James McGowan Reader Group- A Season of Finishes and Starts

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Happy New Year One and All!

I hope the holiday season has gone as well as it can.  This one was little choppy for me and my family.  It wasn’t all turbulence thankfully, so I’ll count my blessings where I can.

On the smoother end of the spectrum, I finished the latest draft of Players of the Game Book 4.5: The Breakers: Jagged Pieces.  It was originally a novella, but it ended up expanding into a full sized bonus novel.  I’ve started writing Book 5: The Game War.  The blank page didn’t really bug me on this one.  I pretty much jumped right in.

I also did a deep dive on the series’s timeline with a codex I put together on an Excel sheet.  I tweaked a few minor details and fleshed out more details that I intentionally kept a bit hazy.  I’ll likely put some version of the timeline up on the stelfire.com website at some point.

And I plan to release Book 3.5 The New Players: Origins sometime in the first half of the year.  More to details to come in future emails.
Recommendation Corner
Billy Summers by Stephen King:

This was much more of a thriller than a horror novel.  the title character, Billy, is a highly skilled assassin who specializes in sniper kill shots.  He plays dumb in order to keep the people with whom he works at arms length.  It also allows him to repeatedly indicate that he only kills bad people.  When he embeds in a community with a novel writing cover story, he starts to wonder if this job is as simple as his crime family handlers would have him believe.  Things complicate from there.  It’s a very compelling read and even has a few little call backs to the Shining in parts of it.

The Witcher Season 2 on Netflix:

Last time I recommended the Wheel of Time series.  And while that was quite good, the Witcher is better.  I think the story is tighter and the characters are little more fleshed out.  Geralt and Ciri’s relationship is very endearing as a surrogate father and daughter.  Yennifer’s own struggles with losing her magic is also well done (though I really dislike that name).  And Jaskier/Dandelion has another good song where he laments his falling out with Geralt from last season.  Give it a watch if you enjoy grim-dark fantasy.

Check Out the Players of the Game Series on Kindle and Paperback
That’s all for this time.

Stay smart.  Stay safe.

Jim

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Suso will not abide death by the hand of another.

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Suso is a death goddess who aligns against Corsis and Nirva in the first two books of the series.  She is old friends with ViRauni and Welt, though she met each of them under different circumstances.  She strives to keep the Mosul Flute out of Nirva’s hands, which would grant the would-be empress the power to control the dead.  A turn of events that she will not abide.

James McGowan Reader Group- Editing Editing Everywhere And Not a Drop to Drink

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“Everyone makes mistakes, that’s why they put erasers on pencils.” 

The sage Lenny once said this on a memorable Simpsons episode with Frank Grimes.

And oh, my.  When one writes hundreds of thousands of words in a series of novels, the mistakes will add up.  I swear I know the difference between their, there, and they’re.  But the wrong words, the wrong grammar, and the wrong style will indeed sneak in.

I usually make several edit runs through my novels as I write them.  I read them in a weekly writers workshop group on Zoom, which is totally great because you can share your screen while you’re reading aloud.  Additionally, I make use of an editor for my novels who finds all kinds of oops items.  (Hi, Sarah.) 

And just this past week, also I bought an editing program called Pro Writing Aid.  It’s caught a lot of errors that hid in plain sight and that I flat out made the wrong choice without knowing it.  I’m absolutely sure that errors will make it into my works, which isn’t ideal, but by no means immutable.  That’s the glory of indie publishing with ebooks and print on demand.  If you find mistakes, you just correct them, and upload an updated version.

The ultimate aim is to get it right the first time, but like the pencil in Lenny’s quote, editing is the eraser to fix that mistake.
Recommendation Corner
Wheel of Time on Amazon Prime:

I had read the first five books in Robert Jordan’s magnum opus about 25 years ago.  I liked them a great deal, and I know they influenced my storytelling, but I decided I wanted to wait until Jordan finally finished them.  When Brandon Sanderson took them over and finished them, my brother and a couple cousins told me it was all quite good, but I just didn’t have the motivation to dive into them again.  I do now.  The new streaming series is most engaging after the choppy first episode.  It’s like Game of Thrones, except magic is much more of a thing and friendship is valued more than political maneuvers, at least initially.  I didn’t care for a particular character’s actions that deviated from the books, but it’s a minor quibble.  I’m enjoying it so far.

The Wisdom of Crowds by Joe Abercrombie:

I do love this series despite all the terrible things that happen to some characters and the worse things that others inflict.  The Great Change sweeps in a revolution that starts like the American one, then devolves into something worse than the French one. King Orso continues to be my favorite character with his fatalistic good humor.  Rikke is also a strong character in this installment.  She makes a lot of right choices that still lead to pain.  The narration by Steven Pacey is varied for all of the characters on the audio book version.  As long as Abercrombie keeps up this level of excellence, I will continue to recommend all the books in this series.  Fantastic yarns, one and all.
Check Out the Players of the Game Series on Kindle and Paperback
That’s all for this time.

Stay smart.  Stay safe.

Jim

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Vex Ramansa at Your Peril

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Ramansa is a Sphinx who starts off wary of Ashe Stelfire, but ultimately becomes a close friend. She expects excellence from all those with whom she works, especially her daughter. Very few can match her mastery of ethereal arts. Those who try soon learn that it’s most unwise to vex a Sphinx.

James McGowan Reader Group- Outlinery

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Hey hey!

Several months ago I listened to a Hello Internet podcast where one of the hosts, Grey, spoke of something called “brain crack”, a phenomenon where you imagine how you would handle a personal/public/national/world problem with such competence and imagination that you get addicted to the daydream, rather than taking action toward solving the actual problems, or anything else in your life that needs doing.

This trait is not always useful for dealing with day-to-day life, but it is absolutely critical when I’m outlining out a novel.  That brain-crack journey is how I feel out a story before I write it.  How I figure out the plot beats and character interactions. 

I used to write it down in a spiral note book, but I’ve since started using a free program called yWriter that has a fantastic chapter-by-chapter outlining function.  It also allows for writing the actual novel using its application, but I can’t break away from Word, nor do I really want to.  More than that, yWriter is the place where I feel more comfortable letting the daydreams of the plot flow through my mind.  Sometimes, I’ll go minutes on end with out typing anything, yet feeling very productive with the mental exercise.

And that productivity is bearing out an outline of Players of the Game Book 5.  Right now, I think it’s going to be called The Game War, though that may change.  The story will likely change substantially from the outline, and that’s totally fine.  Having a map makes for a better journey, especially if you try out a few detours.
Recommendation Corner
Dune

I recently caught the new movie on HBO Max, and might even venture into the theater to watch it on the big screen.  I enjoyed it a great deal.  The more I thought about it, the more I liked it, which is my favorite outcome of any media I consume.  The effects, the cinematography, direction, writing, and acting are all top notch.  It is a bit dense, so it’s not for everyone.  I will also say that it is truly odd to see Jason Momoa without a beard.  I finally pulled out the book and am working my way through the it as well.  The movie is pretty faithful to the book, but I think the dialogue in the movie is a bit better.  Sacrilege!  Give it a watch if you are wanting something that’s a little bit House of Cards and a little bit Fellowship of the Ring.

Recursion by Blake Crouch

This novel is trippy in the best way.  It starts with a cop investigating a suicide of someone who was suffering from false memories from a life she did not live.  She is not the only one.  There are many others suffering from the same false memory syndrome.  Imagine the end of Back to the Future, but instead of everyone being fine with the new timeline, everyone also remembers how things were in the original timeline as well as the new timeline.  Things spiral out of control from there.  Both audio book readers, Jon Lindstrom and Abby Craden, do a great job of handling the duties between the two main characters.  Good stuff.
Check Out the Players of the Game Series on Kindle and Paperback
That’s all for this time.

Stay smart.  Stay safe.

Jim

Click here to view the original format.

ViRauni cannot touch you with her skin. Her sword is another matter.

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ViRauni is a major character in the Players of the Game series. She has been featured before on a bonus content book cover. She is a former queen who fell into a dark place. Her past choices haunt her. She is constantly reminded of them with the cursed armor that she wears, and the cursed sword she wields. The magic affliction renders her skin unable to touch anything living, passing through it like a phantom. Corsis took much from her. She strives to take it all back.

James McGowan Reader Group- Tea Quest ’21

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“You know, Paul.  I don’t know a man, woman, or child alive… who doesn’t enjoy… a lovely beverage.”  These are the words David Letterman would occasionally say to Paul Shaffer toward the end of his Late Night run, which would then be followed by the beverage drinking piano jingle as Dave drank water, coffee, and/or booze from a mug.

Lovely beverages do indeed make the day better, especially warm ones.  I do enjoy cocoa, apple cider, or coffee from time to time, but the one I drink on a daily basis each morning is black tea.  It’s got a little caffeine, but is more mellow than coffee, which will make me feel too wired if I partake in it too often.  I’ve tried the green and white teas, and they’re not my bag.  Earl and Lady Grey are the one’s I usually enjoy on weekdays.

However, there is another.  One that creeps up to the level of a coffee kick, but maintaining the smooth feel of a tea.  It’s one that I discovered on a tea of the month club that my wife set up for me several years ago.  Roasted Mate (pronounced mah-tay), a caffeine-infused drink from South America.  I loved a blend called My Morning Mate that tasted absolutely fantastic, a bit coffee, a bit cocoa.  Then the fiends stopped making it.

I found others that were quite good, like South of the Border black tea with chocolate and chili pepper.  It’s not too spicy, but there’s some zing for sure.  But I was always pining for that lost flavor.

And I have at last found a suitable replacement from Fusion Teas called Good Morning Yerba Mate.  Oh, my.  I had it the other morning, and the feeling and taste of it was pure liquid love.  Just like the lost flavor of old.  The taste sensation has returned.  In a way, I’m glad I was bereft for a few years.  I found new flavors I enjoyed.  And I’ll cherish my reunited flavor all the more now.

The lesson here is to take pleasure in the little things, like a lovely beverage.  And be more diligent with your Google searches.
Recommendation Corner
Dug Days on Disney+

This is not the first Pixar recommendation I’ve given, nor will it be the last.  The series of ten minute shorts focuses on Carl and Dug the dog from Up.  They have moved into a new house where Carl reestablishes his peaceful environment following his balloon-based adventures from the feature film.  Dug, of course, sows chaos by being a lovable id.  Plus, he actually has a squirrel frenemy to chase or get bonked by tossed nuts.  “Squirrel!” I think has become a universal shorthand for distraction by something interesting.  The show is really sweet and might be the last work of Ed Asner before his passing.  Give it a watch.

Out of Body by Peter Milligan and Inaki Miranda

This comic book from Aftershock focuses on a psychologist who gets attacked and left in a coma.  A psychic freelancer encounters him on the astral plane as another group of psychics try to harvest his soul for their own dark appetites.  The psychologist can’t remember how or why he ended up in the coma, and as he and the psychic delve into the surrounding events of the other people in his life, they learn that his relationships were less ideal than he supposed.  It’s a cool concept mixing fantasy with a thriller.
Check Out the Players of the Game Series on Kindle and Paperback
That’s all for this time.

Stay smart.  Stay safe.

Jim

Click here to view the original format.

James McGowan Reader Group- Dungeon Crawlin’

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Greetings!

It will likely be no surprise that role playing games both of the video game variety and pen-and-paper variety are big influences on my writing style.  In high school and college, I primarily played Dungeons and Dragons as a player character and I ran a couple campaigns of a lesser known RPG from Palladium Books called Rifts, which was more prolific in the 90’s.  As I devoted more time to writing, something had to give, and regrettably pen-and-paper RPGs needed to be set aside.

Video games RPGs have ebbed and flowed for me over this time, depending on my mood and time constraints with writing time and other activities.  The Super NES version of Ogre Battle, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Final Fantasy Tactics, Dragon Age: Origins, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic are classics in my all-time top ten.  I have two more recent faves that I’ll discuss more in recommendation corner below.

If you have any current or classic pen-and-paper or video game RPGs that trip your wire, I’d love to hear what they are.
Recommendation Corner
Darkest Dungeon

This RPG leans heavily into the Lovecraftian grim-dark setting.  The game has an initial disclaimer indicating that playing it is about making the best of a bad situation.  You play an inheritor of a haunted estate that is overrun with bandits, mutated horrors, and demonic fiends.  The characters you recruit must not only contend with difficult combat as they trudge through dungeons shown from a side-scrolling perspective, but they also must face disease and insanity.  The stylized artwork reminds me of Mike Mignola of Hellboy fame, and the music is dark, moody, and superb.  The ancestor who bequeathed the estate narrates the battles and the down time in the base at the nearby town.  It’s difficult, but so very fun.  Give it a try if such types of things are up your alley.

Path of Exile

This game is for fans of Diablo and Gauntlet.  It’s presented from an overhead isometric perspective.  You start of as one of various character classes who are all banished to an island by a corrupt regime.  You slowly pull yourself together and go on quests to make things better and save the world from a multitude of demons and dark gods.  It is more action oriented and the skills and powers encourage experimentation.  It’s free-to-play, but not the pay-to-win variety.  The game makes its money through skin customization, but you can choose to use the intentionally boring looking equipment appearances.  It’s very bloody and incredibly violent.  And it is more fun played with a party than alone.  To channel Jim Carrey: I like it a lot.
New End Banner
This new end banner is just plain awesome. The characters from left to right are: Xax, Avril Enzali, Ed Burnhelt, Ashe Stelfire, Tamona of Mune, Harry Mang (in different armor), and Candice Quentra. All of them will appear in their own spotlights as time goes on.
Check Out the Players of the Game Series on Kindle and Paperback
That’s all for this time.

Stay smart.  Stay safe.

Jim

Click here to view the original format.

Harry Mang does not miss.

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Harry Mang is one of the main characters in The New Players. He is a gruff, but ethical officer serving the Holy Alliance, an empire that is neither holy nor an alliance. Harry has been shunted to the command of a remote frontier city fort, as he is too talented, too popular to kill. He also has a particular talent, he never misses a shot, never fails to complete a slice or strike. He is first introduced in a face off against Ed Burnhelt. All of which is great interest to the Master of the Game. Corsis.