This is my personal blog and does not necessarily reflect the collective views of Hard Limits Press

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

I want your novel soundtrack

Hey there, sassy ones.

I bet all you writer faces have soundtracks that get you in the mood to tackle that work in progress. I mention some of why music works for me in this post over here. There's a link, a conditioning where we link songs and feelings, creativity and lyrics. I want to know yours. What are you listening to while you write, these days?

Here's some of mine in no particular order. (you can assume everything Neko Case has ever done, and everything Florence and the Machine have ever done, too.)

The song to rule them all: Favorite, Neko Case

Videos have nothing to do with it. Tried to find the least obnoxious ones I could.

The Weepies, No One Knows Me at All

30 Seconds to Mars, Vox Populi

Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, Worship Me Like a God & Twenty Minutes of Oxygen


Hammerfall, The Unforgiving Blade

Waltz Across Texas Tonight, Emmylou Harris

Just a Thought, Gnarls Barkley

Be Like Water, Sarah Fimm

True Love, Mark Mallman (although this video is pretty rad if you're a Band of Brothers fan)

Red Hot, Jurassic 5

Wolf Like Me, TV on the Radio

Time is Running Out, Muse

More Than a Feeling, Boston

What Sarah Said, Death Cab for Cutie

Out Loud, Dispatch

Downtown Train, Tom Waits

This Fire, Killswitch Engage

Show me yours, guys! Tell me why you chose the songs you did, if you so choose.

Have a happy Campaign!




Monday, August 22, 2011

Vitameatavegamin

Allright, you guys. (I wish I could refer to you as my little monsters, but Lady Gaga kinda has the market on that one, hmm?) I am doing the Third Platform Building Campaign, courtesy of Rach Writes. Don't worry. This isn't me doing the literary equivalent of shilling for Vitameatavegamin. It's a way to get involved and pay it forward, because there's nothing I like better than building a thriving writing community. And maybe, just maybe, find a potential reader or two. :)

Dear White Wolf

It is with a heavy heart that I am going to miss the Grand Masquerade this year.

Earlier today, I read a twitter friend's comment about how he's done some of his best writing when he didn't have anything but the writing. That is, no games on his computer, no Internet, no nothing.

These two things go together in my mind, because I got my start writing Werewolf: the Apocalypse fanfiction. Oh, Werewolf: the Apocalypse. I still own over two hundred source books for that game, plus a good showing of titles from other White Wolf games. There was a time in my very early twenties when I had no Internet, and a computer so Frankensteined it would only run WordPerfect.

I learned something important about entertaining myself, writing very earnest, fair to middling tales of darkness, gore, and the limits of the human spirit. (plus shapeshifters!) Which is, of course, what White Wolf games tend to be about. And now, thanks to those same games, I'm a better writer. White Wolf helped me find my themes. It kept me hanging on through some very difficult times in my life, provided me a mental landscape I could use as an escape until I learned to construct my own.

So thank you, White Wolf. In many ways, you helped make me who I am.

Here's an excerpt from seventeen year old me:

"Testing the hearts of all gathered, She found that only Red Talon had kept himself pure, free of the Weaver and the Wyrm, and She set the great wolf at the edge of Her territories, charging him with keeping the tainted apes from spoiling Her bounty. Ever since we have guarded her Wyld places, never forgetting our sacred duty as so many others have. So, when you ask for a single place sacred to the Talons, that I can't give you. Our sacred places are all the places of Gaia still Wyld and free."