The ultimate fiction
Or, Steve wonders why he didn't play DND sooner
Ever since we moved states a year and a half ago, I’ve tried to make a concerted effort to be more socially active. Our previous homestead didn’t allow for much of that - nobody’s fault, I just didn’t have the same interests as most of the rest of the people of my demographic.
Since moving, I started going to monthly in-person writing sessions with about a half dozen other writers, which has turned out to be a great creative exercise. Guess what? Even if you’re in a restaurant or cafe and there’s loud music playing, you get get a lot of typing done!
Part of that socializing has involved getting out and having fun. Every so often, on Friday nights, I play the trading card game Star Wars Unlimited. And on Thursdays, for the past 3 months, I joined up with 6 other people playing a Dungeons & Dragons campaign.
It’s the first time I’ve played an extended campaign with the same character before, and I have to say … why the heck did I not do that before? I’ve had experience the game in shorter bursts. Last year, a handful of my writer friends and I took part in a campaign that was equally fun, but sadly we had to set it aside as life got busy - which I now understand is a hallmark of a true DND experience, so I wear it like badge of honor. And I had already been passingly familiar with the impact of the game from popular culture, especially recent shows like The Legend of Vox Machina.
As a fiction writer, especially one who pens science-fiction and fantasy, I should have started playing regularly a long time ago.
To create a great character, to really get involved in the immersion of the game, you have to put just as much effort into the work as you do when you’re making one up for a novel. How the character acts in certain situations, what their skills are, the ways in which they interact with others … All of it feeds into the evolution of the story.
Helps a bit that I turned myself into the group’s self-appointed scribe, which means I got to write down pretty much everything we do. Who knew that to start journaling, I just needed to describe who rolled a Natural 20 on their dice when casting fire bolt at a monster?
And of course, the other people you’re with are doing the same thing. It’s the interplay between us that really makes the story special - I keep using the word story, because that’s what it is, far more than just “playing.” By the time you’ve spent 4 hours an evening together for 7 weeks, each one of us knows how the other’s character will react, and how our own characters will help each other in dire situations.
I know this is old, old news for anybody who’s played for longer than the five seconds I have. But it’s been something of a revelation. It’s reinforced with me that story is everywhere, and that finding ways to mix leisure with creative work is necessary. There won’t be another time in life quite like it, so I’m going to make sure I value however long it lasts.
Who knows? The stories that come out of our adventures might make it somewhere else than onto my notebook’s pages …
The Null Razor Heist
Many thanks to everyone who supported the Kickstarter for my cyberpunk heist novel. The electronic rewards have been sent, the paperbacks are in the mail, and the limited edition hardcovers are about to head to the post office. That gives backers plenty of time to read the book!
And for everyone else, The Null Razor Heist is available to the public on June 1. Here’s the pre-order link:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GYND1ZJM
A Teaching Opportunity
Coming in the middle of May, I’ll head to Seattle to teach a couple of sessions at the Northwest Christian Writers Association. Looking forward to revisiting the Pacific Coast as I hold forth on two of my favorite writing topics - world building, and co-authoring/partnering with other writers on shared stories.
Coming soon … Space Librarians
I’ll have a surprise for everyone on May 4th, better known as Star Wars Day - and it’s a fun, short foray back into space opera. Paid subscribers get the first look on Friday!