Cross-Post: Story Game Renaissance

Cross-posted from The Story Game.:

Like a phoenix rising from its ashes and then texting all its friends, The Story Game is Back, It's Bad, and It's now got it's own parallel blog. We're back on course, lads 'n lassies, and now we're better than ever.

JED and I have reached a compromise between my mercenary vision of actually doing this writing stuff for some variety of compensation, and his charitable urges to ensure the poorest among us have access to medium quality speculative fiction at the drop of an URL. And we think you're going to like it.

So here's the new deal: We will be pitching as usual, but instead of every week, we will now be posting stories every other week, starting next weekend. At turn-in time ("catch time" if you will), we will each have to present a story, as usual. BUT, if one of us (let's face it: me) wants to keep the story and try to market it or something, we can, ON THE CONDITION that we replace it with another story of equal or lesser value and come here with hat in hand to explain to you, the reader, the reasons for our misdeeds. Also, JED has to finish his damn History of the Citadels pitch, because I dug those.

Simultaneously, we are revamping our old comments website (which no one was too thrilled about anyway) to be our NEW, IMPROVED (somehow) BLOG!!!! Now this won't be your normal ranty how-was-my-day blog, no sir. Instead, we'll try to focus more on posts about the craft of writing, writing reviews and criticism (I totally just made that part up off the top of my head), cool sources of writing info, and, occasionally, your normal ranty how-was-my-day blog stuff. We'll also cross-post these front-page blurbs from the main site, so that you, our 3-6 loyal readers (hi Mom!) can join in the conversatin'. We still haven't decided how often to update the blog (mainly because JED doesn't know we have one yet), but right now, we're shooting for a minimum of every other week, alternating with the release of stories on the main site. And of course, we will be posting there just any ole time we have something to say, as well.

So what does all this babble mean to you, the reader? It means you will get a bare-ass minimum of two (2) stories every two (2) weeks, which ain't bad. Most of these will be on the weekly pitch, but occasionally, you'll get a wild card to really vary things up. In the meantime, you'll get quality lit-crit, theory, reviews and ramblings from your favorite authors (us) over at our BLOG, where you can join in the coversation any time you please. All of this, PLUS you get the bonus story "History of the Citadel, Part 2" by JED, coming soon! Look for the next pitch "Looking Out the Window" to be posted next weekend, and the first blog post (which is really just an introduction) and the cross-post of these very words are up for comment on the blog right now! Go check it out!

What's The Story With These Guys?

So we have a blog now. Well, we sort of had one before, but we weren't using it as a blog. Not really. Instead, it was the repository for comments on our stories, which we post every two weeks on our website. Only that didn't really go so well, so now it's blog. Ta-daaa!!!!

So here's our story: we're two brothers, a nation apart (I live in Charlotte, NC, and brother JED lives in Seattle, WA) with a passion for the writing and a charitable urge to give it away with as little editing and as many typos as possible. I'm a mildly, mildly published SpecFic author, with aspirations of turning into a moderately published one. My secret identity is that of an attorney, mostly a criminal defense attorney (I represent people what done got arrested), working at a firm that gives Boston Legal a run for its money. JED, on the other hand, is a post-doc with a PhD in... well, something complicated. Let's just call it "Animal Behavior." In a few short months, JED will be traveling to Scotland, then spending 7 months in exile on the Tibetan plateau during winter. Yes, that's right, the Tibetan plateau, where he will learn to drink yak butter, run from killer mastiffs, make love to large rocks, and fight crime dressed as a giant bat. But I'll let him explain all that. Except for the rocks part... that bears no explanation.

The real purpose of this blog, and its parent website, The Story Game, is to keep us writing. We have about 100 stories up on The Story Game website, and I encourage you to go read them. They're short, they're generally punchy, and very few of them, proportionately, suck. These aren't rejects, either-- all were written specifically for the Game. And we'll keep writing 'em, too, two stories (one from each of us) every two weeks. If that doesn't make you go w00t!, I don't know what will. Probably something that doesn't involve stories.

So here's my scheme for this blog, totally unapproved by JED as of now: We've been posting interesting things on the front page of our main website, but no one could ever talk back. So now we'll cross-post them here! What's more, we'll have some special posts on the craft of writing that hopefully will stir some conversation, and I foresee a high likelihood of vitriolic ranting in our future as well. So if you like stories, writing, or ranting (and who doesn't?), stay tuned, we've got plenty of all three on the way!

Oh, and by the way, we'll leave all the old stuff, our comments on our stories from the main site, kicking around here as well, so if you find an old post that doesn't make any sense, follow the link back to the story, read it, and all will come together, as if by magic. Enjoy!