Novel Progress

Up to about 18,000 words...strange that my little widget hasn't updated like it's supposed to. I'm very excited about this project!

NanoWrimo, Day One -- Success!!!!

Daylight savings gave me some extra time to write this morning...and boy, did I write. I hadn't even done a word count till a short time ago.

This is a good start, since it'll be much tougher for me to update during the week.

Here's the brief novel description posted to the Nanowrimo site:

In the blasted wastelands of a doomed future, a young woman has embarked on a deadly mission. Her quest will take her through the foulest depths of a world crippled by corrupt magic and dark creatures, where mankind struggles against the undying forces that brought about the end of the world.

Her mission is simple: to end the ongoing war between human and vampire, by whatever means necessary.

This woman's name is Red, and she is being hunted.

Hunted by the vampires who are afraid she won't reach her destination.

And hunted by the humans, who are afraid she will.

Nanowrimo Beckons

It's almost time for Nanowrimo -- which means I need to make a decision on the novel-to-be!

If you've ever considered writing a novel; if you already write novels and need an excuse to write another one; or if you're just really desperate for something to do this November, sign up! You'll be glad you did. :)

Tales from a Fast Year (Or, the "WTF 2009 LOL Story")

Is it just me, or has 2009 just sort of screamed past us? It's been sort of like a drive-by shooting of a year.

It's been a busy and eventful year, highlighted (in more ways than one) by my dear wife's online yarn shop, Liberty's Yarn. The amount of work she's put into her product, marketing and store is downright humbling, sometimes, but (at least from my perspective, which is primarily that of spectator and wrangler of wary children who might keep Lib from getting work done) it seems to have paid off for her, as she has strong online presence, a steady flow of business and she had a great showing at the Sock Summit down in Portland this past summer.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention, I took an actual vacation this year, hanging out with the kids for a few days in Portland while Lib peddled her quality wares. Portland is a beautiful town, and it was nice to spend some time down there and see the sights (especially the Oregon Zoo...holy crap that place is awesome!).

Aside from that, other highlights for the year thus far include:

* Starting up a new D&D campaign.

* Working.

* Getting numerous rejection letters from publishing houses and editors, which has led to...

* Struggling with what I want to do with my writing, and deciding (finally) to get some of the 2,000+ pages I've written in the past few years revised and out there for publication, even if that means self-publishing and/or e-publishing (two options I was not terribly excited about before).

* Working.

* Trying to keep the kids on track.

* Trying to help Lib out with the business in whatever small ways I can (which usually just amounts to me entertaining the kids and doing the dishes).

* Trying to stay sane.

* Getting into a good exercise retinue (which 16 mile-a-day bike commutes doing the week).

* Working. Did I mention that one already?

We're also to be blessed with my brother-in-law Koul coming to visit us, starting tomorrow. We haven't seen every one's favorite dry ice and duct tape fanatic in a while, so it'll be fun to have him.

As we come in to the final stretch of the rest of the year, we've got Holiday Hell (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas), our 9th Wedding Anniversary, my 3rd "Novel in November" outing, a new season of NBA basketball, a lot of knitting and D&D and, of course, work. Is it any wonder I haven't had the time or (more accurately) the energy to blog?

Well, I'd best get back to 2009...don't want to miss another second!

Time to Start Blogging Again....

I've been living exclusively on Facebook since the Mesozoic Era, but with Nanowrimo rapidly approaching and a renewed drive to get "Darker Sunset" published, I decided it's time to jump back onto the Blogwagon. (You know..."Hi, I'm Steve and I'm a Blogoholic"...'Hi, Steve'...that sort of thing...)

I'll be revisiting the look of the blog page here pretty soon, as well as trying to post some regular updates on what has become for me a veritable cornucopia of writing projects: publishing "Darker Sunset: Hunters & Thieves", getting the hand-written drafts of books 2-6 in the series typed; revising "Razor" and "something black..."; and thinking ahead to my next Nanowrimo project, an as-yet-unnamed sequel to "something black...".

So...stay tuned, there's more to come!

D&D, Black Dawn Campaign Adventure Log, Session 2: Following the Trail

After a much needed rest, the band of marooned heroes – Malkar, the swordmage; Geralt, the Sulajji rogue; Theothia, the human druid; Sol, the half-Dracaj warden; and Joar, the half-Doj warlord – resumed their pursuit of Lucan Keth, an escaped Bloodspeaker terrorist they’d agreed to capture for the warden Argus; in return for this service, Argus would help the larger body of survivors from the crash of the Black Wing pass safely through Dracaj-controlled territory.

The blood eye that the party had acquired from Argus told them that Keth had continued on to the remote mountain-based trading settlement of Tain. However, the blood eye also indicated that Keth had taken a minor detour to a small abandoned building at the bottom of a narrow valley; since he hadn’t stopped there long enough to take any significant rest, the party surmised he had some other purpose there, and their deigned to uncover it.

The building, as it turned out, was an abandoned but stocked monastery and library, one of the last remnants of a long-dissolved cloister called the Brotherhood of the Carfex. And it was not empty: a small force of Gorgoloth, led by a pair of Gol sorcerers, desperately searched for something among the thousands of books. (This unit, it seemed, was part of a larger Rathian military force apparently intent on wiping out all civilized life in the area.) After a lengthy and confusing battle – one that saw more than a few painful falls from the upper level of the building to the ground floor – the villains were scattered.

Piecing together the tomes, scrolls, memory stones and notes the Gol had gathered granted the party some important facts. Apparently, a diabolic adventuring couple named Bloodmoon and Callador, who’d been tempted to the ways of evil by “a demonic source of otherworldly power” called the Scourge, had been defeated by the Brotherhood some time before the Black War. The lovers and the Scourge had then been interred in a chamber east of Tain called the Bloodwinter Tomb. The Brotherhood had not been able to destroy the Scourge, so they hired the best arcane engineers, demonologists and binders they could find to seal it and the lovers into the Tomb permanently. Unfortunately, some unexplained event led to the downfall of the Brotherhood and the Tomb’s premature sealing: while Bloodwinter remained a powerful oubliette, its wards were incomplete, and could be broken.

The information hinted that the Scourge’s influence was such it could compel beings who’d come too close to Bloodwinter so that they would return and break the seals…and Geralt guessed this might be the case with Lucan Keth, a frightening notion since another scroll indicated that the means to actually open the Tomb were located in a Brotherhood bookshop in Tain.

With renewed concern over what it might if Keth were to escape them, the party set out for Tain…but not before they were attacked by a squad of hostile Dracaj hunters and magi, part of the local tribe that laid claim to the area. After dispensing with these troublesome foes, the party renewed their pursuit.

Any questions over Tain’s fate were dispelled as the party approached the town: it was abandoned and in ruin, devastated by more Gorgoloth mercenaries and the Scourge madness seeping from Bloodwinter Tomb. Though the town was now largely abandoned, it quickly became apparent that scattered mercenary units still prowled Tain’s streets, one of which – a Gorgoloth squad led by a dangerous human mage, a pistoleer and a fully operational Motorgun Walker – challenged the party as soon as they arrived at the city gates.

Once these enemies were vanquished, the adventurers decided to take to the streets of Tain in order to pass through the city as quickly as possible, since the breadth of the settlement meant that to circumvent the city would take far too much precious time. After all, it seemed that Geralt was right: the blood eye had revealed that Lucan Keth had passed straight through Tain, and the party now intended to do the same, and catch up with him before it was too late.

D&D, Black Dawn Campaign Adventure Log, Session 1: The Hunt

It began with a crash.

The engines of the Blackwing – a turbine-powered vessel carrying passengers, trade goods and prisoners on the last leg of its lengthy voyage around Sethia – exploded and sent the ship shattering against the sharp stones of the east shores of Rimefang Loch. Those passengers who survived the crash found themselves beset by the attacks of prisoners who’d escaped from the hold, as well as a diabolic wastelands hunter called a Blightwalker. Luckily for those survivors, five of their own number were would-be adventurers: Malkar, a swordmage escapee from the undead-controlled city of Tanith; Joar, a half-Doj warlord who wholly distrusted magic and technology; Theothia, a human druid with newly found prophetic dream powers; Geralt, a Sulaj rogue on the run from other more powerful criminals; and Sol, a half-Dracaj warden and former mercenary.

After these heroes dealt with the prisoners and the Blightwalker, the survivors gathered what supplies and provisions they could and prepared to make the rest of their journey along the dangerous coastline. There was, however, a problem. While surviving the deadly Dracaj-controlled coast would be made much easier with the influential word of a Black Warden, Argus, the Warden who’d brought the prisoners on board, refused to help anyone until two of the more dangerous prisoners who’d escaped in the wreck were returned to his custody. After some debate, it was decided that the greater body of survivors (well-armed with flintlocks) would wait it out near the ruins of the ship; that Argus would pursue the mechanically altered serial killer Vance Creyzak, who’d headed north along the coast; and the five inexperienced heroes would pursue the Bloodspeaker terrorist Lucan Keth, who’d set his sights inland. Equipped with a bizarre thaumaturgic compass that would lead them to Keth, the newly formed group set off into the hazardous Razortooth Mountains, warned by Captain Graves of the possibility of Rath-funded mercenary groups operating in the area.

It didn’t take the party long to find evidence of these mercenaries: a mountain village that Theothia had visited on occasion in the past had been laid to waste, and the bullet-addled and blade-ruined bodies of the dead had been piled high in the center of the settlement. Worse still, an unknown magical taint in the area had caused several of these unfortunate villagers to animate as hostile undead and attack the party. Once these undead were dealt with, the party laid as many of the dead villagers to rest as they could before they moved on.

The party moved higher into the mountains. In a desolate clearing surrounded by dead trees the party caught up with the desecrators of the village: a small unit of Gorgoloth soldiers and barbarians led by a Meldoarian thaumaturge-captain. As if this force wasn’t significant enough, the captain also controlled a deadly homunculus war machine called a Motorgun Walker, as well as a Bloodwolf. Though there were some misgivings about taking on such a sizable force, the party had revenge on their minds, and soon they’d surrounded the unit and launched their assault. The battle went well at first, as Gorgoloth soldiers fell before the party’s initial attack, but very soon the powerful Gorgoloth barbarians and the captain’s deadly magic tipped the tide in the mercenaries favor. The battle raged for some time, and each side saw its members fall one-by-one. The deciding strike came from Malkar, his last act before as was rendered unconscious by the thaumaturge: he unleashed a deadly cryo-blast that tore through the mage’s defenses and killed him. With the mage’s life went the mercenaries’ Motorgun Walker (which promptly broke down) and their control over the Bloodwolf, who turned on its former masters before returning to the wilderness.

In the end, only Theothia was left standing on the battlefield, and it was up to her to revive her companions so that they could recuperate and carry on with their mission. Lucan Keth was gaining ground on them by the hour, and they desired to catch up with him before he reached the mountain trading city of Tain.