Category: Writing Update

Announcing ‘Not Ready To Make Nice’

by Shoshana, posted in Criticism, Not Ready To Make Nice, Speaking Out, Writing Update

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I recently ran into a situation where a friend on Facebook approached me and asked when I was going to “calm down.” She said that I must get tired being “up in arms” about issues all the time, and that I can’t possibly care about so many issues at once. The fact is, as I’m quite capable of balancing many ideas inside my head at once, I do care about many important issues. And along with being a writer and a game designer, I believe being a person who is literate about and critical of the world around me makes me a contributor to my community at large.

To that end, I’m creating here an ongoing set of articles I’m calling Not Ready To Make Nice. It’s named after the Dixie Chicks song of the same name, which was written after the Dixie Chicks received death threats for speaking out against President George W. Bush. For those who want to just hear me talk about games, or comics, or LARP, I’ll still be posting about that. But I’ll be marking some articles under the NRTMN heading. And I’ll be letting fly with what I feel. In my eyes, the fictional work I do and the game design I do is just a piece of the ways I converse with the world at large.

I believe that the hallmark of a generation is marked by the ability and the willingness for people to be aware of the issues around them and to talk about them in the open. There are places in the world and time periods in the world where the mere discussion of dissent would send people to prison or to their deaths, and yet having opinions and writing about them, speaking out about them, even in the most casual sense has become taboo again in many ways. People don’t want to be bothered. People don’t want to deal with “the drama.” And those who do speak up often have to deal with unspeakable repercussions like threats, harassment, and stalking. People get fatigued, burn out, go quiet.

I was raised with the idea that a person should always learn, study, and become more aware of the world around them to have an opinion. That if you can, ask questions and have conversations to learn more and come to new understandings. And in that way, I am passionate about speaking about important issues that I feel strongly about.

I am passionate about ideas. Not upset. Not furious. I don’t need to calm down. Because passion, unlike is often the case with rage, drives from a place of earnest communication and interest in exploring ideas.

That’s what these articles will be about. I can’t promise they’ll always be nice. I will avoid personal attacks where I can and judgement when possible. I’ll even post trigger warnings and research material where I can about the issue. But I will be pointing a finger at things I find curious or interesting, from politics to media to social issues. It’s whatever strikes me because, hey, this is my blog. And in doing that, I am calm, but certainly not ready to stop writing.

A Writer Milestone – My First Short Story Published

by Shoshana, posted in Writing Update
The Lost Anthology by Galileo Press.
The Lost Anthology by Galileo Press.

“There are love stories in the underground. I’ll tell you one if you want. It’s a tired old boy meets girl, but it’s got some power to spark in the dark. You can sit and listen, can’t you? You look like you’d like a good love story.”

The other night I sat in my living room with my roommates and stared at a book in my hand.

The Lost Anthology had arrived. And inside is my first published short story ever.

The book has a gorgeous cover, designed by the talented Jeff Himmelman, who is also the designer of Kingdom of Nothing, the tabletop RPG setting in which the anthology is set. It’s published by Galileo Games, one of my favorite indie publishing houses, run by the fantastic Brennan Taylor. The volume was edited by the phenomenal JR Blackwell. Inside are short stories by many amazing writers, including my friends CJ Malarsky and Peter Woodworth.

And the first story in the book is “The Case of George the Curious” by me. It’s even got a quote from me on the back cover.

It’s a surreal thing to see your work in print for the first time. This isn’t my first publication – I’ve had a short scenario published for Cthulhu Invictus before and have had numerous blog posts and newspaper articles published over the years. Yet this story is my first short piece of fiction in a collection and right now, the book is in my hands. It hadn’t sunk in until that moment that this was a thing that happened. I’m so happy that it happened in this anthology as well. First, it was an anthology for charity for a company whose work I’ve adored for years. Also, I was around when Jeff Himmelman first started talking about Kingdom of Nothing as a game and got a chance to alpha and beta test the original tabletop, so seeing this in print now down the road from that design is a wonderful experience.

But also, I’m reminded of all the great writing coaches and teachers who pushed me along when I thought for sure that I couldn’t do it. Teachers like Helen Phillips at Brooklyn College and Maya Sloan at NYU, as well as John Adamus my ever-present editor and friend (dare I say mentor?), all made me a better writer. And because of that, this story exists.

Damn, this is starting to sound like some award ceremony speech. But victories and successes are always like that in my head, because no piece of work just came from a single person. The folks who get you there deserve the celebration as well. So thanks to all of those who helped make this moment – my first short story publication – a reality. A first achieved, bucket list item ticked off, much more to come!

Define Summer ‘Vacation’? (An Update On Work!)

by Shoshana, posted in Convention Report, Writing Update

The sun is shining. The air is humid in Brooklyn and I’m not in class. It’s summer in New York City.

And there’s work to be done!

The end of the NYU semester came and went with a bang. It was a real hustle to get through the end of the second semester, but I came away with a lot of amazing lessons I learned, not only about game design but about working with others, my own process of dealing with stress, and about myself in general. It was a process of self discovery as well as academia, and as hokey as it sounds it made a profound impact on how I want to work going forward. It was a breakneck pace of work that ended and then-

A break. Summer vacation. It’s meant to give you a chance to kick back and relax… right?

For most people past a certain age, summer vacation is no longer the bucolic months of adventure and fun that it is when you’re young enough not to work. For me, I haven’t had a real summer vacation in years. This is the closest I’ve had and yet I’m freelancing. And boy, has it been busy. Here’s been what I’m up to:

  • Phoenix Outlaw Productions, my company, is ramping up it’s creation process. Things were slowed due to many factors including graduate school and, honestly, the learning curve of a new company. Now I’m putting boots to ground on wrapping up Wanderlust, my tabletop RPG, and have begun organizing the schedule of projects we want to release. Stay tuned for way more information about that in the days to come.
  • June 1st wrapped creation of Wild City, a setting for the upcoming release of the Chronos Theatrical LARP System for Eschaton Media, co-written alongside Josh Harrison. Josh and I had worked on the core book of Chronos as well, so I’m excited to see the release going so well. You can learn more about it on Eschaton Media’s Chronos Facebook group right now.
  • I’m working with my fellow Team Awesome folks to get Octavia ready for submission for IndieCade. More information about that to come.
  • I was asked to come aboard the extremely successful Kickstarter for Trigger Happy by Caias Ward to write a stretch goal scenario, which I’m working on. It’s going to be about a kidnapped kid and what you’re willing to do to kick butt to get that kid back. Stay tuned for more information.
  • I’m working on the translation of the Heroine RPG into a LARP! I’m very excited for this project, as Josh Jordan’s game about girls on their adventures has been a person ‘I heart it so much’ project since I saw it on Kickstarter. I’m so excited to be a part of seeing it come to LARP.
  • I’ve been creative consultant to Michael Consoli on his video game Against the Wall and we’ve been meeting up

And speaking of LARPS – DEXCON. Oh my gosh, DexCon.

For those that don’t know, the Double Exposure conventions in Morristown New Jersey rock. Seriously, they do. I’ve been a regular at these conventions since 2006 and have enjoyed some of my best gaming experiences there. It’s no wonder that the work these good folks are doing is being recognized by the Diana Jones Awards with a nomination this year. I enjoy the hell out of all three of their conventions – Dreamation, DexCon and Metatopia – and would not miss one for the world. That said, I also enjoy the heck out of running LARPs and panels at their conventions and this year is no exception. My DexCon project plate looks like this:

  • The Unofficial Dresden Files LARP: We at Phoenix Outlaw Productions are proud to be wrapping up our first chronicle of our Unofficial Dresden Files LARP, started way back two years ago. The project has been very important to me and I’m so pleased to see us come to the end of the four game series with “Final Frost” this summer. After this, we’ll be going into another phase of the project, in which players will have dedicated characters in an ongoing chronicle setting. We’ve also wrapped up our latest version of the rules iteration, based of course on the wonderful Fate Core rules system, and based on iteration done at each of the conventions thanks to experience and great feedback from players. Saturday Night at DexCon, we head back to the Dresdenverse and we’ll see who survives the chronicle’s climax.
  • Battlestar Galactica LARP: At Dreamation I teamed with Mike Maleki of Last Minute Productions to come up with an idea for a Battlestar Galactica LARP. We were approached thereafter by Double Exposure to run this event as a signature LARP for the convention this summer. And so, “Straight On Til Morning: Tales of the Rising Star” was born. We’ve brought together our two teams to create a large game set aboard the Rising Star, a medical ship in the BSG universe. We’ve developed a brand new system inspired by more freeform LARP techniques to make this game an intense roleplay experience for folks. Come aboard and give it a spin on Friday night!
  • Night’s Black Agent Tournament – The LARP: It’s no secret I’m a huge Night’s Black Agent fan. Well, John Adamus has been involved in writing for the Night’s Black Agent tournaments for the incredible Kenneth Hite for a while now. Therefore when Pelgrane Press wanted to incorporate LARP into their tournament’s first round, we got the call! Myself, John Adamus and Josh Harrison have been working at building the first Night’s Black Agent LARP, where you can play a secret agent out to battle the vampire conspiracy threat! This will be the first round of the NBA Tournament – survive into the second round and see your team to victory.

Those are the three LARPs we’ve been working hard on for DexCon. Aside from that, I am also pleased to say I’ll be reprising two panels from the last convention: Women in Game Design and Let’s Talk LARP, a round table discussion with LARP designers. I’m also really humbled to be asked to a Wednesday night reading for authors at the convention. I’ve been asked to read from my recently published short story from The Lost Anthology by Galileo Press. And somewhere in there, I promise, I will eat a thing and sleep. Somewhere.

With all this going on, I’m also preparing for my upcoming convention schedule at GenCon, WyrdCon, PaxPrime and more, but that’s what I like to call ‘After July 4th Shoshana’s Problem’ (July 4th weekend being DexCon).

For now, I’m also reminding myself of the importance of balancing some summer fun with all this work- including attending great conferences like the recent Games for Change conference in New York, spending time with great people at Dystopia Rising (including at the new Pennsylvania game – congratulations to the staff there for an amazing first event!), and getting to see Neil Gaiman speak at Brooklyn Academy of Music the other night about his new book, Ocean At the End of the Lane (read it if you haven’t! It’s brilliant!).

That’s summer vacation, folks, and with that I’m off to get back into work, with a cup of tea and a lot of typing to go. More updates to come!

Blogging Writer’s Block

by Shoshana, posted in Random Aside, Writing Update

Wow, folks. Wow. It’s been a while. It’s been since the end of April that I posted anything on this blog.

So. Hi. I’m alive. And I’m sorry for being gone so long.

What kept me, you ask? Well, it’s simple. I had blogging writer’s block.

Blogging writer’s block is a horrid situation where you start to doubt your own voice and so everything inside your head gets congested into a ball of self-esteem woe and mess. You start to wonder if the voice you have to contribute to the industry, or the internet, or anything at all has meaning. So the idea of writing your opinions on things becomes a terrifying prospect. Hence, blogging writer’s block. I feel like there should be a shorter term for it. Bloggiblock? That’s me, hacking the English language since I discovered vocabulary.

But anyway – I shouldn’t have left for a while yet here we are. And I’m back. What changed, you ask? Oh, a lot of soul searching. The semester at NYU ended and I finally slowed down enough to take a good hard think about priorities and the work I’m doing. I sat down and had a few conversations with people about confidence, about other people’s judgement, and feeling good about the work I was doing as a whole. I thought about what was important to me. And I discovered one hard and fast truth:

I just really like to write.

It doesn’t matter what I’m writing. If it’s articles or RPGs, academic papers or LARPs, I just enjoy creating pieces of writing.

I also have opinions on things. And I like to talk about them.

This is not because I feel I am smarter or better than others. It is not because I want to spend my time writing about creating rather than actually creating (a criticism laid at the feet of lots of academics, and specifically at me recently). It’s because discussing art and having critical opinions on things makes for a better informed designer, and putting out opinions creates and perpetuates conversation.

So enough about writing blog posts, let’s get on to actually doing that. And you’ll see more of me. Promise. Because I have things to talk about.

Get ‘Lost’: The Lost Anthology for Charity!

by Shoshana, posted in Writing Update, Writings

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“There are love stories in the underground. I’ll tell you one if you want.” – from ‘The Case of George the Curious’

With those words, we kick off my very first short story publication in the upcoming anthology called The Lost from Galileo Games. Set in the haunting world of Jeff Himmelman‘s indie RPG Kingdom of Nothing, The Lost is a set of stories about those adrift in the underground places of the world, set apart from mankind and forgotten. With the stunning cover designed by Jeff Himmelman himself, the anthology will benefit City Harvest, a charity doing good work to feed the transient and homeless population in New York. Others contributing to this great collection include my good friend CJ Malarsky, Peter Woodworth, Meg Jayanth, K.H. Vaughn, Stephen D. Rogers, Sarah Newton and more, all edited by the fantastic JR Blackwell and brought to you by Brennan Taylor.

The anthology is being funded over at IndieGoGo with all the details. You can check out the book trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGRVKoqKZkY

It has been a wonderful experience contributing to this collection. Way back in the day, I was a beta tester on Kingdom of Nothing when Jeff Himmelman was first developing the game and had the pleasure of watching the concept world and mechanics evolve into the touching and evocative game that KoN is today. More than anything, I was always impressed by the deference and respect Jeff designed KoN to convey to the plight of the homeless population. Never was there a question that the game would capitalize on the ‘drama’ of the story of a person who has lost much. The anthology continues that tradition of respect by giving back to those who need help the most.

It was with that respect in mind that I also wrote my story, ‘The Case of George the Curious’. I wanted to focus heavily on what it would be like to lose one’s self in the underground, having lost nearly everything to the Nothing that consumes the characters of this bleak world. Yet in the dark, there would be one last thing I didn’t want to see surrendered – and that was the chance at a love story. I will admit, I barely ever write love stories and this was a big challenge for me. I hope that people reading it will like it.

So come out to the IndieGoGo site and pledge some cash. You get an awesome anthology and for other pledges, you get some great games too from Galileo. So go ahead, and whatever you pledge, you’re contributing to a worthy cause. And if you get the chance, play Kingdom of Nothing. It’s a hell of a game.

Fate Core: Or, How To Adore Your Editor And Weaponize Memory

by Shoshana, posted in Game Design, Writing Update

It’s been quiet so far on the home front here at my blog. And that’s probably because it got mighty busy around the holiday season. Graduate school final projects are no joke and then the holidays hit, which included my birthday and New Years as it does every year. In between all of that, of course, I’ve been tackling the amazing project I’ve been doing for Fate Core – my setting in psychological horror, No Exit.

The process of creating No Exit has been a learning curve and an eye-opening process for me. Not only am I organizing a lot of thoughts about the basics of psychological horror, I’ve been learning quite a lot about how much to show an audience in a gaming book. Coming from a fiction and screen writing background, writing for games is a whole new ballgame that requires a different way of thinking. Thankfully I’ve got a great editor, John Adamus, mentoring me through the process. His comments on my first draft made me cringe, then laugh, then cringe again. Then crack up a heck of a lot in retrospect. A handy tip: whenever your editor hands you a note, always consider it carefully and decide whether you agree or not before you start making changes. Unless it’s about grammar or layout, in which case you’re probably terribly wrong and should fix it immediately.

My favorite part of creating No Exit so far has been messing with the mechanics. I’ve enjoyed finding out the best way to fight an environment in a game and what would be the best way to do things like, oh, attack an apartment building. What fascinated me was the idea that you could do these things with Fate Core easily – need a new mechanic? Hack in there and create what was needed. Don’t have a skill that exactly fits what you need? Make it work yourself. The sky really is the limit. I’ve had a lovely time finding a way to turn people’s memories into weapons and creating a mechanic for it.

Speaking of new things I’m excited to see – the other stretch goal settings and scenarios for Fate Core have me excited to give them a chance. I really want to play White Picket Witches by Filamena Young and Camelot Trigger by Rob Wieland because small town witches and futuristic Camelot just sounds like fun. And it only goes to show what you can do with Fate Core – which, as far as I can tell, is pretty much anything.

I’ve also been delving into some other inspirations for No Exit recently. Here’s some things I’ve been listening to and watching to keep me in the mindset of this setting:

Songs:

“Amen” by Leonard Cohen, “Seven Exodus” by Tub Ring, “No Light” by Florence + The Machine

Television:

“Lost”, “Twin Peaks”

Movies:

“Identity”, “Jacob’s Ladder”

Today I hope to complete draft two and send it on it’s way. A change of scene is hard when you’re trying to write scary and you’re sitting in the bright sunny SoCal sun!

FATE CORE: “No Exit” As Fate Psychological Horror

by Shoshana, posted in Game Design, Writing Update, Writings

Hey all of you out there in gamer land. You might have heard that this week has been HUGE on Kickstarter for a game called Fate Core. You may have heard of it before, but if you haven’t here’s the skinny. Fate Core is the awesome new version of the Fate System, which is the engine behind such games as Spirit of the Century, Dresden Files RPG, and Bulldogs. The folks over at Evil Hat Productions put together a fantastic new Fate Core and the book went up on Kickstarter this week. And, wouldn’t you know, it’s doing pretty well.

Yeah, okay, that’s the understatement of a lifetime. It kind of exploded in a glory of Fudge Dice and amazing stretch goals. The book was funded in the first fifteen minutes and as of this writing is somewhere around $93,o00. The response has been unbelievable and as a huge Fate fan I’m thrilled. But I’m not just here to raise a celebratory glass to Fred Hicks and the folks at Evil Hat. I’m here to tell you about a little scenario called “No Exit” being written for Fate Core – by yours truly.

A few days before the Kickstarter went up, Fred reached out to me to write a supplement that would be included as a Kickstarter stretch goal. We tossed around a few ideas but one rose to the top pretty fast. The scenario’s called “No Exit” and if you’ve heard that title before, maybe you’ve read a certain play by Sartre by the same name. That play’s been one of my favorites for a long time and feeds perfectly into the themes of interpersonal psychological horror I want to explore with “No Exit”.

“It’s what one does, and nothing else, that proves the stuff one’s made of.” – INEZ, Jean-Paul Sartre’s NO EXIT

Folks who know me know that I love games that give you the space to explore powerful interpersonal relationships and interactions. Any time I can really get into deep role-play situations that tug and pull at social dynamics, charged intertwined backstories, or intense psychological drama, you’re singing my tune. I’m a big fan of shows like Lost that play havoc with people’s emotions by twisting each character around the other, making everyone play off each other in remarkably odd circumstances. The goal is to discover how people REALLY are when the chips are down. So I boiled down those elements with a weird, unnerving scenario that came out of a strange encounter in the dead of night.

I had come home late from graduate school late one night and walked into the apartment to find no one home. That’s not unusual so I went about my business. As I was getting ready for bed, I heard a noise at the front door. As it was three AM, I got concerned and went to check. I tried to pull open the front door only to find it stuck. I tugged it over and over, but it wouldn’t budge. Finally I pulled as hard as I could and the door unstuck with a jolt, and I looked into my hallway. Down the hall stood a man, stooped over, looking at the floor. He looked up at me from under a hat for a moment and then walked through the door to the fire stairs. I wondered what the man was doing in the hall and why it sounded like he was at my door. I looked down and saw I was standing on a religious pamphlet going on in tiny, hand-written letters about bringing me back to God. I turned and went back inside and made sure to lock the door. I tossed the creepy pamphlet, forgot about it for the most part and went to bed. But before I fell asleep, I imagined one thing: what if the pamphlet had said something else? What if instead it was just a note.

It would say, “I know your secret.”

What if it was more specific? How about, “Your husband has been lying to you all along”?

No, more specific. “Your daughter isn’t your daughter after all.”

What if there were more notes, one for every apartment? What if there were phone calls, and mysterious voices that spoke through drains? What if there was a man in a hat who told you as you went to the garbage to think about last Christmas, when everyone went home early from the office party and you stayed behind with that girl from Accounting. And don’t you just remember that night, but you never told your SO for fear of what they’d do…

I lay in bed thinking about these options. Then I wondered about the front door and thought:

“What if it wouldn’t open?”

Intimate psychological pressure, confinement and the search for meaning. To paraphrase Sartre, hell really is other people.

With my stretch goal funded on Day One, “No Exit” will be released at the end of the Fate Core Kickstarter run. And I’ll give more updates about the process as I go along. Meanwhile, this project’s a hell of a ride and I’m excited as can be to be a part of it. Time to get on the writing fingers and go find out just what keeps people between the four walls of Westley House.

He Said, She Said: Writing To Opposite Gender

by Shoshana, posted in On Writing, Writing Update, Writings

In one of my previous blog posts, I talked about how I love reading for inspiration. In my mad crash through my bookshelves recently, I finished (among other books), Chuck Wendig’s Blackbirds and Lev Grossman’s The Magician King. What fascinated me about both of these books was their use of strong, complex female characters who were nuanced and engaging – specifically, Miriam Black in Blackbirds and Julia in The Magician King. Why bring up these two authors and their great female characters? Well, folks, they’re two examples of great male authors writing great female characters.

But Shoshana, someone will ask, why bring up the gender of the authors in question at all? Why’ve you gotta go all gender about good writing? Gender is a hot-button questions. And may I say, wherever that term comes from, there are degrees of ‘hot’. Where ‘who left the toilet seat up‘ might be a somewhat warm question and ‘did you sleep with my boyfriend‘ is a hand-in-the-toaster kind of hot, gender representation is one of those scorchers. Nuclear strike from orbit scorchers. Please deposit twenty-five-cents for SPF 9-Million scorchers. Everyone’s got a soap box about it, yours truly included. Hell, a lot of my blog posts for Tor.com or other places have been on the subject of gender representation in media of various forms or in the gaming world. But if I’m going to be able to stand up and question the way that other people represent women in their work, I believe it’s only honest to come clean about a problem I have as a writer.

So here goes. Hi, I’m a female writer, and I find writing dudes difficult. There, I said it.

This issue has come up for me because the novel I’m writing right now has a male and female protagonist. It’s the first time I’ve tried for a solid male protagonist to carry along a full-length novel and while I’ve found that while I can connect to my female protagonist Kate without too much trouble, I struggle to find traction when writing Scott. He slipped through my fingers whenever I tried and I began to wonder if it was because of difficulty capturing the male mindset, or if I’m just having trouble with Scott as a character? That got me back to thinking about male perspective versus female perspective, and if in the end there is a difference.

When creating Scott, I tried to think about the environmental factors that created this guy, the life he lived, and the thoughts he might have. I considered what he might have gone through, what ideas might have shaped him, and what his attitudes might be on things. In other words, I went about creating him the same way that I would any character: considering their history, their environment, their upbringing and factors like political ideas, orientation, ect. That’s how I approach the creation of any character, be they main protagonist  or side character, and of either gender. As I began that shaping, I wondered if there was something inherent to consider about being a guy that needs to be included in writing a guy, a perspective that I was missing. Was that the place I started to have problems with his personality? Or was it just that I couldn’t reach the character of Scott as a person?

In the end, I went to the internet for advice and found, rather than a greek chorus, a cacophony of dissenting opinions. The one, however, that seemed to resonate the most with me was in blog posts by SciFi writer Hilari Bell. She stated that actions a character takes are not necessarily gendered. When writing a character the actions are only as ‘genderized’ as you want them to be. Character X might go across the street to shoot someone, for example, but how you describe their actions is more important than their gender. The character must be informed by their life experience, which are affected by their experience with being their gender, but it’s just another factor in their life along with any other. She also states that often, bad writing comes when writers get hung up on gender and don’t focus on characterization instead.

But are there portions to a character that are inherently important due to their gender, such as gender-specific experiences? I’m thinking of things like issues of birth and motherhood with women. And are certain experiences very gender-based, such as differences in sexual experiences? When bringing that to the page, it can feel like a stretch to try and portray a man’s headspace in sex when you’re, well, not a guy. That’s where research comes in. If there is an experience I haven’t had and need to write about, I try to read about or talk to someone who has been in that situation, be it childbirth, flying a helicopter or anything else. The experience of gender is just another piece of the human experience to explore and even though we’re often told to ‘write what you know’, research is the key when you’re stepping out of that comfort zone. So if I need to know about a guy’s experience having sex, or how a guy might relate to his father versus how a daughter does, that’s going to mean research for me rather than a fret session over how I just ‘couldn’t understand’. Anecdote and people-watching research mode are a-go, and I’ll just have to find a guy friend willing to describe what sex is like to a guy. I’ve got lots of chatty friends, I’m sure it’ll make for a hell of a conversation.

When it comes to the novel, in the end I sat down and thought more about what made my character Scott tick. It took some time but I realized that it wasn’t the gender issue that was getting to me. I did a lot more thinking about Scott as a person and that let me grab his more vulnerable, human side by the horns. Where before I was hung up on him as a guy, I had to get into the meat of what made him a thinking, feeling person to get inside his head. I found the commonality between us that I could riff on and suddenly I was off to the races, no longer afraid. The book now has several distinctive male characters, all done in the close third and each with their own life experience as different as they are. I decided that I won’t let the great gender debate worry me. My writing isn’t some grand exploration about what it is to be a guy, or a girl, or a treatise on gender experience – it’s a fantasy novel, and I had to just relax.

So I’ve decided to worry less about gender. My concern instead will be with writing in depth, well-developed characters where gender is only one of the factors that make up their anatomy. Or, to cut it short, I’ve just decided to worry less about gender. And maybe worry less in general and just do the work. Let’s see where that gets me.

Welcome back to the rodeo, I’m your host, let’s play our game

by Shoshana, posted in Writing Update

It’s been a long time since I posted on this blog. I say that a lot. I’m not going to be saying it much anymore.

Welcome to the relaunch of Wisdom in Silence, my writing blog. You can tell it’s no longer called that. Now, it’s just straight up called Shoshana Kessock. That’s me. From now on, this is going to be my blog about being a freelance writer, game designer and geek girl. I’m going to talk here about what it’s like chasing the dream of publishing in the role-playing industry. I’m going to talk about my experience being accepted into the NYU Grad program in Game Design. I’m going to talk about facing down chronic illness while still trying to publish and deal with school. I’m going to talk about the geek world at large. This is going to be my journey and I’m putting it out here for those who want to read it.

But why, you ask? Why would anyone want to read about this kind of struggle? Well, I’ll tell you, I don’t know for certain that people will. I know that I’ve gotten a lot of questions lately about what I’m doing and how I’m doing it. And I find myself answering a lot of the same questions over and over. What projects are you working on? How’s it going? What’s the update on such-and-such? What do you think about this? So here’s a place where it’s all going to go. Here’s the start:

I’m Shoshana Kessock. I’m twenty-nine. I’m starting graduate school at NYU for game design in a matter of weeks. I’m the creator of Phoenix Outlaw Productions, an independent gaming company out to publish and produce quality game products for the world at large. I run the company with my business partner, Josh Harrison. You’ll hear more about all that in future posts. I’m also writing my first gaming book through Phoenix Outlaw Productions. Some folks may have heard of it from me: it’s called Wanderlust and I’m excited to talk more about it’s development.

I also work freelance as a writer and copy editor for Eschaton Media, which publishes the Dystopia Rising tabletop role-playing book and other products. When I’m not doing that, I’m a full-time staffer on the Dystopia Rising Live-Action Role-Play game out in Sparta, New Jersey. I’m also a freelance blogger who writes for Tor.com where I cover comics, LARP, film and various geekery. When I’m not doing all that, I’m writing a novel as well that I’m three quarters of the way finished with and I’m dedicated to getting published. In between, I spend time with my friends, write short stories, live in Brooklyn, read tarot cards and a mountain of books whenever I can. I am also currently trying to learn to play the harmonica. Because harmonicas are cool.

What I’ve been up to lately includes getting ready for graduate school, making some new friends at Dexcon 2012 (updates for that to come) and got myself picked up to go staff at GenCon 2012 in just a few weeks. I will be attending as part of the staff for First Exposure, the independent gaming play test track run by the staff of Double Exposure. I’m excited for the prospect of play testing what I’ve got for my Wanderlust game at that convention just before school starts, and I’m also excited about a couple of projects that I can’t talk about just yet that are on the horizon.

That’s my life. That’s what you’ll be hearing more about. In between I’ll be posting some Flash Fiction challenges from the glorious Chuck Wendig’s blog (because his challenges make my inner writer do a dance of creative excitement) and I’ll be talking about writing challenges and techniques in general too. This blog will be two parts running tally of my life and two parts exploration of what it is to be a female geek and writer.

Sounds good? I do hope so. From here on out, it’s all shooting for the horizon folks. Stick around, won’t you?

Brand New November, Brand New NaNo

by Shoshana, posted in Writing Update, Writings

November has once again come upon us and it is time for nano to commence. I’ve always been a huge fan of nano and the opportunity that it gives tentative writers to get their fears out in one giant explosion of writing. The question has been presented to me however… Am I past nano and what it can offer me?

In years past Netto has been a great opportunity for me to get past my writers block and focus on one project for one month. There have been many times when I was scared to go forward with a project because it seems too large or too unwillingly. Yet in recent years despite long jags of writers block I haven’t been having the same problem with getting my ideas out. In fact it seems whenever I do sit down to get a project out I’ve been able to produce large bodies of work very quickly.

For example, I decided this month that I was going to forgo NaNo. It was a conscious choice on my part since I was swamped with other projects such as blogging and going to work and beginning the gaming book that I’m writing — which I will speak more about later. However, day before last I sat down to put what I believed was going to be the beginnings of an upcoming project onto paper. I had no intention of starting a new project altogether! My brain apparently had other intentions.

I ended up putting down nearly 20,000 words into a new project that I am calling, for now, “The Lakeside.” I did all that in approximately 36 hours.

At a recent convention that I attended I spoke to a writing editor who asked me why I was still doing nano if I was not having problems producing. I said I enjoyed it and that was the reason that I kept up with the project year after year. I enjoyed the creative spirit and communal support that nano offered. However what she said stuck in my mind. Is nano really only for those folk having trouble producing work?

The fact is, before my 20,000 word jag I was having trouble producing. I was stuck in anxiety-laiden writers block over all the work I wanted to do. I was having difficulty finding the right words to bring my ideas to paper. Nano this month did give me the impetus to go forward and start on a new project once again. Only at this point maybe the 50,000 word word count is not quite a challenge anymore.

I am planning on finishing this project For NaNo this month, whether that means finishing it at the very last minute like I did last year or finishing it in two days as seems to be what might happen. The Lesson I’m going to take away from this is that I don’t need to be hampered by large word goals, nor by anxiety about producing work. I think I’m proving right now that I can be prolific. The trick now is to be more precise with my work. NaNo does teach you to produce a lot of words at once but it does not teach you how to be specific with those words. Right now I need to focus on quality over quantity.

So will I do NaNo next year? I don’t know. But for right now “The Lakeside” has 20,000 words down and it’s only the middle of the month. I started two days ago. Let’s see where this goes.