Paul Bellow's Blog, page 111
January 28, 2020
Author Interview With Nathaniel Webb
Nathaniel Webb, aka Nat20, is an author, musician, and game designer from Portland, Maine. His writing includes the novels Expedition: Summerlands with Level Up publishing and The Days of Guns and Roses, various short stories and novellas, and adventures and supplements for the tabletop RPGs Shadow of the Demon Lord and Godless. As a lead guitarist, he has toured and recorded with numerous acts including Grammy-nominated singers Beth Hart and Jana Mashonee and Colombian pop star Marre.
When...
January 26, 2020
Birth of a LitRPG Chatbot
Are chatbots useful for LitRPG authors? I say yes!
I played with creating a LitRPG chatbot last year, but I never followed through with the project, primarily set-up for the LitRPG Reads Facebook page. Recently, I’ve picked up a new way to build and deploy them with the Snatchbot service. There’s a free version available (that has their branding), or you can pay for removal of their branding and better live support for help with your bots. Either way, it’s a great way for authors to automate...
December 26, 2019
LitRPG Video Game: Early Access
What a year it’s been, eh? Actually, the last three years have been amazing for me. While I discovered proto-litrpg back in the 80s with Guardians of the Flame, it was in late 2016 that I first heard about LITRPG. I knew I’d finally found my literary home. Over the last three years I’ve published many books under this name and others.
Earlier this year, I had a chance to work on the narrative design for GearStorm. That experience got me fired up about making a litrpg-themed game. A few...
December 16, 2019
How RPGs Have Shaped My Writing (and Vice Versa)
Guest Post by Jon Sprunk
Author Jon Sprunk I will never forget the first time I encountered Dungeons and Dragons. It was 1978 and I was eight years old. My family was visiting a hobby shop. While the others browsed the trains and model airplanes, I spotted a cardboard box on a shelf. The box’s top face had an illustration of a dragon battling a warrior and a wizard. I did not know it at the time, but this moment would change my life forever.
After some begging, my father agreed to purchase...
July 30, 2019
D&D Tips: Winging it Like a Dragon
New guest post by Brokk Martin. He has played D&D for over 30 years.
Every game master has had that moment where they look at the pages of prep for game night go out the window in the first five minutes of an adventure. Although it is recommended to prepare for the session, there are times when you have to go off the cuff. Sometimes, the party goes into the dungeon and instead of going left or right, they just turn around and go back to town leaving hours of dungeon left unexplored. On othe...
July 9, 2019
Author Interview with Jonathan Brooks
Johnathan Brooks has worked in retail for most of his life, but he has been an avid reader of fantasy books since around age twelve. He’s also been playing video games since he got an Atari 2600 when he was five years old. Like many other like-minded people, he fell in love with the LitRPG, GameLit, and Dungeon Core genres when he first learned about them. He currently has 16 books published with more on the way!
Dungeon Core & Jonathan BrooksJonathan brooks was nice enough to answer some q...
July 2, 2019
Narrator Interview with Ralph Scott, Kendra Murray
Next up, we have an interview with narrators Ralph Scott and Kendra Murray from Squeaky Cheese Productions. An award-winning producer with a get-it-done (with a smile) attitude, Ralph Scott produces audiobooks, audio theatre, scripted entertainment commercial spots, or pretty much anything within the live or recorded audio arena. Kendra Murray, the voiceover actor who is never without an audience. Even if she comprises all of the voices in the room!
Ralph Scott, Kendra Murray (the 2-shot sel...
June 27, 2019
Reading, Writing, and Breaking Game-Related Fiction
New guest post by Kit Falbo on why we like to write and read game-related fiction and how it breaks.
Call it LitRPG, Call it GameLit, call it D&D or video-game fan-fiction if you are so inclined, but game mechanic based fiction is on the rise. The stories and novels created that represent the sub-genre have many passionate fans and authors who find it a joy to read and write about aspects of gaming. But why? Why is it so passionate and fervent?
Be it science fiction, portal fantasy, VRMMO...
June 25, 2019
Author Interview with C. A. A. Allen
Author C. A. A. Allen lives in San Diego with his wife and six children. He is a freelance writer, local hip-hop mogul, and fantasy e-book author. He writes for many online entities, and has been published in the San Diego Reader, and CityBeat magazines. He has provided back up vocals, and performed as a “Humpty Dancer” for the multi-platinum hip-hop group Digital Underground. When he isn’t writing or spending time with the children, Mr. Allen enjoys horse racing, fine cognac, funk music, an...
June 17, 2019
Author Interview with M.C. Planck
Our next author interview is with M.C. Planck, the author of The Kassa Gambit. After a nearly-transient childhood, he hitchhiked across the country and ran out of money in Arizona. So he stayed there for thirty years, raising dogs, getting a degree in philosophy, and founding a scientific instrument company. Having read virtually everything by the old masters of SF&F, he decided he was ready to write. A decade later, with a little help from the Critters online critique group, he was actuall...
