Daniel Ausema's Blog, page 27
April 3, 2014
CLASH! Dawn of Steam Kickstarter
I haven't had a chance for a couple of days to sit down at the computer, but be sure to go visit the Kickstarter for CLASH! Dawn of Steam. I'm impressed with how quickly the game is getting backers (over 100 before day 2 was up), and pleased with the reception my stories have been getting.Throughout the month the stories will be used to help create buzz for the game. The first three have gone up already. Panstrom Swiftra is a dark and brooding sort of character, yet he's a champion of hope in the game. Zaraza Haedes is an ancient character who long ago sought out a magical weapon to save his people. He succeeded, but at a high cost to himself, because the weapon has corrupted him. He spent an age in exile and is returning now to create chaos. And Eve of Eden is a sky pirate. When her beloved island of Eden was threatened by the airships of the rest of the world, she took to the skies to defend it. Eve is quickly becoming a favorite character in the comments on the Kickstarter page.
I have to say that the game itself looks great. They've done a lot of testing to give it balance and plenty of opportunities for strategy, and the various characters give the game a lot of variety as you replay it. One of the limited levels has already been filled, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the others fill up soon, too. So be sure to check it out soon if strategy games and card interest you at all.
March 19, 2014
Writing with Children (post up on the Musa blog)
And I was right about my next guest post going up today. Writing with Children is about finding the time to write, even when it seems like there's no time. I'd love to hear some more tips from others for what's worked for you, not only parents but everyone who's managed to squeeze in some writing time in and around a busy schedule. So give it a read and add your own comment at the end. Thanks!
March 18, 2014
Recent blog posts elsewhere
Yesterday I had a blog post on the Darkside Codex blog, How Addiction Came to Southwatch. This explores a bit how I came up with The Electro-Addictive Moth-Flame out of the raw material of the Darkside Codex bible.
And last week I also had a post up on the Penumbra blog, this one full of bad poetry. Or cheap parody? Something like that. It's called Beyond Heaven is part of a month-long series of posts by Penumbra writers answering the question of what a heaven designed for writers would look like. Hint: it begins with coffee.
One more guest blog post is coming up later this week. Maybe even tomorrow...
And last week I also had a post up on the Penumbra blog, this one full of bad poetry. Or cheap parody? Something like that. It's called Beyond Heaven is part of a month-long series of posts by Penumbra writers answering the question of what a heaven designed for writers would look like. Hint: it begins with coffee.
One more guest blog post is coming up later this week. Maybe even tomorrow...
March 14, 2014
Episode 6: Completing the Map
.jpg)
Those who've been reading these episodes as they come out should feel a small frisson as they read that title: "completing" is a fraught word in Spire City, among the infecteds...These first six episodes of season 1 form a unit of sorts, with their own arc within the longer arcs of the season as a whole and the series. So for anyone who hasn't been reading these all along, this is a great time to start. Are you more of a binge reader than a wait-patiently-between-episodes reader? Then grab these six episodes now and binge your way through them.
And if you have been reading them already, then take this time to recommend them to another avid reader you know.
March 11, 2014
First story for CLASH! Dawn of Steam is online
The first of the eight stories I'm writing for CLASH! Dawn of Steam has now been added to Scribd. Panstrom Swiftra, despite his gloomy appearance, fights as a Champion of Hope in the card game.I'm currently writing the rough draft for the fifth story, and I think readers of many kinds will find these to be fun stories.
March 10, 2014
An interview with me about the Darkside Codex
The Darkside Codex blog had been relatively dormant for a while, but there's been a lot more activity lately. Some of that have been posts digging more into the shared world setting. And then there's an interview with me about "The Electro-Addictive Moth-Flame" which went up last week (and which I only noticed this morning that it had already gone live). Fun stuff all throughout.
March 4, 2014
The Skin Stealer published
My story "The Skin Stealer" is in the latest issue of Penumbra. This is my third time to have a story in Penumbra (fourth if you include the story reprinted in the best of year 1 issue), which is great. It was a story I wrote specifically for the theme, which is "A Night at the Villa Diodati." The reference is to the writing prompt that led John Polidori to write the first English-language vampire novel, Vampyre, and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley to write Frankenstein (as well as never-finished horror stories by Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron).
The first thought for this story came awhile back, when my kids were in a zombie phase (inspired by Plants vs. Zombies or Zombie Farm or something like that). And I thought, there's vampires that drink blood and zombies that eat brains. I'm not interested in writing about either of them, so what else could a horror monster steal? Maybe some other day I'll write about a breath-breather, but for now at least you can read about the skin stealer.
Check it out!
February 25, 2014
Diversity in our writing, interview with Nicholas Mena
A few weeks ago, I posted a link to an interview Nicholas Mena did with me about diversity in fantasy. Now he's asked me to interview him as well. We focused on his novel (series) Glass City.
Tell us a bit about Glass City. How did the story develop for you?
Glass City is actually a very old idea for me. When I was a teenager, I was very into being game master for about a dozen RPG worlds I invented (I still have most of them in those old, black and white marble exterior composition notebooks). Glass City was an urban world I invented where my friends could play as an echidna (a vampire), a lycanthrope (werewolf), a homunculus, warlock, rei, or undine. I had tried writing this world as a short story and a novel unsuccessfully in the past, but this time, I finally had more direction and a clearer path to follow. Having all of the support at FWO was a big help to finishing the first draft. I owe a lot of folks a steak dinner if the book ever sells.
You rotate among four different narrators for this story. What challenges did that give you? What did you do to make each of them distinct?
It took several tries to get the distinction between the four point of view people right. Since my people are very real for me in my head, hence the fact that I don’t use the word “characters”, it took some venturing into splitting my own personality and giving each persona a very distinct voice. June was determined but questioning. David was a self-depreciating nerd. Maya was seductive but emotionally damaged, and Carlos was prideful and a bit co-dependent. I then made the chapter headings connected to each of the four main people, but I wanted a twist there, so I used the food that each creature race ate: blood, skin, breath, and flesh.
You use some traditional elements, like vampires and werewolves, as well as others that are (I believe) your own creations. Are there specific traditions you looked to for those established creatures/beings? And are there any folk tale or legendary/mythological sources for the ones you've invented? Did you have any difficulty making the various creatures mesh in a single story?
Even though all the creature names existed in literature, I wanted to make them all specifically mine. One trait I added was that they were all mongrel creatures in that they were essentially human but with demon blood mixed into them in very specific ways to create each creature. I also had each mongrel race have a patron or matron demon who originated each creature. One of these demons is introduced in this story, and he makes another appearance in the sequel wherein the origin of the first warlock is revealed. While all of the creature races have varying origins, I embedded a purpose for their being brought together in Glass City. Part of the back story was that when the persecution of their kind was at its zenith, several of the race leaders agreed to move to this secluded city and live peacefully there. They made arrangements with certain human groups to ensure the peace held and to switch their diets from humans to animals, which were shipped in large quantities to the city. The current state of Glass City is that the established peace has fallen and each group is on the verge of all-out war when these four individuals are introduced to the drastic changes in their lives.
You're from the U.S. Virgin Islands and live there now, though you spent some time living elsewhere. In what ways does St. Croix itself and the culture you grew up in play into Glass City? And what about the time you spent away from there? Does June's homecoming in the first chapter at all reflect your own return home?
Does June’s homecoming reflect my own... yeah, I guess it does, now that you mention it. My island home always has a way of popping up in my prose. Most of my settings in my stories are islands in some form. I drew on a trip I took to Manhattan when I was the director of photography of a documentary I was making with some friends there. It served as inspiration for most of the urban elements and themes of bright lights and glass exteriors hiding the true darkness of a place in plain sight. Above all else, my Crucian background lends itself to the diverse cultural makeup I tend to have in my stories. St. Croix was a place that after the transfer from the Danish to the US, and in subsequent eras, there were financial upturns and job opportunities that were largely filled by immigrants. You’d actually have a hard time finding someone on St. Croix whose family goes back several generations since so many of us, myself included, are second and third generation immigrants. My mother’s side came from Vieques, Puerto Rico and my father’s side is from the Dominican Republic. Often, when I’m in the need for a richly cultural fantasy name, I’ll open up my high school yearbook and find gems like Kishma, Sunil, Jacob-el, or Chichester.
You also have some background in film-making and have used those skills in your non-profit work with children. How do you see that work affecting your writing? What skills carry over from one medium to the other, and what's completely different?
When it comes to teaching kids about video production, photography, and writing skills, it’s like getting a fresh perspective on everything. I would compare it to folks with young children who talk about experiencing things with their kids and seeing the world like it’s the first time all over again. I also love the fact that I am passing on something useful into the world.
An interesting thing about screenplay writing is that it forces you to funnel your senses. When you are writing for the screen, you only have two senses through which everything can be experienced: sight and sound. You can’t smell the movie or taste or touch it. But this limitation, in turn, teaches you to pay attention to your senses and how you perceive the world since you have to make the other senses evident through sight and sound. You can’t sell the taste of the steak, but you can sell the sizzle.
The downside to this screen-writers’ perspective is that it can make your writing very tell-y. We often forget that we have access to those other senses in prose writing so our descriptions can often end up telling rather than showing. For me, that lends itself to filtered descriptions where I tell how a person felt or smelled something rather than just saying what was touched or showing the aroma, but I’m getting better at catching those every day.
You're currently working on the second Glass City book. How is that going? What's next for it and for you?
The second book is drafted and I’m actually a few pages into the third. It still needs a complete overhaul, though. What I’d really like to see is the series becoming popular enough so that I don’t have to keep doing my soul-sucking night job and can just stick to my nonprofit work. To be frank, I’d love to see it coming out similar to your Spire City series. I always thought the multiple perspectives would lend well to episodic publication like that.
Although, my aspiration is to have my other novella, Cayuyé, be published as that is my dream story and the most fitting tale for my brand. My Spanish-speaking relatives and friends have said that they would love to see that one as a telenovela.
I've enjoyed following your month of interviews related to diversity in fantasy. Are there any things that especially struck you during those interviews—things that are excellent or things that are lacking? What would you hope to see other people take from this and apply to their own writing and reading?
Another writer friend I interviewed asked me a similar question where she kind of turned the tables on me and asked what I was looking for when it came to second world fantasy. I think it’s the same when it comes to all literature writing in general. Diversifying your writing isn’t about forced perspectives or having to change what you want to write to satisfy some new politically correct norm. I think it’s more about what makes people want to keep reading a crusty-old genre like ours, the fact that we are always delving into unexplored territory. We’re fantasy writers. We all have the power within us to take the mundane and make it into something fantastic. There’s no excuse for sticking to the old tried and true methods. We’re not Hollywood executives regurgitating the same tripe we know will sell easily. It’s like what Dorothy Zbornak from The Golden Girls said about motherhood. “If it was easy, fathers would do it.” We write it because it’s hard, because it tests us and takes us to new places and new experiences and explores territory we sometimes didn’t know we had inside of us. I think that is the main lesson of diversity in fantasy writing: above all else, don’t be boring!
My thanks to Nick. And don't forget to read the other interviews over at Sancocho Pot.
Tell us a bit about Glass City. How did the story develop for you?
Glass City is actually a very old idea for me. When I was a teenager, I was very into being game master for about a dozen RPG worlds I invented (I still have most of them in those old, black and white marble exterior composition notebooks). Glass City was an urban world I invented where my friends could play as an echidna (a vampire), a lycanthrope (werewolf), a homunculus, warlock, rei, or undine. I had tried writing this world as a short story and a novel unsuccessfully in the past, but this time, I finally had more direction and a clearer path to follow. Having all of the support at FWO was a big help to finishing the first draft. I owe a lot of folks a steak dinner if the book ever sells.
You rotate among four different narrators for this story. What challenges did that give you? What did you do to make each of them distinct?
It took several tries to get the distinction between the four point of view people right. Since my people are very real for me in my head, hence the fact that I don’t use the word “characters”, it took some venturing into splitting my own personality and giving each persona a very distinct voice. June was determined but questioning. David was a self-depreciating nerd. Maya was seductive but emotionally damaged, and Carlos was prideful and a bit co-dependent. I then made the chapter headings connected to each of the four main people, but I wanted a twist there, so I used the food that each creature race ate: blood, skin, breath, and flesh.
You use some traditional elements, like vampires and werewolves, as well as others that are (I believe) your own creations. Are there specific traditions you looked to for those established creatures/beings? And are there any folk tale or legendary/mythological sources for the ones you've invented? Did you have any difficulty making the various creatures mesh in a single story?
Even though all the creature names existed in literature, I wanted to make them all specifically mine. One trait I added was that they were all mongrel creatures in that they were essentially human but with demon blood mixed into them in very specific ways to create each creature. I also had each mongrel race have a patron or matron demon who originated each creature. One of these demons is introduced in this story, and he makes another appearance in the sequel wherein the origin of the first warlock is revealed. While all of the creature races have varying origins, I embedded a purpose for their being brought together in Glass City. Part of the back story was that when the persecution of their kind was at its zenith, several of the race leaders agreed to move to this secluded city and live peacefully there. They made arrangements with certain human groups to ensure the peace held and to switch their diets from humans to animals, which were shipped in large quantities to the city. The current state of Glass City is that the established peace has fallen and each group is on the verge of all-out war when these four individuals are introduced to the drastic changes in their lives.
You're from the U.S. Virgin Islands and live there now, though you spent some time living elsewhere. In what ways does St. Croix itself and the culture you grew up in play into Glass City? And what about the time you spent away from there? Does June's homecoming in the first chapter at all reflect your own return home?
Does June’s homecoming reflect my own... yeah, I guess it does, now that you mention it. My island home always has a way of popping up in my prose. Most of my settings in my stories are islands in some form. I drew on a trip I took to Manhattan when I was the director of photography of a documentary I was making with some friends there. It served as inspiration for most of the urban elements and themes of bright lights and glass exteriors hiding the true darkness of a place in plain sight. Above all else, my Crucian background lends itself to the diverse cultural makeup I tend to have in my stories. St. Croix was a place that after the transfer from the Danish to the US, and in subsequent eras, there were financial upturns and job opportunities that were largely filled by immigrants. You’d actually have a hard time finding someone on St. Croix whose family goes back several generations since so many of us, myself included, are second and third generation immigrants. My mother’s side came from Vieques, Puerto Rico and my father’s side is from the Dominican Republic. Often, when I’m in the need for a richly cultural fantasy name, I’ll open up my high school yearbook and find gems like Kishma, Sunil, Jacob-el, or Chichester.
You also have some background in film-making and have used those skills in your non-profit work with children. How do you see that work affecting your writing? What skills carry over from one medium to the other, and what's completely different?
When it comes to teaching kids about video production, photography, and writing skills, it’s like getting a fresh perspective on everything. I would compare it to folks with young children who talk about experiencing things with their kids and seeing the world like it’s the first time all over again. I also love the fact that I am passing on something useful into the world.
An interesting thing about screenplay writing is that it forces you to funnel your senses. When you are writing for the screen, you only have two senses through which everything can be experienced: sight and sound. You can’t smell the movie or taste or touch it. But this limitation, in turn, teaches you to pay attention to your senses and how you perceive the world since you have to make the other senses evident through sight and sound. You can’t sell the taste of the steak, but you can sell the sizzle.
The downside to this screen-writers’ perspective is that it can make your writing very tell-y. We often forget that we have access to those other senses in prose writing so our descriptions can often end up telling rather than showing. For me, that lends itself to filtered descriptions where I tell how a person felt or smelled something rather than just saying what was touched or showing the aroma, but I’m getting better at catching those every day.
You're currently working on the second Glass City book. How is that going? What's next for it and for you?
The second book is drafted and I’m actually a few pages into the third. It still needs a complete overhaul, though. What I’d really like to see is the series becoming popular enough so that I don’t have to keep doing my soul-sucking night job and can just stick to my nonprofit work. To be frank, I’d love to see it coming out similar to your Spire City series. I always thought the multiple perspectives would lend well to episodic publication like that.
Although, my aspiration is to have my other novella, Cayuyé, be published as that is my dream story and the most fitting tale for my brand. My Spanish-speaking relatives and friends have said that they would love to see that one as a telenovela.
I've enjoyed following your month of interviews related to diversity in fantasy. Are there any things that especially struck you during those interviews—things that are excellent or things that are lacking? What would you hope to see other people take from this and apply to their own writing and reading?
Another writer friend I interviewed asked me a similar question where she kind of turned the tables on me and asked what I was looking for when it came to second world fantasy. I think it’s the same when it comes to all literature writing in general. Diversifying your writing isn’t about forced perspectives or having to change what you want to write to satisfy some new politically correct norm. I think it’s more about what makes people want to keep reading a crusty-old genre like ours, the fact that we are always delving into unexplored territory. We’re fantasy writers. We all have the power within us to take the mundane and make it into something fantastic. There’s no excuse for sticking to the old tried and true methods. We’re not Hollywood executives regurgitating the same tripe we know will sell easily. It’s like what Dorothy Zbornak from The Golden Girls said about motherhood. “If it was easy, fathers would do it.” We write it because it’s hard, because it tests us and takes us to new places and new experiences and explores territory we sometimes didn’t know we had inside of us. I think that is the main lesson of diversity in fantasy writing: above all else, don’t be boring!
My thanks to Nick. And don't forget to read the other interviews over at Sancocho Pot.
February 24, 2014
My new title: Studio Writer
If you go over to the website of the forthcoming card game CLASH: Dawn of Steam, you'll notice an ad for Spire City over on the side. What? Why? Well, beneath it the text refers to me as the game's studio writer. I can't claim credit for any of the copy text on the website itself, and I'm not involved in the wording of the rule book or anything. What I am doing, though, is writing some short stories to accompany the game. Some might be used for promotions during the game's Kickstarter (probably in April), and all will be included in a booklet in the game when it's produced. Depending how the Kickstarter goes, it might even involve some further stories.
The game itself looks quite cool. My wife and I used to play board games and card games pretty much every evening (until our kids disrupted that), so while I'm sure there are many recent games that I'm completely unaware of, this seems like a very professional and beautifully designed game. So, go check out the site and the concepts behind the game. And stay tuned for further news.
February 21, 2014
Episode 5: High Society
.jpg)
Episode 5 is out today! (Link goes to the Musa page; otherwise available through Amazon, B&N, etc. with a simple author search)In the hope of learning more about who is pursuing the infecteds, Chels and Williver attend a high society ball in honor of the inventor Orgood. The ball is a whirl of too many people, of elaborate food carved into sculptures and dance fighting and whispers and intrigues on all sides. How is Chels supposed to maintain her false identity long enough to learn anything that will help them?Don't forget, also, a few more hours to get episode 1 for free!
