Life, the Universe...You Know the Rest....

I'm here attending the 2015 edition of the Utah-based writing conference "Life, The Universe, and Everything." It's been a good experience, as it is every year. This year, there've been some special highlights, though. They've even had a couple of panel discussions that are RPG-related, although there were some more technically-oriented discussions at the same time that took precedence. Everything I've heard, though, has been applicable to all forms of writing, whether it be sci-fi, fantasy, romance, general fiction, or RPG writing. If you're ever in the area around Valentine's Day, I'd recommend it, and do so highly.

Plus, if you let me know, I'd love to sit down and have a bite to eat with you too.

Honestly? As fun as my experiences have been at the Salt Lake Comic-Cons and the local FantasyCon, I'd take LTUE any day. Honestly. Granted, it's a different type of event, with a different focus, but the inspiration and education I get here every year is amazing.

Some of the highlights:

• Michaelbrent Collings espousing "Because the dog!" as a motive for villainy. (Let me 'splain: the hero is standing with his friend with the villain of the piece walks up, punches the hero's friend in the face, and yells, "Because the dog!" before fleeing. (In response to the hero's friend harming/killing the villain's pet.)
  
• perhaps the greatest summary of the War in Heaven and the casting out of Heaven of Lucifer and his angels. Not everyone in the room appreciated it due to a severe case of "stick-up-the-rear-itis"...but then, those who have ears to hear....
  
• Listening to a PhD in economics discuss the economics of Super-Villainy, including various types of "rewards" and the motivations behind collecting said awards.
  
• Hearing Howard Tayler, Michaelbrent Collings, and L.E. Modessit debate Sanderson's First Law.
  Some additional highlights of this discussion: the idea that magic systems should be AWESOME/interesting/wonderful. (They don't need to be AWESOME, says Modessit, because subtle is sometimes more effective. It was then clarified that AWESOME in this context meant interesting, or even more exact: interesting. Also: that it should always exact something from the user/caster.
  
• A frank presentation by Sandra Tayler, Howard's wife, on how to "Break through Blockages," whether that be your Inner Critic, your Voice of Perfection, your kids/work/church/social obligations, or your fear of failure. She also discussed how to experiment with your writing process, to learn what worked best for you. Most importantly, perhaps, was her observation that you need to learn who, in your life, feeds the "voices" and who in your life is your ally against the "voices." Oh yeah, also that most "time complaints" are simply masks for a deeper blockate: in 10 years, what memory is going to satisfy you more--playing "Plants vs. Zombies"? or writing something/being creative?
  
  But the greatest highlights so far? In ascending order:
  
• The official debut of the horror anthology Old Scratch and Owl Hoots containing my real-life alter-ego's first official published work. If you haven't had a chance to pick up a copy, Umm.... Why not? I'm serious.... My contributions aside, there are some chilling works here, including some of the best in Utah horror. I'm honored to have been included in the volume.
  
• My first request to sign a book. To young Melissa, wherever you are, thank you for that experience. I hope you enjoy the stories.
  
• Having an established author-friend, one whom I respect greatly, ask me for my autograph in his copy, followed by the assertion that mine "was the only signature he wanted to deface his copy." He then told me that the book would be going into his library, in the corner reserved for authors he knew...and that I'd be right there beside Brandon Sanderson, Larry Correia, and a host of other men whose written work I admire.
  
• Being able to spend this time with my family, all of whom are aspiring writers and artists in their own right.

The only real downside so far? My friend, Dr. Michael Collings, who is a FIXTURE at LTUE (he's only missed a couple of sessions in the 30+ year history of the conference) apparently failed to even get a formal invitation from this year's organizers. Not only is he a fixture here, he is a true scholar of speculative fiction and a great writer in his own right. (If you don't believe me, or haven't heard of him, click the link there on his name and take a gander.) Plus, it's one of the only times each year I get to sit with him and chat. It's been a real loss. SHAME ON YOU, LTUE. Granted, the loss was mitigated by being able to talk with his wife, the lovely and gracious Judi Collings, and of course his son, Michaelbrent.

Anyway, the conference runs through Saturday, February 14th. Once that's over, I can get back to layout work on Issue #1 of The Stronghold.

I promise.

Post-FantasyCon Catch Up

It's been a hectic couple of months around the Stronghold. Health issues have rebounded and expanded, while stressful life- and career-related problems have stayed fairly constant. I still haven't paid myself a paycheck in three months. More ecclesiastical duties heaped on my shoulders as well.

Sigh.

This shirt may be my new favorite!

But we had scrimped and saved and, for our "summer stay-cation," attended the inaugural three-day FantasyCon, as well as the 67th annual WesterCon, both in Salt Lake City. We made it to both the inaugural Salt Lake Comic-Con last fall and the "FanX" version of the Comic-Con in the spring.

Yes, Salt Lake City hosted three fantasy/sci-fi conventions in the last 9 months. (Not counting WesterCon or LTUE.)

The Comic-Con experiences were a lot of fun, even if you had to endure a LOT of people. I hate crowds, so it was a real downer for me. But it was a blast to be around the cosplayers, the vendors, and the celebrities. Plus, I grew up with one of the founders. So, I thought that this newcomer upstart, FantasyCon, had a lot to prove.

Turns out, IMHO, that they instead raised the bar for Comic-Con to meet.

Yep. I said that. Despite being on July 4th weekend, and despite not having the benefit of public transportation ON the 4th, there was a pretty good turnout. Around 50K is the last estimate I saw. While not Comic-Con numbers, it was a reasonable result for a holiday and a convention lacking the "Comic-Con" branding. Of course, the smaller numbers were a definite plus for me. I think the planning and mechanics were better than Comic-Con, as were the panels and the exhibits. (Although some of the volunteers were trumped-up little Nazis with delusions of grandeur. Also, I didn't like being searched upon entry. Comic-Con didn't bother to check for my concealed carry; FantasyCon almost made me surrender my grandfather's pocketknife. Guess where I felt safer?)

This guy sums it up pretty well. The LARPing was amazing. As were the displays and all the "extra-curricular" stuff. It was fun to walk through the Hall and feel the thumping of the kettle drums coming from the battle arena and, simultaneously, hearing the clangs of hammers on anvils from the on-site blacksmiths. Then to randomly hear the notes of a bagpipe echoing through the Hall above everything?

The guest list was pretty stunning, too, especially when comparing it to the guests that Salt Lake Comic-Con has announced. FantasyCon had a pretty hefty line-up of Lord of the Rings and Hobbit actors. Heck, they had Elijah Wood (yes, Frodo) DJ their opening night party. The day after that was announced, Salt Lake Comic-Con announced who? Oh, yeah. Smallville's Lex Luthor. Ho-hum.

As I said, FantasyCon really raised the bar.

Of course, getting to meet some childhood and longtime heroes of mine didn't hurt. I'll have to share my conversations with John Rhys-Davies, Sylvester McCoy, and Claudia Christian. But that's for another time. Suffice it to say that not only did I have a longer beard than Gimli, but Sallah (the finest digger in Cairo) told me I had a beautiful family and took the time to speak to each of my children (and forced the photographer to break the rules about the number of people in one paid picture and forced him to take another photo). The Seventh Doctor showed me on my Day of the Doctor shirt exactly where his TARDIS was parked. And Susan Ivanova was calling us "her family" by the end of the weekend.

While there, I increased my gaming inventory. A local game store--that has heretofore gone unnoticed by me--had a booth and were running a 20% off sale. I was tempted to pick up a couple of Pathfinder tomes, but even at that price, I would have quickly blown my budget. Instead, I picked up a couple sets of dice...they were pretty and hey, as you know, I can never have too many dice. Here they are, in all their polyhedral glory: they come from Chessex, of course. "Silver Volcano (speckled) and "Purple-Teal/Gold (gemini)" dice sets, shown in that order. These latter ones are the first ones I saw, from quite a distance away. They grabbed my eyes and held on for dear life. (Of course, it didn't hurt that  They're also ones my wife fell in love with. I think she thinks I'm going to give them to her.

Hah.

Because, hey, dice. Am I right?

There was also a booth for an outfit called "Dark City Games." I didn't know anything about them, but their booth signage boasted "solo and single-player" games. The packaging was sufficiently retro to catch my attention: they looked for all the world like a 'zine stuffed into a plastic zipper bag. Now, when I go to conventions, I collect business cards. I collect them like crazy. I'd rather do my research online than be harangued by a salesperson in a crowded space. Plus, if I do see something I like, I can always get more stuff later. But all these people had on their counter space was some resin scenery, some WotC miniatures, and a display of their own wares. It looked like they had some fantasy, sci-fi, and steam-punk adventures, as well as a western and a horror title.

No business cards.  No flyers, No advertising materials of any kind.

So I asked for their contact information. The girl looked left and right and told me that, if I was really interested, she'd give me a free sample; the contact information was inside the product. Well, who was I to say "no"? So I grabbed their fantasy offering and thanked her. Come to find out, it's a $12.95 bit of gaming.  At first glance, it appears to be their own system; at least, I didn't see anything immediately obvious that denoted an outside system of any kind. It contains a 48-page booklet, outlining rules, backstory, maps, and the adventure itself; it also comes with a fairly nice (albeit small) sheet of counters and an 8"x14" map.

The map isn't great quality, but sturdy paper stock (not quite card stock weight). I haven't had a chance to really delve into the system or mechanics. Hey, if nothing else I can either throw it in the trailer for use while camping or use the background, flavor, and maps for my own world, throwing out their mechanics.

My wife was shocked. I told her, "Hey, it never hurts to ask, right?"


WesterCon was a fun experience, although the panel selections weren't as varied or numerous as those at, say, LTUE. I had the chance to sit down and talk to author Larry Correia for a while as well.

All in all, despite hurting my knee the second day (which prompted me to buy a sweet cane topped by the "Hound of the Baskervilles" in bronze), it was a terrific vacation and money well-spent.

Found Items: Used Book Haul

It's the time of year again for the sci-fi/fantasy writing symposium, Life, the Universe and Everything (LTUE).

The guest of honor, Orson Scott Card, is a no-show until Saturday, being trapped by snow. Several of the panels I wanted to visit lost their luster as a result, so I took a little more time in the dealers' room than I had planned...and walked away with a haul. (The panels weren't a complete loss, though.... Getting to listen to my friend, Larry Correia, talk about his favorite monsters is worth the admission by itself.)

All paperbacks $3; hardcovers $10. I'll be lucky if my wife lets me in the house tonight. But I'll have good reading material, at least....

Not shown are: an original paperback of Robert Bloch's Psycho, Craig Shaw Anderson's Difficulty  with Dwarves, and Outland, the novelization by Alan Dean Foster. I also passed over a bunch of old Moorcock and some John Norman Gor novels (which I know nothing about, I'm ashamed to say). Here's the rest of my haul (at least, the OLD stuff):

LTUE Wrap-Up

I don't suppose any of you are really sitting on the edges of your sofas wondering what happened to two days' worth of posts from LTUE: Life, The Universe, and Everything Writing Conference. But there may be a couple of you interested: well, I wish I could really tell you. Unfortunately, the morning of Day Two dawned with some manner of gomboo bug inhabiting my body.

No, really. It was almost as if I had one of those Alien face-huggers latched onto me.
I was exhausted and I felt as if I'd been stuffed in cotton. I had a really powerful bad cough. Congestion. My eyeballs were practically throbbing, for crying out loud. I had aches and pains all over. Developed a weekend-long migraine by Friday night.

But I went anyway, because it was important to my wife. Despite my illness, I think she had fun. I don't remember anything about any of the panels, except for remembering listening to Larry Correia talk about writing action scenes. I think I may have dozed off in other panels. My sickness, unfortunately, meant that we didn't travel back down for the Saturday session. Apparently I wasn't the only one; some Typhoid Mary apparently attended the Conference because I got reports that there were quite a few attendees and possibly even some presenters that wrote off Saturday and didn't attend. I still feel bad about my wife missing out on Saturday, though, and need to find some way to make it up to my her.

One highlight that I do remember was having lunch at a little sandwich shop talking shop with Tracy and Laura Hickman. Great people and a great conversation. It had been awhile since we'd lunched and had a good chance to talke and catch up, so it was definitely a highlight of the conference.

The second highlight was this:
I was finally able to procure my copy of XDM: X-treme Dungeon Mastery. And I was able to get it signed by both Tracy Hickman and Howard Tayler. I've been trying for a couple years to get this, but the financial stars, the times, and the places have just not worked out. Until 2013.

Descriptive blurb:

The cure for the common game! Throw off your chains! Too long have your role playing games been held in the bonds of substandard gamemasters, bound in needlessly complicated rules sets, and enslaved by players who will avoid doing anything unless it counts toward leveling up! It is time to take a stand!

Learn from the masters the ancient secrets of how to:
Officially become an XDM and impress dates. (Do-it-yourself secret initiation rites included.)
Master the secrets of designing adventures that tell stories.
Create magic illusions that can even make your players disappear!
Use actual fire in your game properly.
Hijack the game as a player, and how to deal with a player revolution as an XDM.
Plus loads more!

Perhaps the best description comes from the book's Wikipedia entry: "The book is written as though from the perspective of a secret society of game masters passing on ancient secrets of role-playing games beginning in Babylonian times and extending to the present. Within the satire, the text offers advice on performance techniques, adventure game design and classical story structures." The book prescribes a system called X20: rules-light in that everything is decided by a roll of 1d20 and a decision by the XDM as to success/effect. Such a system would definitely frustrate rules lawyers, as the only rules are what the XDM decides are the rules.

It's an overly simplistic description of the book, but a good one. The book is full of humor, tips, tricks, suggestions, and great illustrations by the creator of Schlock Mercenary, which is arguably the best and funniest webcomic Space Opera on the internet. Howard autographs his books with customized artwork and this book is no different; the last page in the book was left blank just for this purpose. And here's my own, personal autograph from my book. This is Boric as seen through Howard Tayler's eyes.

Anyway, back to the face-hugger gomboo.... It pretty well put me out of commission for over a week. Then it's taken a week more to get caught up with leftover work at the office. Hopefully I can get some of my random thoughts out on paper. I still owe Tim Shorts some critters for issue #4 of The Manor. So I have a bunch of stuff to do, and Guilder to blame for it. I'm swamped.

At least I have my health...kind of. As you know, If you haven't got your health, then you haven't got anything.

LTUE: The Hobbit--Film vs. Book Panel Discussion

As I mentioned earlier, I'm spending the next few days at the LTUE: Marion K. "Doc" Smith Symposium on Science Fiction and Fantasy, in beautiful downtown Provo, Utah.

A few tidbits from the first panel discussion, Tolkien's The Hobbit: The Book and the Movies. The panelists involved were Paul Genesse, David Farland, Blake Casselman, and Tracy Hickman, with Paul acting as moderator.

At one point, the topic was raised of "What were your quibbles with the movie?" David Farland leaped in with some minor complaints about the pacing, particularly focusing on the scenes in Bag End. He said that he went into the movie really wanting to love the dwarves...and came away not having fallen in love with them at all. He pointed out that too much time was spent at Bag End. Then he made the mistake of using the word "pacing."

The microphone was passed to Tracy Hickman and the question repeated, "What were your quibbles? What was there about the movie that made you mad?" He smiled and said, "What made me mad was the audience." There was rousing applause to this sentiment. "All the cell phones, the texting, the little lights all over the theater. It made me want to throw popcorn at them all." Again: rousing applause. "This is why the 'free refill Coke' is such a good thing; that way you can dump your drink on them and...." Laughs and applause.

Then Tracy continued: "Seriously, though, my problem with the movie is with people who have a problem with the pacing." At which he and David Farland looked eyes and David laughed. Back to Tracy, with a few tidbits of wisdom from him.

• We are so inured to the Bruce Lee, fast-paced...action-from-a-firehose movies that we have lost the art of enjoying the journey.
• Look at The Maltese Falcon: that one didn't truck along. Casablanca wasn't action-packed or fast-paced.
• As writers, the audience expects us to write our prose cinematically.
• Enjoy the pace--the journey--rather than worry how long it takes to get there.

The microphone was passed back to David Farland who conceded that he didn't really mean "pacing" per se. What he intended to complain about was the fact that the time at Bag End could have been used better by developing the relationship between the dwarves. He wanted to be shown how to differentiate between the dwarves, and that he said, was what he meant by "pacing." Tracy nodded at that and voiced his agreement to that idea.

Blake Casselman made a comment in passing that he really appreciated the whole Moby Dick theme included in the movie, meaning Azog, the White Orc. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of time to develop that idea, but it's an idea worthy of a number of essays itself.

Paul Genesse had a good, pithy observation on Radaghast: "Look, I know you like ALL like Radaghast, but when the smoke came out of his ears, I rolled my eyes. Radaghast is my Jar Jar Binks." Even though I really liked the Radaghast character, I had to laugh. I can respect his opinion.

O.K. Off to another panel discussion. More later.

The Answer is '42':LTUE

The answer is, of course, to the question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Wow. I just realized I used the same joke last year.

That's where I'm spending my Valentine's Day, and the next two days as well...with my wife at the LTUE writing conference in Provo, Utah. Yup, I'll be rubbing elbows with such writers as Tracy & Laura Hickman, David Farland, Larry Correia, and Paul Genesse. It's a great opportunity to learn about writing, get writing tips--of all sorts--from all sorts of authors, artists, and filmmakers.

I'm starting the day listening to David Farland, Tracy Hickman, Paul Genesse and Blake Casselman discuss The Hobbit: The Film and the Book. Great stuff.

I'll try and remember to add some more information over the next few days.

Life, The Universe, and Everything

Yes, the answer is "42".

But that's not entirely relevant today. Today I am at the 30th iteration of the Life, The Universe, and Everything symposium, a.k.a., "LTUE", a.k.a., the Marion K. “Doc” Smith Symposium on Science Fiction & Fantasy.

I've heard about the symposium now for 30 years; this year is the first year that I've been able to attend. It's a three-day event filled with signings, readings, and classes on every aspect of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and other writing-related information. Truth be told, there are enough intriguing presentations each hour that I'm not sure which directino is UP. My wife plans on coming with me on Friday and Saturday; today I am a "conference bachelor" responsible for taking high-quality notes for dissemination to my wife.

No pressure at all there.

I've always heard great things about LTUE in general. I have to confess, however, that the first hour's presentation on "Historical Weaponry" left me nonplussed and unimpressed. It was supposed to be presented by an "expert"--turns out most of the class knew as much or more than he did.

Sigh.

Well, I'm off to meet Larry Correia and then on to an editing presentation. Have a good day; more reports as something interesting happens.