Writings – Shoshana Kessock

Falling/Burning: Hannah Gadsby, Nanette, and Being A Bipolar Creator

July 12, 2018 by Shoshana, posted in Personal, Speaking Out, Television, Writings

[[Note: trigger warnings for mental illness, bipolar disorder, medication, and some spoilers for Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette.]]

These days, I call it burning, but for most of my life, I called it flying.

It’s that feeling when you’re wrapped up in a writing project so hard you look up, and half a day has gone by. You haven’t moved, you haven’t drunk or eaten or talked to anyone. You work and work until your knuckles hurt, and there are words flowing out of you, and you can’t stop until it’s all done. Then you look up, realize what time it is, and fall over because the words are done for the day and you’ve been doing it. You’ve been flying.

That’s what writing when you’re me feels like.

Well, a lot of the time. Some days it’s just normal. I get up, I do my morning routine (take my meds, get some grub, boop the cat, check my email, mess around on Facebook) and then it’s off to the word mines. And on those days, they are indeed the word mines. I check an outline, I write notes, I putter around, I get the words going however I can, tugging that little mining cart up the hill towards those far-off paragraphs and… y’know, this analogy has gotten away from me. I digress.

Those are the hard days at the job because that’s what it is – writing, like making any art, is a job. It’s craft and talent and passion rolled up into one ball. It’s doing a thing you worked hard to learn to do the best you can. You’re capturing those weird little ideas rolling around in your head and making them into words, then lines, then paragraphs, and somehow they’re all supposed to reach out to someone who reads them and make their brains go POOF, I LIKE THIS. No pressure or anything, writer, just take the ephemeral and translate it onto a page. You make it happen as best as you can.

Then, there are the other days. The days when BLEH becomes BANG. The days when something just clicks and comes roaring down the pipe inside my brain and it’s all I can do to get to my computer because it’s ready to go and that’s it. Get out of the way.

I call it burning these days because that’s what it feels like: like there’s an idea inside me burning its way out. But when I was younger, I called it flying. What I really meant was controlled falling. Like there was a tornado going on and I would leap off something and ride right through the middle of it, all the way up, chasing words. Because that’s what it felt like for me, rolling on through the manic energy that comes with being bi-polar.

There’s a lot of folks who equate the manic energy of being bi-polar with the creative spark that drives artists to brilliance. They point to so many great artists in history who lived with mental illness and say, “there it is, that energy, that’s what made them great!”

Except for so many artists, mental illness didn’t make them great. It made them ill. And if they weren’t careful, it made them gone.

Hannah Gadsby’s blockbuster comedy special “Nanette” was billed as exactly that: a comedy. She was meant to get up on stage, make some jokes, and entertain us all on Netflix. Instead, Gadsby delivered what I can only call a commencement speech for comedians, a bait and switch that took the audience from laughter to silence and ultimately to a standing ovation. Gadsby, a queer comedian with a career going back over ten years, started her performance with a fairly standard routine, drawing in the laughs. Then she started explaining how jokes worked, about how they increased tension and then broke it into laughter.

Then, she stopped breaking the tension. And just rose it higher and higher by telling the truth.

She spoke to her audience about a lot of things. Her family, and what it was like coming out to them. About violence, about triggering subjects. She broke from the funny parts of her routine a little over halfway through and talked about quitting comedy because she was tired of making people like herself, a lesbian still fighting with some deep shame issues, into a punchline. I watched in spell-bound silence as Hannah Gadsby deconstructed comedy to its most basic building blocks and rebuilt them into a soapbox, a grand forum where she read the audience a monologue of pain and vulnerability, her farewell to wisecracks and the opening of perhaps a new chapter of honest, open speaking in her life. She was out to speak her truth, and by the end, I was in awe.

It was somewhere in the middle where she told people to fuck off when telling artists to “feel” for their art that I felt the ground open up beneath me a little and I cried.

vangoghmuseum-s0031V1962-3840 — Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh

She talked about Vincent Van Gogh, the artist who suffered during his life from mental illness, self-medicated, was treated by doctors and struggled to succeed despite his obvious impossible talent due to his sickness. She talked about her knowledge of his life, thanks to her art history degree, and how he only sold one painting his entire life – not because he wasn’t recognized by his community as a genius, but because he struggled to even be part of a community due to his illness.

And I thought of the flying and the hard days at the word mines. I thought about the days when I heard the tornado in my head and couldn’t make the words get to my fingers. I thought about the frustration, the depression, the difficulties talking to people about what it sounded like inside my skull some days when I could barely pay attention because of the rush of words and ideas.

Hannah Gadsby told people artists don’t have to suffer for their art, and I’ll forever thank her for having the guts to stand up and say that to the world. Because I used to believe it was true.

When I was sixteen, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder type 2.

I came from a family that didn’t really get what being bipolar meant. My parents tried to get it, but when I’d do something irresponsible, it was always because I was ‘bad.’ I tried to explain how it was impossible to keep my whirlwind mind straight sometimes. How it was a battle against depression to get up in the morning and go to class. When I flunked in school, I tried to explain why, when I overcharged my credit card on a manic binge, when I cried for days and couldn’t stop. But those were the bad days. And the good days – those were the days I could take on the world, where no one could stop me, where I was manic off my head. I was out of control.

I went to a therapist when my school suggested it to my parents. The therapist took one look at my behavior and referred me to a psychiatrist, a loud and overbearing man who listened to me talk a mile a minute for fifteen minutes, heard my symptoms, and pulled out a giant prescription pad. I started taking the drugs he gave me but received no explanation about what being bipolar really meant. He never explained what behaviors were unusual, or what could be attributed to the illness, or any coping skills or resources to better understand my situation. He gave me pills and saw me every two weeks. I knew almost nothing about what was going on with me but was even enough to realize I needed more information.

So? I went online.

Because my family didn’t know much about bipolar disorder and my doctor wasn’t telling, I learned a lot from the internet. Those were the wild and wooly early days of the internet, when it was the 90’s and everyone was in AOL chat rooms and the world was a wacky, wacky place. It was on the internet I found a community of roleplayers that eventually led me to the career I have today. It was also where I got a LOT of bad advice about mental illness.

I read a lot of stories about people being overmedicated or given the wrong medication. I heard stories about people being committed by their families if they didn’t hide what was wrong with them. But I especially came across the same story over and over from people who had been medicated. “If you go on the drugs,” they said, “the creative drive goes away. You’ll lose that spark inside you. If you want to be an artist, stay away from medication. It’ll kill your art.”

I didn’t believe it. I was taught doctors were to be trusted. And besides, I knew I needed help. So I took the drugs the doctor gave me and fell into the worst confluence of events you could imagine. Because the medication the doctor gave me DID kill my creativity. It also made me sleep too much, have no emotions whatsoever, destroyed my memory, and made me gain tons of weight. And every time I brought this up to my doctor, his answer was to add another pill to balance out the others or up my dose.

I didn’t realize it until later, but I had a bad doctor. What I did know was at the height of this medicine dance, I’d spend my days sleeping, or staring at a television, and feeling nothing at all. I couldn’t even cry. But maybe worst of all, I struggled to create. I couldn’t find that spark inside me like I used to, that flying feeling that gave me inspiration. In the moments when I could feel something, it was the overwhelming terror of going back into that stupor once again.

This went on from the time I was seventeen, when I was so messed up I dropped out of high school, until I was nearly 19. In between, I struggled to get my GED so I could at least get into college and proceeded to flunk there too due to the medication’s impossible weight on my mind. I went through so many ridiculous emotional issues I can’t describe, but all of it was through a curtain of medication so thick I can barely pull up memories from that time.

The times my emotions would push through was during what I discovered later were hypomanic phases, mood swings so strong they butted through the haze and made me wildly unstable. All the while I struggled to get my life in order, and every time I did, it was under a fog of badly managed medication, or through the adrenaline of mania so strong I could barely function. I didn’t understand I was badly medicated, of course. All I knew was everything was falling to pieces, all the time, and I couldn’t feel a solid, real emotion long enough to care.

So in 2002, in one of those moments of emotional lucidity, I made a decision to stop taking my meds. I suddenly thought: the internet is right, this is a horrible, horrible mistake. I trusted my experience and my terror and I stopped taking my meds.

And well, to quote one of my heroines from the time, Buffy:

What followed were ten years of the roughest, rockiest, unbelievably manic, altogether difficult experiences of my life. I had bouts of going back on medication, but would always stop for one reason or another. I’d make excuses but each time it was the same thing: I convinced myself I didn’t feel right on the medication. That I couldn’t feel that creative spark I so relied on as part of my life. I was afraid of going back to that medically-induced haze I’d been in before. I hid from it and kept riding the tornado, every day. And like any tornado, my instability left chaos and destruction in its wake.

I can’t say I regret those ten years. They taught me a lot. I regret a lot of the horrible decisions I made, the people I hurt, the situations I got into where I got ripped up myself. I have memories I’ll never forget, instances of realizing too late I’d gotten into something because of my mania that led ultimately to disaster.

But I remember the creative highs. The way I could just fly like the wind and produce 12,000 words in a night. How I could map out entire novels, series of books, all the things in the world I thought I could create. I wrote papers, read whole book series, stayed up for days on end, played role-playing games from morning until night, and never, ever saw anything wrong with where I was in life. Because I was living that artists life and I thought, hey, this is me. This is who I am.

I know now the truth: that was the illness talking. The living high on life, throwing caution to the wind, tornado voice? Is the manic voice. And unless tempered with medication and coping mechanisms can lead to disaster.

From 2002 until 2012 I remained largely unmedicated. And those ten years are, in hindsight, an unspoken cautionary tale of someone not flying, but falling without recognizing the drop in altitude. A tale of someone on a corkscrew through rough weather, catching fire all the way down.

I went to grad school in 2012 and thank god for so many reasons that I did. It’s not even my education I laud when I think of those years, but a single day in November 2012. I’d only been in classes for two months and already I was starting to lose it from the stress. The day I broke down with a massive anxiety attack after a critique from a teacher, hiccuping with tears and hyperventilating in a bathroom, I walked across the street to the health clinic and got an appointment with a mental health counselor. There, a very nice man named Bob talked to me about my experiences, about what I knew about bipolar disorder.

Bob told me some truth about where I was at and what I needed. He said he was surprised I’d gotten as far as I did going the way I was. He listened to my fears about going on meds and what had happened in the past. Then he calmly explained how he was going to give me medication and we’d work together to find what worked.

The first day I took medication, I woke up in the morning and the tornado was quieter. Not quiet, but less a twisting funnel of noise and more of a loud echo. I called up someone who was then a friend (who had experience with the medication I’d started taking) and broke down crying. I asked him: is this what normal felt like? I had no idea it would get even better.

Six years later, I’ve never been off my medication a single day. And I’ve graduated from grad school, survived a brain surgery and being diagnosed with two serious chronic illnesses, ending up using a wheelchair, running my own business, becoming a writer, and too many personal ups and downs to count. Each of them I tackled with a surety in myself I never could have before, because I was no longer screaming through a tornado all the time. More importantly, I’ve spent those years creating games and writing work I’ve made with deliberateness and careful consideration. When I create, it was no longer controlled falling, but dedicated flight on a controlled course. Well, most of the time.

I won’t say everything became perfect after I started medication because I won’t let blogging make a liar out of me. Being bipolar is a constant system of checks and balances. These days, I fight against needing my medication adjusted a lot, against depression and anxiety, mania and hypomania. I still end up flying some days, sometimes for days at a time, because as time goes on the body changes and you have to adjust to new needs, new doses, new medication.

Coping mechanisms change, life situations go ways you never expected, mania and depression rear their ugly head. But the day I went on medication was one of the greatest days of my life, because it was the day my creative spark stopped becoming an excuse to keep putting up with an illness that was killing me.

I did some research online (now responsibly!) about artists who were known to have fought with mental illness. Google it some time and it’ll be a stark look into some suffering for art you might not know about. People know about Van Gogh, but what about Beethoven and David Foster Wallace, Georgia O’Keefe and Sylvia Plath, Goya and Cobain, Robin Williams and Amy Winehouse. I did research and discovered artists like Mariah Carrey, Demi Lovato, Catherine Zeta Jones, Vivien Leigh, Russell Brand, Linda Hamilton, and of course Carrie Fischer all have/had bipolar disorder. Their stories, their struggles, are well known.

I read books about people theorizing about the connection between mental illness and creativity and shake my head. I don’t need to know the connection, because if there is one, it doesn’t matter to me. I take my medicine and work my craft at the same time because I don’t need to suffer as an artist. I don’t need the mania to take flight and reach inspiration. I can do that on my own.

5628f1c61400002200c7a8d1 — So speaketh the General, the Princess, Carrie Fischer

Mental illness and the struggle against it is one I’ll tackle for the rest of my life. But to quote Hannah Gadsby: “There is nothing stronger than a broken woman who has rebuilt herself.” The day I started on my journey to getting better by taking medication, by denying the world my suffering and instead gave myself permission to live healthier while making art, was the day I started rebuilding myself into the strongest version of me. Every day, one more brick, with every word I write, I build myself higher.

And so I offer a special thanks to Hannah Gadsby, and her brave “Nanette,” for reminding me of how important that choice was to my life. For reminding me I owe nobody my suffering to make what is precious to me, and that a creator doesn’t need to push aside their own mental health to be hailed as an artist. Thank you, Hannah, for your strength. May you find your inspiration wherever you walk.

Disability Erasure And The Apocalyptic Narrative

August 28, 2017 by Shoshana, posted in Criticism, Film, On Writing, Television, Writings

This week hasn’t exactly been a fantastic time for me. Losing a parent can really make you get stuck in a maudlin, even slightly dark frame of mind. So it’s no secret that seeing photos coming out of Hurricane Harvey of elder folks near drowning in a nursing home due to lack of evacuation and inability to move well put me in a foul mood. It also got me thinking of conversations I’ve heard over the years about disability and the end of society.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. You and your friends are sitting around and having some beers, and the conversation turns to the apocalypse. Maybe you’re watching The Walking Dead, or reading Divergent, or even going to your favorite post-apocalypse live action roleplaying game. But in between talking about what happens if Daryl dies on the show and exchanging larp armor suggestions, someone inevitably brings up what they would do in the event of the apocalypse. Doesn’t matter what the apocalypse cause: zombies, an outbreak, Donald Trump. Everyone gets to play the “what would I do in the case of society’s end” game.

I used to indulge in this game myself with my friends. But these days, when the subject comes up, I get very quiet. Because there’s only one answer:

I die.

I’ve read a lot of apocalyptic fiction in my life. From The Stand to Alas, Babylon, I’ve gone through the gamut. It’s a fascinating genre, really, considering what the fall of our civilization would do and what would happen to our plucky band of intrepid protagonists. How would they struggle? Who would survive? I used to identify with the hard-working protagonists, enjoying their constant battles and sacrifices. I, like so many others, put myself into the perspective of the struggling hero. I never thought I’d be one of the people left behind. The reality is, however, I’d be one of those who probably perished in the first few days/weeks/months, the footnotes in the Roland Emmerich movie who isn’t even in the credits with a name, who stares at the incoming giant wave or alien attack with the defeated, accepted resolution that this is the inevitable end.

As a disabled woman, disaster epics, apocalypse fiction, and post-apoc tales aren’t a vicarious thrill for me anymore. Theoretical zombie apocalypse escape plan BS sessions with friends aren’t amusing anymore. They’re an exercise in facing my mortality.

I grew up thinking I could handle anything. I was a young woman who largely lived out of my backpack, ready to grab it and go on a regular basis. When I read about characters in end of the world stories, like The Passage, The Road, Swan Song, or any of the countless others en vogue for the last thirty years, I always put myself into the head of the protagonist. I thought in their situation, I’d strap on my best sneakers, grab supplies, make sure I had my friends and cat food, and survive, me and my cat and my friends/family, together.

The reality of this vicarious thought exercise changed dramatically as I developed serious health problems. Chronic health issues like mine require continuous medical care, including a regiment of medication three times a day. Prescriptions, of course, run out, and when the corner pharmacy has been annihilated by a horde of zombies, there’s no more medication to keep me alive. Within days of running out of pills, I’d end up in some serious trouble. A lack of my painkillers would send me into serious, dangerous detox, while the lack of my endocrine medication would lead to a complete collapse of body systems. Within days, I’d be suffering. Within a week, I’d probably be dead.

And that, dear readers, is without considering the difficulties of locomotion for me in a wheelchair during a societal breakdown. I have difficulty navigating the crowds at New York Comic Con, or walking through New York City due to potholes and breaks in the sidewalk. Imagine off-roading in my wheelchair during a hectic evacuation, either pushed by one of my friends/family/a stranger or riding in the electric wheelchair until the battery runs out. I think about the protest I went to after the Eric Garner shooting, where we marched up the middle of 6th avenue. Two buses blocked our way, and three people had to stop to lift my wheelchair over the tiny gap between vehicles. Such a small thing, but in an emergency so deadly.

This personal look into how reliant I am on society to stay alive has been an eye-opener for me. In a world were destabilization is so much closer than we ever thought possible, I look for solace to literature to relax, and realize how many of the narratives I enjoyed before leave a bitter taste in my mouth. I reread The Stand and came to Stephen King’s chapter where he outlined all the people who died in the collapse of society post- Captain Tripps. And after so many of them, he wrote: “No great loss.” It always gave me the shivers. I’d be one of those people, probably, slowly dying in the face of the end. No adventure to go meet Mother Abigail. Just toodles, and hoping my life didn’t earn me the “no great loss” title in the end.

And so it brought me back to the inherent problem about post-apocalyptic narratives: they are, by nature and design, ableist in the extreme. Apocalyptic fiction doesn’t just embrace the erasure of the disabled and medically compromised, it normalizes their obliteration. It presents stories where we’ve re-embraced survival of the fittest as the only moniker and lionizes those who overcome hardship through leaving behind the injured and ill.

Worse, these stories accept the death of those who are disabled as not only the norm, but as a heroic sacrifice to the survival of the healthy, a gift the disabled and ill can bestow on their fellows. Most of these stories have at least one or two examples of people who commit suicide to keep the disabled or ill person from becoming a drain on resources, or to keep them from suffering too long. While people battle furiously over things like doctor assisted suicide in the real world, they’re willing to accept disabled folks taking themselves out of the equation as an inevitable, even noble, deed in society collapse fiction. And it says something very eerie about how people look at the disabled in these stories:

In a stable society, the disabled are tolerated, if not welcomed. In the face of disaster, they are a liability, and one to be excised for ease of the able-bodied.

There are exceptions to that narrative, stories that stand out for the characters willing to stand up for those less able. One of my favorite scenes from the first season of The Walking Dead comes when Rick and his band of friends encounter what they first believe to be a group of thugs in Atlanta. The scene is uncomfortable in that Rick and his (mostly) white friends immediately size up the other group, made up of mostly people of color, as a threat, with the narrative implying they believe they’re gang-bangers and criminals. (They’re known as the Vatos gang).

nursing-home2_480x270 — Addressing casual racism AND ableism. Why I fell in love with The Walking Dead.

However, the story flips the whole thing on its head when we discover the ‘thugs’ are actually protecting a building full of the elderly and infirm. The Vatos are cooks, janitors, and family members of the elderly who refused to abandon the patients when the able-bodied staff fled. They are willing to face the hordes of the undead to protect the elderly who cannot flee easily, even in the heart of besieged Atlanta.

Logan 2 — Logan cares for Professor Xavier despite both physical and mental health issues.

This caregiver narrative is often absent from apocalyptic fiction, as the notion of care of those less able is relegated to characters deemed salvageable or valuable to society. Protagonists will focus on the rescue of children over those who are disabled, seeing them as the future of society, while those who are injured or disabled might be a drain. Only those disabled characters who are seen as highly valuable are fought for and preserved, such as in the case of Mother Abigail in The Stand, wheelchair-bound Vriess in Aliens 4, Professor Xavier in Logan, or even Bran in Game of Thrones (which can be considered an apocalyptic tale considering the White Walkers invasion). These characters require effort to be expended to keep them alive but are almost always preserved only because their abilities are deemed too highly valuable to lose. Otherwise, care is often withheld or deemed a drain.

furiousa-602x366 — Furiosa: the heroine we need and deserve

What’s often frustrating in these narratives is the way adaptive or assistive devices are treated, as if they are equally burdensome and do not allow characters to navigate the world with greater ease. Characters who could continue to be included in narratives are often set aside or sacrificed because other characters don’t even bother to seek out assistive devices like braces, crutches, or wheelchairs. This makes characters who utilize such devices so important in fiction. A prime example of a character whose assistive device is included but never overly emphasized is Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road, whose missing arm is replaced by a metal one. She is a prime example of a disabled heroine who is not only not marginalized, but who thrives as the movie’s protagonist.

hershel — Hershel took over Dale’s amputation storyline on the TV series after Dale was killed the previous season.

I particularly appreciated Dale in The Walking Dead comics for this reason. Originally able-bodied when he joined Rick’s group at the beginning, Dale (spoiler alert) loses a leg during the course of the flight from the zombies, and though it gives him trouble, he remains a part of the group. (In the television series, the storyline is transplanted onto Hershel). Seeing someone with mobility issues still included as part of the group as opposed to being discarded was a major sticking point for me in loving Kirkman’s comic and eventually the TV series.

The-100-season-2-episode-4-camp-Raven — Raven in the Arcadia camp post-injury.

Another fantastic example is Raven from The 100. The former space-dwelling engineer becomes badly injured during the course of the show, her leg and back permanently damaged. Though she can walk with the help of a leg brace, she is slowed down and in constant pain. Raven struggles with her new challenges, considers ending her own life, and ultimately faces her new disability status with a grim finality, realizing that at any moment she could lose her life due to her limitations. Still, she survives each season with determination, supported and bolstered by her friends, who do not let her give into depression. In fact, few characters in the show are as resourceful or vital as Raven, who is supported by others in her role in the community. Raven is a wonderful example of a narrative that embraces the disabled, rather than obliterates them.

Yet there are more stories which sweep away the disabled than embracing them. And what’s worse, the idea of the disabled being abandoned is lionized, given a sort of solemn acceptance. It’s known the disabled need to be forgotten, left behind. The able-bodied in the stories often embrace how painful and awful it is to lose someone because of their medical situation or disability, but largely move on with a sense of acceptance. It’s accepted, of course, that the fittest move on, and don’t try to waste resources on their differently abled friend. There are countless scenes where someone must be sacrificed to help the rest of the group survive, and more often than not it is the cruel “I tell it like it is” character who points out the disabled/ill person as a drain on resources who should be chosen. And though the others moralize, in the end, they often agree. The message becomes clear: the differently abled are expendable.

More often than not, these scenes include some kind of noble sacrifice moment, where the disabled/injured/ill person looks deep into the heroes eyes and asks to be left behind so they can help the group. They stop fighting, stop trying to survive, ending the drain they put on resources with solemn acceptance, the last heroic gesture they can make. This is often mirrored in zombie stories when a single person is bitten and they calmly pick up a weapon to end their lives, the generous actions of a person trying not to inflict their sickness on others. Yet while some stories have heroes fighting to save the zombie-infected person, few have heroes fighting to keep their diabetic friend alive.

Go-on-without-me — “Leave me, Master Luke!” Even C-3P0 in *Star Wars* has that disabled martyr complex.

An example of a scene that faces down this issue comes from The Stand. King introduces Stu Redman as our everyday hero, a caring soul who becomes the heart of the survivors on their way across the country to meet the magical Mother Abigail. In the first scene of Part 3 of the TV series, Stu is elbow deep in a man’s guts, trying to remove a burst appendix on a cold concrete floor. Stu is no doctor but does his best without anesthetic and with nothing but a medical textbook to guide him. And though his patient dies, Stu at least attempts the operation rather than let the ill man die without a fight.

redman1 — Stu attempts an appendectomy in The Stand Part 3.

This instance, however, just like the zombie bite, is an example of an onset illness, meant in the narrative to convey the fragility of human health when there are no hospitals, no safety nets for the often changeable human condition. But more chronic, ongoing illnesses are treated much differently in these stories, often signaling an accepted death sentence with no attempt at treatment.

Physical disabilities might be badly treated in apocalyptic fiction, but equally marginalized in these stories are those with mental illness. Already often badly used in fiction, the mentally ill are often portrayed as not only a drain on society but a danger to those around them. Those with mental illness or neuro-atypical status become an outlying wildcard in the apocalyptic survivor stories, playing the role of simple sidekicks, quirky but unstable comedic relief, or else hampering burdens to the survival of the group. While these stories highlight the heroes often suffering from things like PTSD and depression, rarely are conditions like these treated as illnesses to be addressed. Instead, they are dangerous shifts in personality to be treated with “tough love” scenes as other survivors cajole the character to get over it, get stronger, move on. Those that don’t are often killed off, a victim of their own emotional instability.

Those portrayed with chronic, less environmentally-contributed mental illnesses are usually treated far worse in the stories. Apocalypse stories often include someone with mental illness to throw in the magical crazy prophet trope or the unstable person who will endanger the group. Rarely is their mental illness addressed as treatable, or even manageable, and the ‘crazy’ character often becomes a casualty of the story, perishing due to losing control of themselves to their ‘madness.’

Defiance - Season 2 — Pilar McCawley as played by Linda Hamilton

A well-explored version of this story happened in the TV show Defiance. Set in a post-alien invasion Earth, new frontiersman Rafe McCawley tells his children their mother Pilar died rather than admit he left her behind due to her mental illness. After society fell apart, Pilar could no longer get treatment for her bipolar disorder and became erratic. Rather than face handling an unstable Pilar, Rafe takes his children and leaves. Pilar survives, however, and later comes back to reunite with her family. She becomes a villain of the show, however, as her bipolar disorder makes her do inappropriate things like, oh, kidnap her daughter’s half-alien baby. But while the show attempts to show characters empathizing with Pilar’s situation, it also showcased the show’s protagonists turning on Pilar, calling her crazy and eventually killing her while she was in the throes of her mania.

Her death in the show too closely mirrored the violence so often perpetrated on the mentally ill in our world when they act out inappropriately. And this is one of the good examples of well-explored mental illness characters. Many others are far, far worse.

It’s no secret that fiction of any kind reflects the anxieties of the times. In the 50’s it was the body snatchers, mirroring the fear of invasion and infiltration by the Russians. In the 70’s and 80’s, it was concerns over rampant consumerism and wanton behavior that bred our slasher film fascination, and the 2000’s are all about fears of society collapsing in the face of global terror and societal instability. Yet what does it say about our society as a whole when our fiction is not only about people trying to survive such collapses but embraces survival of the fittest as the rubric for that fiction’s heroic journey?

Too often the disabled are set aside in our society, considered burdens and drains on resources. Yet while most at least show basic discomfort with the marginalization of the disabled, our apocalypse fiction envisions futures where the disabled not only don’t exist but go heroically to their deaths so as not to be a bother in times of trouble. The concept smacks of an insidious undercurrent of near eugenics-level categorization of the disabled and chronically ill most would find distasteful when called out in the open. No one wants to admit they accept the disabled as a burden. Yet there it is, in the stories about our most difficult times. In those stories, the disabled are deprioritized and erased from existence, sacrificed at the feet of the able.

I’ve stopped indulging as much in apocalyptic fiction lately. My own medical status has made it difficult to enjoy stories in which I would be annihilated pretty quickly, or else considered selfish for trying to survive. Instead, I look for stories like The 100 when people with disabilities are equally valued and fought for, and not just treated with pity but embraced as integral to the continued survival for their skills, experience, and contributions to society.

I envision if there was a zombie apocalypse, I’d be there, whacking zombies in the head with something and then zooming along in my wheelchair until my medicine runs out. There’d be no noble “save yourself!” from me unless necessary due to circumstance, and not because I would be a ‘burden.’ Instead, I’d strive to be a comfort and an ally to my friends and those around me, contributing to the whole as I do in my everyday life, right up until the end. Would that the fiction I consume had the same confidence in me as I try to have in myself.

Dresden Lives: How We Chased A Dream And Made It Real

April 18, 2014 by Shoshana, posted in Game Design, LARP, Writings

Today, like any other day, I’ve got about a dozen different windows open on my desktop. I’ve got emails for work, school, blog posts, prep for job applications, and tons of little things to do. But on the very top of that pile of work is what I anticipate will be the last round of edits for the project that has had me occupied for some time. And I’m excited to tell you about it.

Let me tell you about Dresden Lives.

Dresden Lives is the live action role-play adaptation of the Dresden Files RPG by Evil Hat Productions. I’ve been lucky enough to work with Evil Hat to bring this product to you alongside my fantastic writing partner Josh Harrison and our editor, the orbital platform of awesome himself John Adamus. The game is adapted from the Fate Core mechanics to bring that system’s focus on telling awesome, character-driven stories to the LARP sphere. Plus, we worked very hard at adapting the Dresdenverse so that the game would give players a chance to have their own adventures in that rich urban fantasy universe.

But more than tell you about the game itself right now, I want to tell you a little bit about how this project came to be.

It all started four and a half years ago. I was GMing a tabletop session of The Dresden Files RPG, fresh out of the box from it’s Evil Hat release. I had been lucky enough to meet the Evil Hat team at GenCon the year before and been involved in the beta tests of the game, so I was super excited when I had the books in my hands. It was during that first session with the players that the idea dawned on me: The Dresden Files needs to be a LARP.

I’d been a long time LARPer before that, having started in 2005. Like many other LARPers out there, I cut my teeth on White Wolf’s World of Darkness games when I first started out. In fact, most of the games run out of the group known as NYC LARP back then were White Wolf games. They fed into that urban fantasy/supernatural bent that I loved, and I adored first Changeling: The Dreaming, then (my favorite) Mage: the Ascension, and finally Vampire: The Masquerade. It was after playing V:tM however that I started to feel dissatisfied with the themes of the WoD. In most World of Darkness games, you played a monster of some kind constantly at war with themselves in a world that would grind you down and destroy you, if you didn’t destroy yourself and everyone around you first. that was certainly my experience when playing V:tM, and I became pretty bored with the idea of playing a power-hungry creature of the night. I was aching for a game that, at it’s core, had hope for the power of humanity to trump over their worst instincts and be the damn heroes.

Satyrs are only one of the kinds of denizens of the Dresdenverse. (Photo by: Shoshana Kessock)

And there was the world I was looking for, inside of the Dresden Files. In Harry Dresden, I found a very human, relatable character who struggled to maintain his humanity while accruing massive power and in the midst of often horrifying circumstances. It was a story that was unabashedly about the price of being a hero, but it was laiden with hope, friendship, laughs and vulnerability that made it relatable. The Dresdenverse could be dark – oh God, some of the things Harry fights are truly terrifying – but it could also be beautiful, and awe inspiring, and difficult, and wonderful. That balance of the supernatural horror and the heroic was the very kind of LARP world I wanted to see exist. I wanted to see players get the chance to fight the forces of darkness and be heroic. That’s what Dresden meant to me.

The project started out as a fan project, just a bunch of LARPers doing a thing at conventions, but I always had it in my head that I wanted to bring the system to Evil Hat once it was done. It took four years of play testing at the Double Exposure conventions, iterating on the rules with every game and coming up with ways to break the system so we could test it’s limits. We wrote hundreds of pages of text, pre-generating characters for sometimes sixty players a convention. We ran games with faerie queens, dragons and Denarians, just to see what that would do. We had to answer questions like, “What happens if a dragon picks up a Denarian coin?” (The answer was, PLEASE GOD DO NOT LET THAT HAPPEN IN OUR GAME!) We had every kind of Dresden denizen in our games from emissaries of gods to cannibalistic changeling. We even had were-goats (which I’ll never hear the end of for the rest of my life).

1801270_10152216089070115_1404827622_o — Combat in Dresden Lives. Well, not really – then they stopped and pulled out their cards! (Photo by: Kate Eckert)

Along the way, I was lucky enough to team up with Josh Harrison, whose dedication to snappy pop culture references and a hell of an amazing talent as a writer and LARP designer made him the perfect choice for this project. We became the foundations together of Phoenix Outlaw Productions, reborn from just a group of LARPers running things at conventions to an actual company out to produce games to share with the masses. And we were fortunate enough to forge a friendship and writing relationship with John Adamus, whose work on Fate Core as well as on Evil Hat’s Dresden line was integral to us finding our way. Some members of the team came and went, but in the end with the help of fantastic people like Justin Reyes, Kat Schoynheder and Nicolas Hornyak, we’ve seen the convention games grow and flourish. (And for that we also owe a thanks to Avonelle Wing and Vincent Salzillo from Double Exposure for their constant support).

Wizards, police and minor talents - oh my! — Wizards, police apprentices and minor talents – oh my! (Photo by: Shoshana Kessock)

For four years we made this project go on the power of devotion, passion and love because in the end, we adored the project and the game world. And we were devoted to giving our New York/New Jersey players at the Double Exposure conventions the best experience we could. We have since expanded to running games in Massachusetts (InterCon) and Los Angeles (WyrdCon) and saw our player base grow to over one hundred and fifty in the tri-state area alone. Then, once we’d stress tested and iterated and beat our heads against the system for ages, we sat down with Evil Hat Productions. The rest is, well, history now. And there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t pinch myself and say ‘this is actually happening.’

Recently, Evil Hat opened up playtest applications and have received an overwhelming groundswell of support for those interested in helping us test things out. They’ll join the over one hundred and fifty players in the NY/NJ area plus those at the other cons that have seen the system already. We’re so excited to see what people say, and to put together this book.

I wanted to share this story with all those out there who are as excited, to talk a little bit about how this project happened. Moreover, I’m sharing this because I want those who are excited about a LARP project, who are really passionate and believe that their project should come about, to consider this: you can do it. It was always such a long shot to me that I could get this done, that we could put this together. But with the help and support of great people and a lot of hard work and smart choices, what used to be called the Unofficial Dresden Files LARP is now Dresden Lives. It can happen. If you chase it. After all, isn’t that kind of what the Dresden Files is about? Chasing what you think is right?

So go on. I believe in you. Make awesome things. And meanwhile, join us in playing awesome characters in one of the best urban fantasy settings around. You totally want an excuse to yell “FUEGO!” at a game. You know you do.

Flash Fiction: Uncle Henry’s Study

June 27, 2013 by Shoshana, posted in Flash Fiction, Writings

Every once in a while, I’m intrigued by a Flash Fiction challenge on Chuck Wendig’s blog. So this week, you had to pick random elements by dice roll from his lists to make your story. I managed to pull:

Alternate History
Dying Earth
A locked door
A perilous journey

So all these together had me create “Uncle Henry’s Study” – enjoy!

Mother packed my suitcase before dawn. There was only room for a few things, so she wouldn’t let me choose. She selected blouses and stockings, skirts and even a pair of knickers I wore for gardening. She put in an extra pair of sensible shoes. “There will be no need for patent leather, I think,” she said thoughtfully, and set aside my Sunday best. She packed my best sweater too and brought down my thick woolen coat.

“It will be cold,” she explained, “where you’ll be going.”

I sat at the edge of my bed, still in my pajamas.

“Tell me again,” I whispered. The pre-dawn darkness made me unwilling to disturb the silence. “Tell me again what it’ll be like.”

Mother stopped packing and sat beside me. She was a refined woman before the war started, the daughter of an army colonel who grew up near Kensington Gardens in London. She had met my father at a military luncheon and chose to be a lieutenant’s wife, breaking my grandfather’s heart. Grandfather was cavalry once upon a time; my father, so thoroughly modern, was in the Royal Air Corp, far away now at war.

Mother smoothed down her skirt. “It will be cold,” she repeated, “and very dark. That is what we’ve been told. I cannot tell you more except that. It’s all a bit of a mystery.”

I didn’t want to think of the cold. England could be cold, of course, but the way she said it you’d think I was going to the Arctic Circle itself. Perhaps I was. Nobody would tell me.

I shook my head then. “I don’t see why you can’t come with me.”

My mother squeezed my hand. “We’ve been over this, dove. During the blitz, the order is to evacuate only children. Perhaps I’ll be able to follow after.” She stood up then and walked to the door. “There’s enough room for you to pick one special belonging and bring it with you. Just one. Change your clothes and bring your things downstairs.” Her voice thickened for a moment. “And don’t forget extra socks. There should be some in the cupboard.”

Once she was gone, I stared around my room. What did one bring when you were abandoning home during war? We were not as wealthy as grandfather but I didn’t lack for belongings, each with their own memory.

I dressed first as a way to drag the process out. I knew that I should pick something adult, something I could grow with and grow into. Who knew when I would return, or what would be left when I did? I remembered the bombed out buildings in town, the craters where someone’s life had once been. I thought about my china tea pot smashed as an explosion flattened our home, or my dance shoes burned in the raging fire afterwards. I wanted to save it all.

Instead, I chose the smallest of things. It was an old fountain pen, passed down from my grandmother to my mother and to me. It was ornately decorated with swirling leaves around an ivory body. It was easily the smallest but most precious thing I owned. It slipped easily into the pocket of my coat. This way, I could fit more socks.

I finished dressing and tiptoed, coat over my arm, downstairs. I could hear mother talking with Uncle Henry in the foyer. Uncle Henry worked for the Royal Applied Sciences Division, whatever that meant. It was Uncle Henry who brought home the gas masks when the Germans had dropped poison on London. It was Uncle Henry who brought home the radiation pills just before we had evacuated the city to the house here in Kent. We were some of the only people to have them when the Bomb flattened London, so many miles away. I remember the words he said after the screams on the radio died in a hail of static. Nuclear, they said.

“They are death,” he had intoned, “all of them. They have destroyed the world.”

Now he stood, his hands clasped behind him, at the bottom of the stairs.

“If the others knew we were sending her, instead of Norton’s children,” Uncle Henry was saying, “he’d have a screaming fit. But she’s the one, Helen. Your little girl will survive this.”

“Is there no chance for the rest of us?” Mother asked.

Uncle Henry’s face fell then. “It’s hard to say. But the Germans have deployed their Thul Society men with some kind of poison in the water. It’s only a matter of time. Their top madman wants nothing but to end it all. And it’s happening soon.”

I leaned forward, my breath caught. The end? The stair under my foot creaked and Uncle Henry looked up. His smile was gentle.

“Lucy,” he said quietly, “I suppose you heard.”

I didn’t answer, but threw myself into Mother’s arms.

“I won’t go,” I said fiercely.

Mother took my chin in her hands. “You will,” she pressed. She looked over her shoulder then, at the door just under the stairs. It had been locked as long as I’d been in the Kent House. It was Uncle Henry’s study and we’d been forbidden to try and get in. I had been horribly curious, but now my knees grew weak.

Upstairs, I heard feet thump on a hallway riser. All three of us froze.

“Bollocks,” Uncle Henry exclaimed, “Norton’s awake.” He took my hand then and tugged me down the hall. “We have to go, Lucy. Now!”

“Mother!” I exclaimed.

Uncle Henry pulled me from her arms so hard I nearly dropped my suitcase. He produced a brass key from his pocket and lead me to the locked door, thrusting the key into the lock. Upstairs I could hear angry voices and feet approaching on the stairs. My heart thudded in my chest and I heard in my ears again: she’s the one. Your little girl will survive this.

The key turned in the lock; I looked back one last time. My mother, ever the lady, stood poised at the foot of the stairs. “Remember your socks,” she called after me, “it will be cold!”

But as Uncle Henry opened the door, I heard her whisper, “I love you, dove.” And I was forever glad that those were her last words to me, and not some nonsense about the weather.

By: Shoshana Kessock – June 27, 2013

Get ‘Lost’: The Lost Anthology for Charity!

February 13, 2013 by Shoshana, posted in Writing Update, Writings

“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.

Gah, all of the words! (A New Semester Update)

February 3, 2013 by Shoshana, posted in Game Design, Writings

So recently I learned an important thing about myself: I am the kind of person who likes to talk but hates to write about herself. Check out how infrequently I post here and you’ll see exactly how much I hate it. I keep writing posts that say ‘soon I will update you on all the good things’ which… I don’t do. Why? Because I’m out doing the good things and don’t like talking about it. But a friend suggested that being more front-facing about my process of work wouldn’t be bad, so here goes.

I’m back in the saddle after winter break in between my first and second semesters of grad school and the NYU Game Center looks exactly the same as when I left it. In between I spent holidays with friends, went to San Diego with family, came home to run an overarch weekend at Dystopia Rising (and there will be another post to cover that experience, I promise!) and then went on to Orlando. Day one back reminded me that no matter how much vacation you have, once you’re back in the saddle it’s like you never went away.

My classes for this semester stand as one in human-computer interface, one in collective narrative, an upper-level game design and an upper level studio class and (wait for it), a class on Fandoms. I know! I get to study why people become fans and how they go about fanning (is that a thing that doesn’t involve, y’know, actual things to blow air on your face with?) and the culture of fandoms as they are. I’m fascinated by everything I’m taking classes in, and excited as heck to dive right in.

Speaking of things I’m diving into, this is going to also be the year of ALL OF THE THINGS. I’ve got a writing update post in me for things I’m working on plus coverage on the conventions that I’ll be attending. Because I, good readers, will be going to a bunch of conventions this season and doing a LOT of talking about how awesome games are and especially how awesome women in games are.

So here’s to the new year, and I leave you with a quote that I tossed up on Twitter a little while ago. I woke up from a nap and had a killer idea to make this novel concept I had even better. Except, of course, I’m in middle of a few other projects. So instead of putting it away, I wrote it down. The quote I came up with is: “A good writer doesn’t turn down a good idea, but instead says, ‘you wait your turn’.”

Happy February folks! It’s going to be a busy one.

Vacation and Completing A Project

January 18, 2013 by Shoshana, posted in Game Design, Writings

There is nothing more satisfying than completing a project.

Used to be in the old days I’d be afraid of finishing something. If you finish a project, you have to let it out loose into the world and talk about it and let other people see it. That used to be frightening. These days, there is nothing more that I enjoy than crossing off a project on my list of things to do and going to have a celebratory cup of coffee. (Because really, when is there not an excuse to have a cup of coffee?)

The other day I completed No Exit for Evil Hat Productions. It’s one of the stretch goals for the meteoric Kickstarter that’s under a month to competition. It’s been a joy to work on and now I’m looking forward to poking at more things with Fate Core. Because I’ll say this, it wasn’t just fun to write – writing No Exit gave me tons of ideas. I have been kicking them around in a notebook for a bit. The sky’s the limit with a system like Fate Core and my friends are going to get bombarded with ideas for a tabletop game or six in the next few weeks.

That is, when I get back from drinking butter beer at Harry Potter World.

Vacation is a heck of a thing. I took the opportunity to go in between semesters of graduate school and I’m going to nerd it up at the giant Hogwarts in Orlando for a week. And, y’know, sit next to a pool in the sun and write. Because a change of scenery does ya good.

In other news, I’ve also picked up my novel again last night to finish it. Because, as I said before, I’m not scared of finishing things any longer. Consider that a lesson learned from 2012 — writing is the act of bringing something into the world. And if you don’t let it free, it hasn’t really been completed. I’m not going to be scared of that any longer. Hey 2013, let’s see how much I can get done.

FATE CORE: “No Exit” As Fate Psychological Horror

December 7, 2012 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.

Flash Fiction: Elderberry Wine

November 21, 2012 by Shoshana, posted in Flash Fiction, Writings

Here’s a little flash fiction update from me, inspired by my hero Chuck Wendig for a quick mid-week writing excursion. He’s my hero by the way because of an amazing post on his blog about quitting versus failing that I suggest for ANYONE to read. Like anyone, creative types or not. Anyway, the constraint of this week’s Flash Fiction challenge is that the work has to be 100 words or under. This one hit just 100 words. Enjoy!

Elderberry Wine by Shoshana Kessock

Elderberry wine tastes like piss. It made the cheese taste like moth-eaten socks.

“You’ll marry me,” Adam said. He handed me a piece of meat, which I nibbled; more socks now. Meaty socks.

I stood up. The trees overhead swayed, the wind brisk and cold. I fought down the urge to scratch my leg where an ant had crawled.

“You got the wrong meat, the wrong cheese to go with it, and the most god awful wine,” I accused. I dusted off my skirt. “The next time you want to ask a girl to marry you? Try asking correctly.”

All Of The Games: Game Design, Graduate School and Me

September 15, 2012 by Shoshana, posted in Game Design, Writings

It’s been a long time. I shouldn’t have left without word. Can you ever forgive me?

If you’re still reading, perhaps you have. Maybe you’ve put aside the long wait for this post and wait instead to hear what has been going on in my life. For that, dear reader, I appreciate your patience and would reward you with cookies if the internet had the ability to send real baked-goods thru wifi. But sadly, since I can’t email a brownie, I’ll just give you the low-down on the world as according to me.

Life has exploded exponentially lately. I was accepted earlier this year into the NYU Game Center MFA program for Game Design for it’s inaugural class. For those of you not familiar, Tisch School of the Arts within NYU has a program that studies games of all kinds. It’s built around the Game Center, which is its library of games that students can come in and play as part of an ongoing project to study games as a growing media and job market. This year was the first time they expanded the program to include a graduate program and yours truly was accepted. I’m humbled and ultimately boggled by the fact that I’m studying under amazing teachers like Jesper Juul, Eric Zimmerman, Katherine Isbister and the head of department, Frank Lantz. I applied on a wing and a prayer and now I’m studying game design and theory at one of the best schools in the world! For a while it was hard for me to fathom – the whole thing felt very surreal.

Then school started and surreal disappeared when the work-load began. Graduate school is, no joke, probably one of the biggest challenges I’ve ever had educationally. The work load is pretty intense and, along with the other projects I’m working on, keep me very busy. But I’m designing some great games with some amazing people, all to make me a better designer for my future career, so how can I complain? I’ve met some amazing fellow students so far and we’ve jumped head-first into the work. Already we wrote a kind of cracked-out version of the card game war called WarSlayerz (the Z is very important) and I’m learning how to work on digital games via platforms like GameMaker and Unity. The digital aspect of the program is the most daunting for me, as I’ve never done computer programming at all in my life, and I’m struggling to grok a completely different language to translate game design ideas into little digital dudes. I’m also making sure to rep pretty hard the wonderful world of analog gaming, especially the live action role-play community and their importance as an evolving international media. I’ve been up, burning the midnight oil to do all my work and my other projects outside of school.

Speaking of those other projects, I’m still blogging over at Tor.com even though my posts have slowed down distinctly. GenCon rolled right into a LARP weekend and then into orientation and graduate school, which effectively tore through my writing schedule. I’ve recently taken on reviewing NBC’s newest post-apoc show Revolution for Tor.com and I’ve got a few more posts coming out. I enjoy working for Tor.com so much and the chance to do review and criticism is something I don’t want to give up while going through school. There might, however, be a wee slow down from the posting schedule I had before.

That’s also because, outside of the Game Center, I’m working hard at developing my tabletop RPG game Wanderlust. In the coming weeks there will be more information about it, including the launch of my company Phoenix Outlaw Production’s website, the exciting announcement of new talent being added to our company’s team, and even a schedule of publication and (hopefully) our Kickstarter. We’ll have a Facebook page all set up for updates too that’ll get put up here with commentary from my partner in crime Josh Harrison and more articles here about how things are going development-wise for the game. I believe it’s important to keep folks in the loop about how a game dev is going so they can see the process from the bottom up, and I’m excited as hell to share the development of this game with you. I’m working with a fantastic editor as well in John Adamus and he’s been fabulous at helping me turn this book into a space-epic reality.

I also recently broke through one of my most challenging fears by completing and submitting a short story to an anthology (which I’ll be writing about in a future post). That plus some other freelance work, my storytelling for Dystopia Rising New Jersey and preparation for Double Exposure’s Metatopia convention has kept me busy. When do I sleep? Let’s just say the last few weeks has been full of Red Eyes (lots of espresso!) and power naps.

So that’s the lay of the land, sports fans. I’m working hard to produce what writing I can in both the game design field and in plain creative writing. But I don’t want to forget that I have this blog too and it’s chock full of space for commentary and articles I want to put together too. In the upcoming weeks you’ll hear more about lots of nerdy things, including stuff I’ve read that is keeping me sane throughout the hectic work weeks and some views on writing too. Meanwhile, I’m staring down a pile of work with my name on it so I’m signing off.

Until next time, writers and gamers and geeks out there – don’t let the man get you down. Or the beagle. Those beagles are deceptively shifty.