Sunday, September 28, 2014

Every day

Do you like spoons? Yes, we all have them piled in the kitchen drawer, or maybe even piled in the sink, waiting to get cleaned of the chocolate frosting we dig into on the rare occasion. Or Spoon! the call to action by the greatest super-hero of last generation: The Tick.

What does any of this have to do with writing? Hang on there floppy pants, I want to introduce you to an artist I follow on Instagram: STIAN KORNTVED RUUD 
As of this writing he is on day 168 of his goal of carving a new spoon every day for a year.  As he finishes each spoon, he posts pics of his work. 

The process has yielded some some amazing results, along with designs that are flawed and awkward. But guess what? That's supposed to happen. You are supposed to make rubbish. A lot of it. Every day dig in and spend some quality time and knock out 500, 750, or 1000 words. Every day write about something that is wonderful, or trivial, or awkward, or bad. Get comfortable with the notion that what you are writing is an important part of the process, not the final product. It is the potter removing the clay from the bowl, the sculptor removing the marble from the figure, the carver removing the shavings from the spoon. You don't write every day because people will love your work. You write every day so that when you re-write the muscles are strong and your vision is clear. And your readers will thank you.

To help keep me on track for writing every day, I use 750words.com. This is a screen shot of September so far:
Yes, I have missed some days. But to be fair, my Nugget arrived ahead of schedule on September 1st. Sometimes writing has to take the backseat.




Monday, September 1, 2014

We made Bad Decisions - and we're proud of it!

What do you get when you combine a role-playing game GM and a poet with storytelling pretensions? In this case, a new, story-flavored party game from startup game maker Diamond Dust Dreams Inc. With substantial capital already tied up in printing its first game, Kitsune: of Foxes and Fools http://kitsunecg.com/, the company has turned to Kickstarter to get News Flash: Bad Decisions off the ground.

The prototype of the new game is already receiving rave reviews from everyone who has played it; comments like, "Bad Decisions is brilliant (and I'm not a big game person). We are definitely joining the kickstarter funding." The prototype has already been played at scifi and game conventions in Illinois (CoDCon), Indiana (GenCon), Wisconsin (GeekKon) and Minnesota (CONvergence). People see the name and say, "I make bad decisions all the time. What is this game? I want to play it!"

After all, who doesn't enjoy complaining about Fools responding to Crises with Bad Decisions? News Flash: Bad Decisions encourages you to enjoy doing that. You play by combining news-lead or headline sentence “teleprompt” cards with cards listing generic categories of famous (or infamous) people as the fools, crises ranging from mundane to outrageous, and flagrantly Bad Decisions for you to combine into amusing mini-stories.

News Flash: Bad Decisions plays like a cross between Apples to Apples® and Mad Libs®, with each prompt card playing differently every time because the News Anchor (judge) gets to set up every story. The finished game will have 200 cards each in the Fool, Crisis and Bad Decision decks - and 60 teleprompter cards. With a PG13 approach for selecting crises and bad decisions (from actual news stories), Diamond Dust Dreams expects its newest game will give the much racier Cards Against Humanity strong competition as the next must-have party game.


By contributing as little as $10 to the Kickstarter project, you’ll qualify to suggest topics for future Bad Decisions games, such as: horror movies (“went into the woods alone - at night”), thriller/scifi (“pressed the red button”), modern European history (“invaded Russia in winter”), and biotech (“cloned what?”). Higher reward levels give supporters direct input into the creation of additional Fool, Crisis, Bad Decision and Teleprompter cards. Because the game's designers want to share the fun of finding and sharing ridiculous situations and choices with all of you.

The Kickstarter goal is $20,000, enough to cover the down-payment on a full production print run, so News Flash: Bad Decisions can go on press as soon as the team finishes proofing the final prompt and play decks, including new cards suggested by Kickstarter supporters. Game stores are already expressing interest in News Flash: Bad Decisions, although even with the Kickstarter, the company cannot guarantee the game being delivered by Christmas 2014. That said, it could be printed in time to become the hot new Valentine’s Day gift in 2015.

Join the supporters of the Bad Decisions card game family and learn more by checking out the Bad Decisions Kickstarter page This Kickstarter ends September 21, 2014 so please click now.