Blog Tour

With my first book out soon, I want to organise a blog tour to celebrate. I'm thinking of the month of November, writing about topics such as mythology, history, modern legends, and reincarnation.

If anyone would be willing to host me, either for a blog post or an interview, I'd be incredibly grateful and would happily return the favour by having you on my blog as well.

If anyone is interested, let me know in a comment here or send me a private Tweet, Facebook message, or e-mail to pashortt (at) gmail (dot) com.

Edited to add: As of now, I can officially reveal that Locked Within's release date is November 6th!

Book Launch Preparations

The weekend scouting mission went well. I've got a couple of locations that would be perfect if I can get one of them. A lot of factors have come up while making the initial preparations.

1 - Size: I have a lot of friends and family who would like to come, not to mention inviting others who might also be interested. I've been working an estimate of about 50 or so who should be able to make it. Hopefully more. The venue's got to not only fit all the people I want there, with comfortable room to move, and space for a display, somewhere for a possible music act to go, the caterer, and somewhere to speak from.

2 - Location: The place has got to be central and easy to get to. The Dublin area is quite big and not all of it is easy to reach by public transport. I have to take this into account and make sure I get a place that everyone can get to with relative ease, especially given that most are likely to be coming from work.

3 - Catering: Thankfully I've got a great caterer who I'm meeting with on Friday to discuss options. There's got to be a decent spread. People will be coming from work and I don't want them watching the clock waiting for the party to end so they can get something decent to eat. And wine. There will also be wine.

4 - Entertainment: I'd like there to be some music playing, possibly a brief live act to play two or three songs. I could see about getting some people together and writing a song inspired by the book. So some form of PA options will be needed.

5 - Availability: The big one, right? I'm doing a lot of this work very early because regardless of the actual release date, everything from October to about February in Dublin is busy as hell. Venues book out weeks or even months in advance so the more I have prepared now, the easier it'll be to make sure things go smoothly. I'm very hopeful that either of the places I've got in mind can host me.

Locked Within Update

It's been a while since I had a proper update on my first novel. I'm thrilled to say that the final version of the book is completed and it has moved on to copy edits. Nothing has been confirmed yet, but I'm hoping for a release in about October/November, all going well.

Every day that passes this starts to feel more and more real and I can't decide if that's exciting or terrifying. For the moment I'm going with both. I've got a lot of work to do for promoting Locked Within so expect to see more posts in the coming weeks.

Locked Within will be out at the start of the real Christmas rush here in Ireland. I don't know exactly how it is in other countries, but in Ireland we have our Christmas products on shelves as early as September, with the real rush to get lights up and stocking up on presents and other neccessities starting in November. This is good because it's the perfect time to get the book into people's Christmas lists.

However, it also means that companies are booking out venues for their office Christmas parties. From about late September places will be advertising their deals for Christmas parties and by November the parties will have started. This makes it crunch time for booking a venue for my launch party. My wife and I are going out to scout some bookstores around Dublin, but we're keeping our eyes open for other suitable locations.

I'm all new to this so it's going to be a learning process. I'm taking help wherever I can find it, so if anyone's got any advice I'd love to hear it!

80s TV

I grew up on 80s television. Ghostbusters, Thundercats, Starcom, MASK, Airwolf, The A-Team. I had the toys. I played the oh-so basic video games. I even took coloured pencils to my copybooks and drew my own action scenes.

From a fairly early age, I came to realise that these shows had a very strong structure, even a predictable one. You had your leader, typically the main character or at least the one most often the centre of attention. Then there was the 2nd in command. This guy was usually focused on fighting or other physical abilities more than the leader, who was always the best all-rounder. Most groups have the Big Guy (the strongest) and the Smart Guy. Most teams would then have a female character to round things out. TV Tropes has a whole page on the 5-Man Band.

More significant, however, was 80s cartoon story structure. And this was something I really latched onto as a child. First you had the set-up. The villains would show up and start hurting people, with their own evil music. They would just waltz in, utterly dominating any resistance.

And then the call goes out to the heroes. Whether it's psychic visions, a telephone call or special watches that beep when you're needed, the heroes know that it's time to suit up and go to work.

But of course, the first time the heroes encounter the villains, they're defeated and have to retreat. They regroup, form a plan, and promptly deliver a can of ass-whooping, with their heroic theme music playing.

I said this was a predictable story structure. But when I was a kid, I didn't care. To this day, I don't care. If anything, I love that I got to be exposed to such clear examples of how to craft a narrative. I learned to love the anticipation of the next step in the story. Instead of wondering whether the good guys would win, I'd wonder when the theme music would start, or exactly when the hero would start to fight back. Knowing the way the story was meant to go actually made me enjoy it all the more.

I think these early lessons in story structure helped me a great deal when I decided I wanted to be an author. I already knew, roughly, the kinds of stories I wanted to tell, and how I wanted to tell them. 80s tv was really my first education in storytelling.

Have any of you learned anything about storytelling from tv, 80s or otherwise?

RPG Idea Sources - Zombie Survival Guide

While in New York my wife and I couldn't help but stop into Barnes and Noble, where we picked up a few books.

I grabbed The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, both my Max Brooks.

So far I'm loving The Zombie Survival Guide. I'm a big of of fictional non-fiction books like this. The Guide presents instructions for handling breakouts of the undead as though it were addressing people who live in a world where such things are real, even describing historical outbreaks and detailing the virus that causes the dead to rise.

While I've been reading the Guide, I've been struck by how great a resource this would be as the basis for a roleplaying game. It gives simple and clear information on the zombie threat, including how to classify outbreaks and what zombies are and are not able to do. It gives you everything you need to determine how the existence of zombies affects the world and decide what scale of game you want to run.

As a gamer I'm always on the lookout for things to inspire and improve my games. I love finding resources like this. It's even better that the book itself is an entertaining read. Despite being basically an instruction manual, it is still engaging and gives the impression of a world where this information is of real importance.

For any gamers, I'd definitely suggest checking this out if you're going to run a zombie-themed game.

Has anyone else read a book or watched a movie and thought that it could be used in this way? Obviously I'm specifically talking about personal use for hobbies, not for commercial use.

New York

Last week my wife and I got back from an 8-day trip to New York City. We've both been in love with New  York since we were kids, and it was a no-brainer that it would be the place we'd go for our honeymoon when we got married. We've spent the last four years planning our next trip.

So long have I been entranced by New York that deciding to set my first novel there didn't even feel like a choice. I just knew it was the right place. As I did my research I quickly found out that New York, Manhattan in particular, contained everything I needed as a setting for Locked Within.

There are few melting pots of so many cultures crammed into such a dense and ultra-modern place. For a story about reincarnation and the merging of old and new, drawing strength from different sources, there was no better place.

The city is filled with imagery from classical myth. Statues and references to the Greek gods can be found all over the place. Ever since the city's first major constructions, city planners have embraced a strong connection to the Old World, blending past and present in the city's art and architecture. I like the idea of a powerful city, a focal point of modern civilisation, where the old ways inspired the new.

My wife once commented on how well New York fit, saying "When the Old World wanted to hide from itself, what better place for it to go?"

The New York Public Library, along with several other landmarks, appears in Locked Within. I knew that if I was going to set a book in New York, I had to make it feel authentic. If a supernatural world existed there, it needed to be blended into the important places of the city, a real part of the environment. My goal was to make the reader feel that this book couldn't have taken place anywhere else but New York.

Riverside Park is located along the Hudson River. Beneath it runs Freedom Tunnel, a rail tunnel popular with urban explorers and a place the homeless took shelter before it was closed off. The park serves as a place of sanctuary for my hero, Nathan Shepherd, and while Central Park may be the most famous of Manhattan's many parks, Riverside feels cosy and secure, away from the city's eyes.

If you want to see more photos, stop over to my Facebook page, friend me, and take a look.

Blog Break

Yesterday was pretty emotional. Still, we got through it better than I expected. We had a nice breakfast out, went to see the new Spider-Man movie (excellent, by the way!), and released a balloon for Conor down at the beach.

I think the day was about as good as it could have been. We're both very glad we took the day off from work.

So, on Tuesday we're flying to New York. We touch down in JFK at 13:15 EST to begin 8 days of re-living our honeymoon and discovering new parts of one of our favourite cities. We land back in Dublin at 09:25 GMT on Thursday the 26th. That means 2 week's worth of blog dates where I'll either be travelling or distracted by all the New Yorkness. Since I've been woefully unprepared for this eventualiy, I figured I'd just take the two weeks off from blogging rather than try to rush and schedule 4 posts between now and when we leave.

I'm signing off until the 31st. I'll still be around on Twitter, Facebook and of course Gmail. So have a nice couple of weeks everyone!

Conor's First Birthday

Tomorrow our son Conor would have been one year old. We still miss him, and I know we always will.

We haven't really thought much about what we want to do to mark the day. We both have the day booked off. There's no way we could handle being in work. I think we're going to try and take it easy. Maybe go see a movie, just spend time together. In the evening my parents are putting a plaque with his name on it on my grandfather's grave. Conor's ashes are still on our mantlepiece at home. One day we'll scatter them somewhere nice, but we're not ready yet.

I'll probably be a bit quiet as regards e-mails, Twitter and Facebook.

Still, while it's going to be a hard day, my wife and I are happy. We've still got so many good things going for us. I've got my first book coming out in a few months. We're heading back to New York next week. And we've been blessed with two new babies on the way. I like to think Conor's been with us through all of it, helping us along when we need it.

Happy birthday, son.

An Important Announcement

I'm sure everyone who regularly reads this blog is aware that, last year, my wife Jen and I had a baby boy. Unfortunately, we lost him after only three days. It remains the single hardest thing either of us have ever gone through. I like to think we're stronger for it.

We knew pretty much right away we would be trying again once Jen had recovered physically and we were both emotionally ready.

Today Jen had her 12-week scan. She's pregnant!

Not only that guys, but there is another Skywalker.

We're having twins.

We were a little unsure at first, because the second one was so much smaller than the first, coming in at half the size. However Jen was brought in for another scan two weeks later, and to our surprise, the smaller twin had caught up to the larger one in size. At the scan today it was confirmed that everything looks good. Both twins are actually 7cm, which is 2cm longer than you'd expect for this stage.

The due date is around January 15th, but we've been told that they'll likely take her in early for an elective c-section. There's even a chance we could have them in time for Christmas!

So please forgive me if I've been a bit quiet lately. It's been so hard to keep this quiet. We're absolutely thrilled and I'll be keeping everyone up to date on the progress of our two little dots.

PS: Oh my god, we're having twins!! How the hell did this happen? Argh!! :-p

Hellas, My New Campaign

Any long-term gamer will tell you there's something magical about starting a new campaign. That point before you've actually started to play, when there's just a barest idea of what the game will be about and who the different characters are. It's pure potential and anticipation. Like children on Christmas morning, we gather around the table and hold our breath.

There are a lot of pitfalls to starting a new game. Will the players like it? Will it live up to the expectations? Will everyone understand the rules? It's on the shoulders of the game master (GM) to keep it all together.

This week my group is starting a new game called Hellas. It's a space opera inspired by Greek mythology. It blends bronze age aesthetics and culture with fantastic technology, creating a setting filled with both magic and science. Different elements of Greek myth take their place as alien species or updated supernatural beings. There are gods that will favour your heroes for their great deeds, savage titans who threaten to destroy whole worlds, epic space conflicts, battles fought with spear and shield, and an underworld realm known as Slipspace, home to myriad monsters and the means by which interstellar travel is possible.

I've loved Greek mythology since I was a kid. I studied ancient Greek civilisation in school and in college. The game itself promotes heroism and high adventure. When I first read about Hellas, it seemed like a game written just for me, the perfect game for me to run.

Hellas is intended to be run as a generational game. That is, unlike most games, as your characters grow old and retire, or die (or even ascend to godhood!) you take over the roles of your descendents. By the end of the game's 100 year-long campaign, it's expected that everyone will be playing at least the grandchildren of their original characters and get to see how they have shaped the course of history and forever changed the known worlds. Now if that doesn't sound epic, I don't know what is!

I'm very excited for this game. More than I have been for any game in a long, long time. We've got the player characters written up and I have the first several sessions planned out. I have my music playlists ready. I'm cooking some pastitsio for dinner, a Greek dish with beef mince and macaroni, as well as making some fresh red pepper hummus and olive tapanade for table snacks.

This Thursday night is going to be good.