.

Leave a message for No. 6.
Hey, how's it going? Thanks for letting me do that guest movie review. It was a lot of fun!

Leave a lovey dovey message for No. 2. [Hmm... maybe I should have planned out who would be where on the list a bit better than this.]
Rusty, I love the title of your blog. I've wanted to ask you this for a long time, but I've just been too shy, but how did you think of it? It's just sooo awesome!
[Seriously, I love your blog title.]

Do 7 and 8 have any similarities?
Now, see, I think 7 and 8 are getting the short end of the stick down here. They're both great ladies, and they both write, but this question doesn't leave any real room to talk about them. Individually. Everyone else gets a question all to themselves! Where's the fair in that?

At any rate, these are all great blogs. A few, well, 8, to be exact, of the handful of blogs I try to make sure I catch every post posted. Posting. Pasted? You should rush right over and check them out. And since I'm plugging their blogs, I'm also going to plug Michelle's book. Her book, Monarch, is due out in September. I'm looking forward to reading it. No, she didn't ask me to do that.

Thing Number 2:
Recently, I entered the Made of Awesome contest over at Shelley Watters blog. This was an interesting experience in that I got almost no comments on my entry. I don't know what this means. In perusing the other entries and posting comments on the ones I had comments for, I noticed that the typical entry had 30+ comments attached to  it, even for people who had fewer than 10 followers on their blog. I didn't see a single entry with less than 15-20 comments. Except mine. I got 3. Anyway...

The comments I did get centered on my first paragraph. Now, I like  this paragraph. I read the comments, I read my paragraph, read the comments, read my paragraph, waited for more comments, none came, and left my paragraph unchanged. Like I said, I like this paragraph. I'll even tell you why I like it, but not right now. Before I tell you why I like it and why I wrote it the way I did, I'd like some more feedback on it. Before, you know, I go to press with it. So to speak. Just because I like it doesn't mean it's in a state that's understandable for the general reader, so I'd like to know what you guys think about it. Pick it apart if you need to, but let me know what you think. I'm attaching the second paragraph with it, just so you can see where it's going, although, if you click on the tabby thing up top entitled The House on the Corner, you can read the whole first chapter. In advance, thanks!

The last bell of the school year is like waking up on Christmas morning. The last day of school waiting breathlessly in the dark straining for some sign of life out in the world so that you know it's time to get up. The bell finally rings and dawn breaks through the window springing you out of bed and three months of days lay glittering before you, presents waiting to be opened.

Thinking about those days of summer is all consuming at the end of the school year just like obsessing over Christmas presents all through the month of December. Planning. Anticipating. Day dreaming.

Thing Number the Last:
Because no one asked for it, but because I feel like posting it, I'm giving you the expanded scene from the Power of Tension blogfest. No, I'm not one of the finalists, but, then, I didn't expect to be. I glanced over many of the entries for that one before I chose which scene I was going to use, and all of the ones I looked at were... well, they all had either a vampire, werewolf, or hellhound stalking someone. Needless to say, I wanted something different. Not just not a vampire, but not a fight with a monster. So I chose a low level tension scene. One that was just creepy. I was very glad to see that not all of the finalists had to do with fighting some kind of monster. And, since I'm on the subject, here's my pick from the 6 finalists: The Bird Hater.
I didn't get as many comments on my piece for this blogfest as everyone else did, either, but I did, at least, break 10. heh Anyway... the expanded scene:

From the middle of the ceiling, hanging down on chains, was a large bowl. It was sort of cream colored and covered with little vines that started at the center of the bottom of the bowl and crawled up to the top. They had little leaves and flowers that curved off of them periodically. I guessed that must be the light, but I had never seen anything like it before. It made me want to try the lights or wake someone up to ask questions, but I knew if I did that, I wouldn’t get to explore on my own.

I decided, instead of opening any new doors, I would just use the one that was open. The one that led to the stairs. I stepped into the hallway and around the open door, pushing it almost closed. I didn’t want it to make any noise, so I didn’t close it all the way.

As I turned toward the staircase, a chill washed over me, and goosebumps broke out all over my arms. To the right of the staircase going up was another going down. The stairs started out wooden, just like the stairs going up, but, then, they turned to stone. The stairs just kept going and going down into the earth. Why was there a tunnel going underground in our house? I could feel the cold, damp coming up out of the tunnel and what felt like a long sigh. Without wanting to, I stepped down the first step. And, then, the next.

There was a low moan from the dark, and my heart started beating faster. My skin chilled as I broke out in a sweat. I didn't want to go down there, but I took another step anyway. I could almost feel the darkness on my skin as I took another step down. And another. And...

And I stumbled forward into a door, because there were no more steps. I was standing on a little tiled floor at the bottom of a short staircase in front of a door leading out of the side of the house. I felt weird. Kind of dizzy. Like I wasn't all the way in my own head.

Well, there you have it. I suppose I've rambled enough, too much, for one post. I hope a few of you held on all the way to the bottom.