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It’s been just about a week since I’ve been online, and what happens while I’m gone?

Nebulas. That’s what. Again, there are people I know, whose work I’ve read and respected. There are former VP’ers, and there are even some friends. You guys, as the saying goes, rock. I wish you all luck, although quite frankly, there are a lot of good writers all in the same category. You can’t all win, except on Writer Tamago, where each and every one of the candidates has already won the Nebula. I’m just sayin’.

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What else? Well, ladies and gents, I’m going to have to continue to make some hard choices. I guess when you’re managing classes for 336 students and supervising some 35 people, your life is pretty busy. All the teacher work is now going home. I’ve also decided to really ramp up my exercise and my nutrition planning, because that’s not where it should be. And I’m teaching a writing class, which basically means I’ve resumed the English teacher vow of taking a stack of papers every where you go.

You may have noticed that I’ve been on line less. That’s why. It’s not lack of interest, but as it is, I am really having to carve out writing time, and that’s gotta take priority, else I’m just hanging ’round and posing.

I know. Your lives will go on. I miss you and the journal just the same.

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I’ve gone back to being my own personal chef and trainer, and I’m paying a great deal of attention to my water intake and my fruit and vegetable intake. I schedule a whole week of menus and exercise at a time. And that also takes time.

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But, in a fit of contrariness to the get in shape thing, I just bought Bakerella‘s cake pop book. Because a cake pop is tiny and creative. I look forward to making them for you.

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I have to finish my series on writing from the gamerverse, as well as uploading blasts from the pasts from my old journal. And coming up RIGHT NOW, right after this post, is a post for novelists, and some of you who might be feeling Nebula envy.

I’m not, by the way. The universe has enough delights for all of us. And we do not get to choose. We can only receive what comes our way with gratitude, and show our friends the generosity of genuine happiness when their delights come to them.

Woah. Zen powers, activate! Back in a minute.

Catherine

All this effort of growing out my hair for the last year is beginning to pay off. Margot Redlinger, my stylist at City Looks, has been helping me learn about sets and dos. Of course, I am still very much the amateur, but Aveda-trained Margot does amazing things with color, and really knows her vintage.

Last night, I suggested we do something from the sixties. Margot came up with this design on her own, but it’s almost exactly like the Audrey Hepburn hair outlined in Vintage Hairstyling by Laura Runnells (see my Vintage links page for more information). How did we do this?

First of all, Margot blow dried my hair with a large round brush. We brushed the hair in segments and then once the hair was dry, we moved onto the curling.

If you were setting your hair wet, you’d want a medium roller. Make sure to brush out a small piece of hair to leave straight. If you curl the hair, use a large roll curling iron and thermal spray (which is really important to protect your hair.)

Hair at the top of the head is curled away from your forehead, teased, and sprayed. Hair on the sides and back of your head is curled toward the center of your hair.

Margot used a setting powder at the base of each of the top curls for extra hold. The teased curl mass was smoothed together, pinned into place, and sprayed with a soft but firm holding hair spray. The side curls are manipulated into a French twist.

To make the French twist, secure the hair on the left side of your hair with bobby pins off center, so they can be covered with the right twist of hair, that is tucked under and pinned.

Here’s a video that might help you with the teasing. And here’s a tutorial on the French Twist.

Happy hairstyling. I’m hoping to repeat this style for a new set of author photos, eventually.

Catherine

Sean Craven, fellow VP XIII’er, decided to interview me to round out the VP XIII interviews. Now you can collect the whole set.

Thank you, Sean, for taking the time.

Catherine

Live Journal Disclaimer: That article turned out to be from 2009. My bad. My headache and the usual reliability of where I got the information from led to a lack of reliability on my part. God bless the Internet.

Still, I should do this. I’ve been debating keeping the old awelkin journal open, and maybe it’s time to let that go. But I do want to retrieve what I like from over there. So, yes, I will still probably do that.

Have I mentioned how much I like life without headaches?

Catherine

Just fair warning. The fifty percent staff reduction at Live Journal I take as a bad sign. Of course, I write the majority of my work over here at Word Press, and it’s mirrored at Live Journal, but that said, there was a time before the writing journal that Live Journal was my mainstay for talking to the world.

With that in mind, then, I am going to move some of my old Live Journal writing over here in a kind of reprint effort. I have toyed with the idea of putting together a small collection of my journal essays into a non-fiction book (mostly for me, although I could make it available to others that might want it), but I can’t do that if I wake up one morning and all my essays are gone. So I’d best get rolling on that. I’ll try to offer some contextualization for you, the reader.

That said, most of what I have in my old journals is crap, and you don’t want to see it, and I don’t want to share it with you. So, this should be a manageable effort.

It’ll be too bad in the end. I have fond memories, but yup, the only permanent thing is change. And other cliches that I hope to get away with.

By the way, as you can tell, headache is biting the dust. I loves me some pain free evening!

Catherine

For me, setting may be the most difficult aspect of writing from the gamerverse.

Most role playing games come with their own broad strokes of genre. For example, we all know Dungeons and Dragons takes it cue from European high fantasy. Call of Cthullu is set in the world of H.P. Lovecraft’s fiction (don’t play games where you lose sanity points!). Champions: The Super Hero Role Playing Game is set in the bright 4-color comics universe, as opposed to Unknown Armies, which is more of a Vertigo kind of thing. There are role playing games out there emulating Hong Kong action cinema, film noir, horror, and well, loads of other things.

The problem with using the setting in these games comes from when some sort of mechanic from the game’s atmospherics interferes with the story you want to tell. One of the biggest issues I have with White Wolf is that while their games give game masters a great deal of atmosphere and plot, those of us who don’t need as much direction are hemmed in by their post-apocalyptic vibe. Or something rather like.

However, like any good robber baron writer, you can pick or choose what you want. With that in mind, as with characters and games, discard what you don’t like. My Changeling game isn’t as depressing as a White Wolf manual.

Games that paint genre in broader strokes can be excellent tests of your ability to create mood and setting. You’ll need to do it for your players. They’ll appreciate it.

Next up in the Gamerverse series: Plot. Yes, plot.

Sorry guys. Day 2 of a set of cluster headaches. Yup, another thing that happens to you when you get old, especially if you’re a woman of a certain age.

I am working today, but I’m not coherent enough to follow up on setting and scene yet.

So, nothing to see here. I hope you all have great days, and I’ll try to be back tomorrow. Meanwhile, here’s an instructional Wikipedia entry on trepanning that seems to some relevant somehow.

Toodles.

Catherine

Right now, I have the gift of time. My Russian lessons for today were cancelled under regrettable circumstances, as my friend Olga and her husband continue to adjust to the ramifications of his heart attack and lifestyle changes. Of course, any good vibes you can send their way would be just peachy.

What this means for my writing is that I have received three unplanned for hours this week, so I hied myself to Barnes and Noble, and here I am, typing diligently away on Abigail Rath Versus Blood Sucking Fiends.

So I can show you that I have done something, here’s a little clip to get you through your Thursday. No vampires in this scene–just 13 year olds.

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Continue reading “Right Now”

When last we conversed, I laid out a few no-no’s to writing about your gaming campaign. Now, I’m going to talk about some of the advantages to using a campaign to explore writing material. Bear in mind that I’m talking about my specific experiences with a very specific group of role players, some with whom I’ve gamed since the early 90s. In short, I run with a long term group that has a great deal of trust and familiarity with each other. We are willing to sacrifice rules for story, points for harmony. My experiences might be the same, or very different than your own. As a consequence, your mileage might vary for some of the things I say.

With that said, for certain values of campaign and certain values of players (ie mine), I find gaming an excellent tool for exploring characterizations.

Continue reading “Writing from the Gamerverse: Character Exploration”

And then…the weekend. This weekend I’ll be running the last of a two-year-old gaming campaign set in the Changeling universe. This would be my second Changeling campaign. I doubt very much that items from this campaign will make it into my fiction, but items from the last campaign certainly did.

And while I’m thinking about it–what I’m working on writing now has elements of a former role playing campaign in it. And so does the Klarion project.

Can you do that? Fiction based around role playing games is often considered to be like bad fan fiction–cheesy, trite, full of Mary Sueisms. Can you do that?

Why…yes, you can. 🙂

I thought it might be a bit instructional to talk about what I do and why I think it’s a good thing. But let’s talk about the gaming fiction pitfalls that we want to start out avoiding.

1. Don’t make it boring. Goes without saying. Most games have a lot of extraneous crap that deserves to be left on the cutting room floor. Lines are dumb. Plot lines don’t work. Dice gives a random element to everything fiction just doesn’t need. Try to think of your book as a better adaption of the campaign.

2. Your story shouldn’t necessarily reflect your personal fantasy about how the triumphant character who triumphs is super cool and…um..triumphal. Story’s gotta have conflict. Character’s gotta have texture. Keep your Kung-Fu Panda Po “we should hang out” fantasy to yourself. Write an interesting story first. If you want wish fulfillment, write it, but don’t expect to necessarily publish it.

3. Some of your friends are gonna get cut. As a novice, this used to be my big mistake. I thought everyone in the game had to have a cameo. You know, some characters in some sessions or even in some campaigns don’t add anything to a story. You should cut them out. And when your friend asks why Barbarian Joe the dragon slayer is gone, shrug and say either, “Dude, write your own story!” or “Maybe another time, buddy.” Because you never know.

4. The story is going to change radically. That means, if you’re a game master, like me, you might change a character someone is committed to, and they won’t like it. Be prepared to change the character if that’s the case. I have had two characters who changed from nice guys to semi-rotters. One player was okay with it. The other player will no longer let me use the name, and that’s fine.

5. You aren’t writing a transcript. Remember, you’re telling a story. You’re going to kill clever moments, favorite dialogue. The darlings have got to die. You want a lean, mean story.

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So, next week, let’s start out by talking about some of the bennies of using a campaign to springboard a story from. We’ll start with character.

Catherine