Bill Bodden's Blog, page 15

GenCon Industry Insider Program Scrapped

The only thing that remains constant in this world is change.

The title of this post is sensational, and perhaps unfair. However, GenCon has announced they are scrapping the Industry Insider Program for something different. Instead of a couple dozen Industry Insiders who speak on panel discussions and presentations at GenCon, they will now being inviting only...

To read the rest of this post, please visit: http://billbodden.com/2018/04/23/genc...

Stuff That I Can't Talk About -- YET!

Missed my weekly blog post deadline this week; things are going on behind the scenes that I can't really talk about just now, but the reveals for most of these projects should be happening soon - some even in the next week or so. It's been a crazy couple of weeks, with more in store!

Most recently, I've been working on a project to...

To read the rest of this post, please visit: http://billbodden.com/2018/04/18/stuf...

The Horror, the Horror

Horror has been a major component of my writing career. Of the sixteen tabletop role-playing projects I've worked on that have been published so far, at least ten are overtly horror-themed. Both of my published short stories are horror or dark fantasy. While I have concerns about being pigeonholed, the horror genre has been good to me so far.

Not everyone likes horror. Friends have approached me...

To read the rest of this post, please visit http://billbodden.com/2018/04/09/the-...

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Recently, I switched the appearance of my blog to better accommodate people who visit to read using their phones. Much to my surprise, I lost most of the photographs in posts because of this change-over; suddenly, ALL my posts are solid blocs of plain text.

For a technophobe like me, this is a major headache. I've fooled around with things for the last few weeks, trying to find out what went wrong. In one case, I was able to...

To read the rest of this post, please visit: http://billbodden.com/2018/04/02/one-...

The Facebook Dilemma

With the recent reveal that Facebook user data was compiled in such a way to sway voters in the United States, many have called for a boycott -- or outright abandonment -- of Facebook as a social media platform. I completely understand these concerns, but I'd like to share a bit of wisdom I heard several years ago that specifically regarded...

To read the rest of this post, please visit: http://billbodden.com/2018/03/28/the-...

Fighting for the Sake of Fighting

In a shocking departure from tradition, a discussion broke out recently on Facebook. I started the ball rolling by asking if anyone else was tired of seeing Marvel's superheroes fighting each other rather than the bad guys. I was amazed at the passion from the other side of the debate -- people who enjoyed seeing heroes duking it out.

Personally, I think it's occasionally useful...
To read the rest of this post, please visit: http://billbodden.com/2018/03/19/figh...

The Enemy of My Enemy

I've been thinking a lot about friendship lately, and what it means to me. I've had people declare that we are friends after we've just met, and that strikes me as odd; to me, a little bit more needs to go into the relationship to truly declare someone your friend.

Growing up, there were only a few kids in my neighborhood...

To read the rest of this post, please visit http://billbodden.com/2018/03/12/the-...

Walking To New Orleans (part two of two)

Our first stop of the next day -- Christmas Eve Day -- was the Audubon Aquarium . It was a delight. Featuring both fresh and salt-water fish, their displays and habitats featured good visibility for viewing. We had lunch in the Aquarium cafeteria, which was situated to provide diners a fantastic view of the Mississippi River with their meal. After we finished seeing what there was to see, we hustled across the street to...

To read the rest of this post, please visit http://billbodden.com/2018/03/06/walk...

Walking to New Orleans

My wife Tracy and I decided to take a Christmas trip this year. She was jealous of my previous visit to New Orleans for the Grand Masquerade in 2016 , as New Orleans is someplace she's always wanted to visit. Visiting during Mardi Gras is right out, as neither of us do well in crowds of drunken people.

First of all, (with apologies to Fats Domino) we didn't walk: we took the train...

To read the rest of this post, please visit: http://billbodden.com/2018/02/26/walk...

Numb

After last week's events, the post I was going to put up will wait for another week or two. I was going to write about an experience going target shooting with a friend of mine, but right now I can't stomach even seeming to sympathize -- in ANY way -- with the psychotic horror show the NRA has become.

The USA is the only country where these kinds of shootings happen with such horrific regularity. We're already up to 30 mass shootings so far this year in 53 days: at that rate, we'll have over...

To read the rest of this post, please visit: http://billbodden.com/2018/02/22/numb/