Post The Second

I got into this -- 'this' being 'writing,' I mean, not the nigh-secessionist state of Texas, or whatever -- by writing fanfic. I totally, totally, did.

I adored Warmachine, back in the day. Trenchers, in particular, struck a chord with my military-historian self, and I started just writing up some fiction to explain why my army was my army. I renamed characters, mostly, matched up my custom paint scheme, made up new backstories for the existing special characters in my army; making my army mine.

And y'know what? It got me my first professional gig.

I ran into Privateer Press gurus Doug Seacat (their head writer at the time) and Nathan Letsinger (their magazine's head editor), at GenCon. They were running d20 Iron Kingdoms RPG games, and we were chatting a little when they noticed I was Critias -- yes, that Critias, OMG -- from their forums. The one who wrote the fiction.

The one whose fiction they read.

WTF?

So then we got to talking a little more, and next thing I knew I was working with some really cool people, looking over contracts and style guides and talking about deadlines, and I ended up writing two articles for No Quarter magazine, years and years ago, in some of their mid-teen issues (that is, issues numbered in the mid-teens, not issues aimed at a Young Adult audience or whatever).

And that fanfic I wrote? Compiled, taken from short pieces and added all up in one doc? It's almost exactly 60,000 words long.

I just wrote that for fun. I'd get a scene idea, I'd open up a forum post window, and I'd just let my story out. No editing (and it showed), no style guide (ditto), just me and a little story, and then I'd click "post" and let the whole world read it (by some values of 'the whole world').

I miss that. That instant gratification of throwing a story together, tossing it out there, and letting people read it.

Keep checking up here soon. I think I'm gonna have to make a Patreon announcement before too long.