It's been a busy three months. I've finally seen closure of the Living Forgotten Realms debacle (Moral of the story, kids? Never, ever, never work without a contract. Ever. Seriously. Never.), written Grandmother's Fire for Tales of the Old Margreve, written a piece for an upcoming Ars Magica project which is in the hopper for first edits, sent Breaking of Forstor Nagar off to the editor, done a couple of reviews, and gotten tapped to lead an Open Design Pathfinder anthology of urban crime and steampunk adventures in Zobeck. Somewhere in there, I did a bunch of stuff for Coliseum Morpheuon, did a bunch of editing for Open Game Table, Vol2, and wrote a couple of short articles and reviews for Koboldquarterly.com. And so that leaves me working up a proposal for Atlas, outlining Streets of Zobeck in anticipation of greenlight, and desperately wishing it was time for Gencon, if only so I can chill out for a couple of days trying to shoot Cthulhu in the face. :)
So this is earning your spurs. :D I have a whole new respect for the guys who do this day in and day out, every day to buy the mac and cheese, keep the wolf from the door. The load is nothing like I thought it would be, not hard, just steady. The best quote I've seen in a while was a note I found on my brother's tumblr page: (distilled to the salient phrases for your reading pleasure.)
***Begin Transmission***
DO NOT COVET YOUR IDEAS.
Give away everything you know, and more will come back to you.
...
The problem with hoarding is you end up living off your reserves. Eventually you'll become stale.
If you give away everything you have, you are left with nothing. This forces you to look, to be aware, to replenish.
Somhow the more you give away the more comes back to you.
Ideas are open knowledge. Don't claim ownership.
They're not your ideas anyway, they're someone else's. They are out there floating by in the ether.
You just have to put yourself in a frame of mind to pick them up.
Give away everything you know, and more will come back to you.
...
The problem with hoarding is you end up living off your reserves. Eventually you'll become stale.
If you give away everything you have, you are left with nothing. This forces you to look, to be aware, to replenish.
Somhow the more you give away the more comes back to you.
Ideas are open knowledge. Don't claim ownership.
They're not your ideas anyway, they're someone else's. They are out there floating by in the ether.
You just have to put yourself in a frame of mind to pick them up.
***End Transmission***
So. That's part of why I've been running so hard. Put it on the page, give it up and give it away, stay hungry and lean and searching, so I can pick stuff up like Solomon's Thieves or Virtuoso, or talk theory at "How to Start a Revolution in 21 Days or Less" or rummage through Colonial Gothic, or Amethyst or Mouse Guard for ideas, devouring movies as fast as blockbuster can mail them, or dive into the rich vein of Eureka. Look for that throbbing pulse of emotional investment, figure out how to plug into it and juice the story up with a jolt of hard excitement and make it ache all the way to the base of your spine. Take the dross of the day and spin it into glamoured coin...I don't figure this ride's stopping anytime soon, thanks for coming along.
Let's get back to rocking it out,
-Ben.
- Current Location:At the Mouth of the Text Mines. Is this that the sun?
- Current Mood:working
- Current Music:The Heavy: How you like me now?
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