Exploring Personality: Part Two -- "What's My Motivation?" (an IWM post)

Without a doubt, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is the most well know personality typing system in existence. And why not? It's been around a long time. The first of its kind. It's been used by the government (heck, it may still be being used by the government), especially the military, and corporations of all sizes. It's a good indicator of patterns of behavior.

As such, it can be a useful tool for writers when trying to develop Personalities for their books. And, yes, let's call them Personalities, because not all characters have personalities. Don't get me wrong, that's not always a bad thing; two-dimensional (even one-dimensional!) characters have their place, but they are hardly Personalities.

But there's a problem... Okay, actually, there are a lot of problems...
And I'm not going to tell you what they are unless you hop over to Indie Writers Monthly. You'll also find some solutions, or at least a solution. I suppose it depends upon how many problems you bring with you. At any rate, you should go check it out. You might learn something about yourself. Or learn something about learning something about yourself in the future. Definitely one of those.

When the Tracks Don't Meet (or Travelling At the Speed of Plot) (an IWM post)

Have you seen that cartoon of the train tracks being laid? They're coming from two different directions, but there's a problem: The tracks don't meet up in the middle the way they are supposed to. I think there are a bunch of guys standing there scratching their heads. Or something.
Yeah, I would have liked to have posted the image here, but I couldn't find it. You'll just have to pretend.

Usually, where books are concerned, those kinds of things are called "plot holes," but, really, they're not the kinds of things I would call "holes." They're just pieces of... let's call them "discontinuity." I hate them more than the plot holes, I think. Oh, you need me to differentiate?

Okay, let's say your protagonist loses the keys to his car in chapter two but, in chapter five when he's running from the bad guys, he fumbles them out of his pocket: That's a plot hole. And that's not what I'm talking about in this post.

* * *

If you want to find out what I am talking about, you'll have to hop over to Indie Writers Monthly. Oh, you want a hint? Fine, I'll give you a hint. It looks something like this:

Did that get your attention? Good. Now, go read the rest.

An Exploration in Fantasy -- Part Four: The Darkest Hour (an IWM post)

Along our fantastic fantasy journey, so far, we've learned that we're special and could be the prophesied one, among other things. We've met a mentor and found some friends. We've also gone on a journey, probably in search of something. Hopefully, it's a been a learning experience, and we're fully prepared to meet the final challenge. It's a dark time for the rebellion, after all.

From the initial list I made (which you can see here), we need to cover three more points:

* * *

And, like always, to find out what those three more points are, you will need to hop over to Indie Writers Monthly. This one is all about technology and dark lords. Go read!

An Exploration in Fantasy -- Part Three: Who's Gonna Learn Ya? (an IWM post)

There's no teaser, today, for part three of my exploration into the origins of the modern fantasy arc. If you want to read it, you'll just have to go right over to Indie Writers Monthly and do that. And you totally should.
Today, we really get into what's Tolkien and what's not.

Go, now, and read THE POST!

"Like An Axe Through Bone" and "The Harlot"

It's an interesting thing to see what other people will do creatively with something you've come up with. It's also interesting to see how you, yourself, react to those things. All you have to do is watch a couple of kids playing with one of those kid's toys to know what I'm talking about. Because my daughter has a giant dollhouse and because we recently had an issue around this that relates, let's imagine two five-year-old girls playing at one of the girl's houses with her dolls and dollhouse. In most circumstances, you will not have to wait long before you hear the owner of the dolls and house proclaim, "You're not doing it right!" A well-meaning parent will run in and try to explain that there is no wrong way of doing it, but the owner will continue to protest, "She's doing it all wrong," and, eventually, the girls will get banished from the dolls.

What's not being understood by the other people involved is that the girl (who owns the dolls and house) has an entire world created in her head around her dolls and the house they live in. When the playmate comes in and starts asserting her version, it pushes the girl that owns the toys out of the world she's created. Unless it's something you're prepared for (and what five-year-old is prepared for something like that?), it can be difficult to allow someone else to play in your sandbox. I mean dollhouse.

[Note 1: This is nothing like what happened with my daughter. That involved actual breakage of her stuff when she wasn't in the room, but the dollhouse makes a good example.
Note 2: Girls are actually able to learn cooperative play much earlier than boys, so the whole "you're not doing it right" is something that is much more common from boys.]

All of that to say, when you invite someone to play in your world, you have to be okay when they change the rules. Especially since it's the way that the rules get changed that makes the stories interesting.

Bryan Pedas, in his story "Like An Axe Through Bone," has "changed the rules" of the House Universe. It's no longer 1983; it's the now. The Howard family has been moved forward in time to accommodate a contemporary setting. With the Internet and e-dating. The Howards are in the story, but they're just there to support the actual story, the story of a man who has lost his wife too soon and has allowed his imagination to become his only escape from the pain.

Or is it just his imagination?

It's a great story with goblins and dragons, but those things are not the story; they're just in the story. There are barbarians and lots of fighting and dying, but those things are not the story, either. The story is one man struggling against himself and the pain he's wrapped up in.

I think you all should read it.

Soon.

By the end of this month. I mean, that's when it will be available: by the end of this month.
Shaodow Spinner -- coming soon!

Today, though, is part 23 of the serial release: "The Harlot" FREE! today, Monday, June 10 (and tomorrow, June 11)!

Here's today's complete list of FREE! parts:
"Part Twenty-three: The Harlot"
"Part Twenty-two: The Undying"
"Part Twenty-one: The Chase"
"Part Twenty: The Sword of Fire"
"Part Sixteen: The Dark Tree"
"Part Fifteen: Food of the Garden"
"Part Fourteen: Anger and Laughter"
"Part Thirteen: The Clearing"
"Part Twelve: The Gash in the Floor"
"Part Ten: The Broken Window"
"Part Nine: The Shadow of the Tree"
"Part Eight: The Cold and The Dark"
"Part Seven: The Moth and the Shadow"
"Part Four: The Cop"
"Part Three: The Bedroom"
"Part Two: The Kitchen Table"
"Part One: The Tunnel"
There you go! 17 out of 23 available parts! Grab them while you can >ominous music!<

[Note 3: If you're interested in watching the excitement with my A Game of Thrones 1st edition, you can see the auction here.]

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.

Chasing Thrones and Other Stuff

First up, today is the FREE! release of "Part Twenty-one: The Chase," which is pretty much what it sounds

like except without any cars or boats or anything like that. But more about that in a moment...

The next bit of news I have is that I'm now part of the Out of Print group. The blog is going to be about featuring short stories. I have one coming up in June, but there are already two on the site. Drop by and check it out, leave a comment, all that jazz. Maybe, there will be jazz. Not right now, but you can't rule that kind of thing out, especially if I say, "Hey, we should have jazz," which I probably won't, but you never know. And I mean exactly that, you never know.

Now for the other thing:
Our washing machine broke. That happened in the middle of a-to-z and all the crazy deadlines I have coming up here at the end of the school year, so it took longer to take care of than I really wanted it to. What that means is that I had to completely rearrange the garage so that we could have a new washer brought in and the old one taken out.

And I just have to say that it's more than a little bit bogus that we had to buy a new washing machine. Not that we had to buy one in-and-of-itself, because the old machine was, well, old, BUT the last time it broke (granted, that was something along the lines of 15 years ago), we were able to get it fixed at a reasonable cost, but you can't do that anymore. Basically, the cost of having the old washer fixed was going to cost us the price of a new one, and that just bothers me. It bothers me that you can't have things fixed anymore, because our society doesn't believe in fixing the old stuff; it only believes in buying new stuff. I do like the new washer; it's all water efficient and stuff, which is good for the environment, BUT I hate that everything is made around this idea of throwing it away and buying something new when the time comes.

But all of that is beside the point, because the point is this: While I was rearranging the garage, I found

Yes, that is a first edition copy of A Game of Thrones, only read once, by my wife before I met her (and that is, indeed, my thumb in that picture). She didn't care enough about it to ever want to read the next one, so it's just been in storage, mostly, since then. I checked around ebay and copies like this one (sans dust jacket) have been going for over $100, so we're going to sell it. However, before I stick it up for auction, I thought I'd see if there are any of you out there that might be interested in it before I dump it off on the highest bidder. Aside from the fact that it doesn't have a dust jacket, it's in great shape.

As mentioned above, today is the FREE! release of part 21 of Shadow Spinner, so, if you can't afford the copy of Thrones, you can still come away with FREE! stuff. Here is today's list of FREE!:
"Part Twenty-one: The Chase" (FREE! Monday, May 13 and Tuesday, May 14)
(The rest of these will only be FREE! on Monday, May 13.)
"Part Twenty: The Sword of Fire"
"Part Nineteen: Lost in the Garden"
"Part Eighteen: The Angel"
"Part Fourteen: Anger and Laughter"
"Part Thirteen: The Clearing"
"Part Twelve: The Gash in the Floor"
"Part Eleven: The Kiss"
"Part Ten: The Broken Window"
"Part Eight: The Cold and The Dark"
"Part Seven: The Moth and the Shadow"
"Part Six: The Man with No Eyes"
"Part Five: The Police Car"
"Part Four: The Cop"
"Part Two: The Kitchen Table"
"Part One: The Tunnel"
So there you go... 16 of 21 of the current Shadow Spinner pieces available for FREE! today. Spread the word! Spread it like peanut butter. Not regular butter. Unless it's melted. That could be okay. But don't try to spread it like cold butter, because that just rips your bread up and makes a mess.