Lazy Summer Days

Updating once a moth is pretty lazy , I admit. Busy in many ways, not the least of which is diving back into my stupid book after cranking out some new stories to garner rejections. About a quarter of the way through the re-re-re-re-rewrite. Optimistic I'll get it right this time, or at least closer to right. Whatever that is. Still waiting for one outlet to publish a story they bought from me two years ago - the editor and his wife have been having extreme health issues so patience is easily found on my part.

Becky leaves for a week of sleepaway camp on Sunday. This is something she requested and I'm proud of her being brave enough to go without knowing another soul there. Any trepidation I feel is tempered by the fact that it's the same camp I went to and counseled at when I was an early teenager, and my memories of the place are pretty much golden. Chalupa is going to be most confused by her absence, though. The big doofus sleeps in her room in front of her bed every night, like a freakin' watchdog.

Hockey is hockey. We had a great time up in Vermont at the Hockey Fights MS tournament, somehow going 2-2. It was funny to see the looks on the faces of the non-Scurvy Dogs players when we got housed by teams from Philly and Montreal - welcome to our world, gang. My goalie training is suspended as my regular games are on Thursday nights as well, so I'll have to wait until September to have people shoot multiple pucks past me again. My one week of vacation is coming up, with Hershey and DC our destinations. Kids are excited. Trying to decide if I can be enough of a superdad to ride the Great Bear with Becky. Oy, the motion sickness from the upside down stuff. Ye gods, I have issues.

Gaming has been great - between house cons and our usual gaming group we've been playing all sorts of fun stuff. Last night was Elder Sign, wherein amazing luck and skillful playing allowed the others to overrride my usual crappy rolling and allow us to bitchslap Nyarlathotep back to sleep. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn, y'all. I also splurged and, for the first time in my life, bought a reasonably powerful PC. It's totally for writing and editing and not at all for Pillars of Eternity which is SO PRETTY AND FUN LIKE BALDUR'S GATE GREW UP AND GOT EVEN MORE AWESOME.

Embracing the Red

In this post I had discussed the reactions from the beta readers of my would-be book, including the scathing comments from the one I dubbed Red. It's not surprising -- to me, anyway -- that I've dwelled on that a bit. Part of me said he was 100% right and I needed to rip it all down, while another part said that he just didn't get it and that I just had to nod my head and keep on keeping on. Seeing things in such black and white is impractical, though, and instead I think I'm going to gravitate toward a happy medium. No, my protagonist isn't going to become a superhero, but I'll create the reason(s) why. I will punch up a little more excitement and action in the first half of the book, and I will maybe do some more pruning. As an author I understand that I'm never going to make every reader happy, but what Red said disturbed me enough that I need to get the manuscript to a place where I'm happy with it first. So, another draft. As Madeline Kahn said, 'Why not? Seven's always been my lucky number.'

Meanwhile, there's been other actual writing going on when I wasn't prepping games for two cons in a three week span. I just sent off a story for a contest because why not, and I'm re-editing the one that drew a positive rejection from F&SF. Maybe I'll write other things as well. Maybe I'll get off my ass and finish my site so I can hang out my editor shingle WHO KNOWS. Who knows indeed.

Speaking of cons the one I went to last weekend was simply awesome. Played a game I instantly bought for the kids (and for adults who like silly games, and drinking, and combining those two passions) called Terrror in Meeple City , formerly known as Rampage. You're a monster trying to destroy buildings, eat meeples, and beat up other monsters. Your breath weapon? Your breath (not the smell. The force of it). Want to jump on a building? Drop your monster on it. It's silly, ridiculous, and fun. If you have kids, why don't you have this? Aren't you sick of Monopoly yet? (you are)

Okay. Summer hockey starts next week. Playing goal game 2, although now that the Rangers traded Talbot away I might be needed at the Garden . . .