Hi guys! So this is why I’ve been so scarce on Tumblr lately (that and spending time with my dad). We’re getting ready for Anime Central this weekend and have been working like crazy. This isn’t all of the coasters I’ve finished, but it’s the most recent ones.
If you’re going to ACEN, be sure to come look for me! Sewn Together Reflections, booth #41 :) We’ll also be taking commissions on everything offered at our table, so if there’s something in particular that you want, just let us know.
So I’ve been trying to get something in a Dreamspinner Anthology for a while. Last year, nothing made it, but this year I saw that they were doing a sports anthology. I thought, “I’m gonna write about video games,” because… I’m a geek.
And holy shit it worked.
So I’m reposting this because it comes out in a month and my video game short story will be in it! It’s a tale of gay romance, video game stereotypes and the people who happily turn them upside down. It’s got all sorts of fun video game references, because video gaming is a sport, right? You can either get the entire anthology, or buy the stories individually in June. Mine is called “Press START to Play.”
Below is a story description and a small snippet where I make mention of
my obsessiona game series I like ^^Description: Lukis Singleton’s once-popular sports column is fading fast, thanks to the terrible track record of the local football team. In an attempt to save the column, Lukis’s editor, John, decides that he needs to go in a different direction. Video games are all the rage these days, so John insists that sending Lukis to a huge video-game tournament in Los Angeles will shake up his current readers and bring in new ones. Lukis isn’t thrilled about reporting of games with impossible powers or gamers who still live in Mon’s basement, but then he meets a tempting flaw in the game stereotypes of unwashed man-children. Aaron Sanders is a gorgeous breath of fresh air at the tournament who takes Lukis’s less-than-stellar view of gamers and turns it on its head, leaving Lukis to wonder if if might be worth being Aaron’s player two.
Snippet:
Lukis wonders, as he watches the intro video, why high school students are even allowed to fight with swords and strange monsters that they can summon. Don’t they have parents? And since when can bears talk, fight, and smoke cigars? Was that a robot just now? With an axe?
“Told ya it was completely different,” Aaron says, picking some kid who uses a gun and has some sort of fly as a monster friend.
It’s still exciting to watch, he thinks. Aaron’s character is fighting against some tall, buff guy who uses a folding chair as a weapon, it makes no sense at all; who brings a chair to a gunfight?
***
Yes I made a kannao reference in something I’m getting published. I realize I have a problem. No I do not wish to seek help thanks though.
In which my OTP makes an appearance in my original writing. Yeah.
you don’t know pain or agony until you’ve lost to the same boss fight more than 3 times
and then you have the unskippable cutscene dialogue memorized, so you start repeating it in a mocking, angry voice
Even skipping it gets annoying because you repeat the first two words that starts the cutscene, angrily hit the start button, then start mocking the music, like, “Da de da de FUCKING DA OMG SHUT THE FUCK UP CHOIR I DON’T WANNA HEAR YOUR SHIT de da de da de da.”
Back when I was to college, I was part of a Gundam Wing yaoi mailing list for Heero Yuy and Duo Maxwell (1x2x1 ML forever!) On that mailing list was a girl who called herself snowtigra. We started chatting over IRC (yeah this is how long ago this was) and ended up doing a fic together that was a terrible Resident Evil/Gundam Wing crossover that’s still on the internet somewhere, I’m sure.
Anyhow, long story short, we’re still together after 11 years somehow.
One day, while chatting over IRC, we started roleplaying with anime characters. They came from all sorts of series, from Gundam Wing, to Yu Yu Hakusho, and we just… kept doing it. We started calling it “dating.” She lived in Minnesota and I was in Iowa for school, so we were long distance, but every night we’d get online and “date.” This involved coming up with random plots for these characters, and as we got into more anime series and video games, more characters would show up. Like, “Hey, Gaara is really cool, we should put him somewhere,” or, “I’m really obsessed with Kanji and Naoto right now,” or, “Sebastian and Ciel, please.”
When I moved up to Minnesota, we got an apartment together. One day, after she picked me up from work, we found out that our apartment had been broken into. This included our laptops, which had the file on it we used to roleplay. So, we had to start all over again.
That’s when things changed.
Suddenly characters were changing. For example, we would think, “This would be awesome if it were a female lead,” and so boy characters changed to girl characters. Then we came up with the concept of “The Storyteller,” a creature who lives in a library full of books, each book depicting someone’s life. At some point we realized, you know, these Naruto characters aren’t really the same anymore. We sort of… created our own characters. Like we were still using the name “Haku” but it wasn’t really the same person.
Then, about two years ago, she randomly wrote up a teaser chapter. The characters were renamed, no more Ky Kiske or Gaara, no more heartless or Netherworld, because those things weren’t those things anymore. Then I added a bit to it. Then we sat down and made an outline. The outline ended up creating seven book ideas. She wrote the first one for NaNoWriMo two years ago, then I read over it and added things/took things out and jazzed it up.
We realized, “Fuck… we have a story here.” So she sent it to publishers.
Now we’re signing a contract with Alpha Wolf Publishing.
And thus became the dorkiest love story ever told. The Hunters series started with us being in a long distance relationship where we would roleplay every night to talk to one another.
To all of you roleplayers, fanfic writers, fan artists, and all that’s in between, here is my message to you. Keep doing what you do. Because you never know what it will turn into. This is what it did for me.
Oh, and “Treat Me Kindly,” the book I’ve written on my own? Use to be a Naruto fic that I never finished. After dissecting the fic I kept the first sentence, one of the original characters I created, and two of the animals.
Reblogging because not all of you follow my writing blog, but I wanted to share :)
Mass Effect, objectifying women through meaningless sex and poison to the minds of our children.
Weren’t they challenged on this? Like, I think Geoff Keighley had a discussion with the woman (or some woman, might not be the same one) and actually said, “Have you actually played the game?” She said no, went and played it, and then took back everything she said. I think, in response, said woman wrote a book and a bunch of gamers went on Amazon and bashed it without reading it.
I might have this all mixed up, it was a long time ago. The morale of the story is don’t judge something until you try it yourself. Especially video games. Because us geeks will fight back and prove you wrong.
Hi followers! Here’s a preview of what to expect tomorrow at Anime Detour. I say preview because this isn’t even close to half of it. Be sure to come visit me (Sewn Together Reflections) and check out what’s there. Also, feel free to tell me if you’re a follower :) Also, the Sebastian woodburning will be in the charity auction, signed by J. Michael Tatum himself thanks to Detour staff being awesome.
Con tomorrow! One hour of sleep! Yay!
Someone on my mom’s facebook posted one of those classic “Video games are the root of all evil” articles. So I slammed into them… thoughtfully and nicely, of course. Someone responded in a negative way, of course, and their words would annoy me…
… had my mom not come in to say, “Stop attacking my baby video games aren’t evil.”
You go, mom. You go.
In the process of editing the book, hoping to have it done early next week EVEN WITH DETOUR BEING THIS WEEKEND! Yep. I’m crazy. I know.
But I’m in the second chapter already, that’s good right? Here’s my favorite quote so far from Alex, the main character, to his friend Nicholas in regards to them ever having a chance at dating:
“Nick-Nack I’ve told you that if you grow breasts and stop standing in line at midnight for hard to pronounce video games I’ll give you a shot.”
We’re in the first round of book edits! Follow the blog for more information :)
