Recommendation Wednesday – Biodiesel Production Expansion Indiegogo

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Ottawa Biofuel is a great local company that transforms used cooking oil into diesel fuel.

They’re currently running an Indiegogo campaign in order to update their equipment and expand their production.

They also make wonderful glycerine soap.

Even if you’re car-less, like me, it’s worth helping them out even for the 1 or 5 dollar pledge. You’ll be doing something good for the environment and helping out a great company.

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Go check it out,

Éric

PsyCorps Academy – Story and Proof-of-Concept

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Hello,

I don’t talk with many other authors about their process for writing. It usually feels like prying. I’ve read lots of great books about the craft of writing and lot of blogs telling people how to write or how not to write.

I’ve learned that everyone does something different. I know that Stephen King normally writes his books in chronological order, while Neil Gaiman writes scenes and then ties them together. Some people plot out every scene and others don’t. Some type some use a pen or pencil.

One thing that I do that I’ve never heard anyone else doing was writing a proof-of-concept. I’ve done it for each of my novels so far and I find it extremely useful in find the right tone and feel. I find it extremely useful.

This post was a proof-of-concept for Parasomnia, and if you ever get the chance to read the novel you’ll realize that they’re completely different. What I learned from it was that I enjoyed the tone and the mirroring of dreams.

The following is a proof-of-concept for a novel I’m thinking of writing that’s set in the far future where 1 in a billion people is a Psionic. Each kind of Psionic is separated into a guild and that guild is like their family and decides what they do as a living. Precogs are the pilots and body guards, Telekinetic are the soldiers for hire, etc.

But at the core of the story I want it to be about a girl who has three of the eight possible powers and how she deals with training in the PsyCorps Academy. It should be a riff on the Boarding School stories, like Harry Potter, but in the future, with Psychic powers. I’d like it to have the feel of the Tamora Pierce Tortall novels (The Song of the Lioness and Protector of the Small books), with a hint of Star Trek and Babylon 5.

After writing this I think it didn’t have the tone of awe or sci-fi that I wanted. I think the character acts too young for her age and I think I need to go to third person to better describe the effects.

I am still extremely interested in writing this novel and it most likely will be my 2015 writing project.

Read the Proof-Of-Concept after the break.

Let me know what you think. Please!

*Warning: There is some violence and an attempted sexual assault*

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Recomendation Wednesday – Silver Stag Entertainment

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Hello,

This week’s Recommendation Wednesday is for a Webseries and web organization.

I’ve mentioned them before but Silver Stag Entertainment, is a great website that delves into Books, Movies, and all the awesome speculative fiction stuff.

Go ahead and follow them on:

Their Youtube channel has several great shows and covers book readings/launches.

Let me be honest with you; I’m an occasional contributor to their Nights at the Round Table (NatRT) show that reviews and discusses books and movies. So this is mildly self-serving but even if I wasn’t involved I would follow, subscribe, etc because the people who run it are awesome!

Silver Stag Entertainment has only been around for half a year now and I’m impressed with what they’ve been able to accomplish. I also look forward to seeing how they’ll grow and the wonderful things they’ll do in the future.

Enjoy the bloopers below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Reto-ogBLCg&w=560&h=315]
Éric

Gaming and Writing

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Hello my Imaginary Friends,

I may have way too many things on my mind right now. It has nothing to do with being busy and everything to do with my mind working in overtime. I blame running oneshots and preparing to run a new campaign.

Gaming

After nearly four months of not running or playing in any games (pen and paper games like D&D) I ran a oneshot two weeks ago and another yesterday. Oneshots are short adventures that take an evening to start and finish.

I’ve learned some valuable lessons with both games. The first being that rules light games are harder for people to grasp as a first gaming experience. Second is that I’m very rusty with the D&D 3.5 rules. It took me forever to make characters.

I also got the Emerald Spire Superdungeon in the mail from Paizo. It’s the special Kickstarter, leather bound edition. It’s beautiful and exciting. I can’t wait to run my group through it on Thursday.

Hobbies

I’ve noticed most authors I know have another creative outlet. It varies from person to person, there’s gardening, sculpting, drawing, painting, music, acting, web videos etc.

I think it’s important to have an outlet that lets you do something other than writing. I’m still not an official author but I’ve noticed that writing sort of steels a section of my brain. I’m constantly thinking of scenes, stories, novels, characters and other things for what I’m writing or want to write. It’s exhausting and sometimes builds into stress.

If I don’t do something else with my mind, I often feel guilty for not writing. Writing is a combination urge, craving, and need.

The closest thing I have to another creative outlet is gaming. It allows me to use the same parts of my brain that create stories for another purpose. A good gaming session, or preparation session feels like I’ve rebooted or defragmented my brain. It’s great.

I’ve also greatly enjoyed working on my own gaming system called Four Attribute Duel Dodecahedron System or FADDS for short. I’ve talked about it before but I’ll be doing some playtest at the end of August for the game.

I’m toying with the idea of filming a playtest oneshot to see how well it plays.

fadds

Parasomnia

On the note of writing, I’m hard at work on chapter 20 of Parasomnia. It started out as a Supernatural Suspense but I think I’ll have to re-classify it as a Drama Fantasy. I also started writing it for Adults but I’m fairly sure it’s better suited for Young Adults, or that odd new category called New Adults.

The book should have roughly 23-25 chapters and I’m going to do something with it that I’ve never needed to do before and that’s edit the crap out of it before my Weditor (Also known as my Wife) looks at it.

Unlike the Elizabeth Investigates series, I find this book needs a lot more cleanup. It might be that I have 5 POV characters instead of 2 or maybe the others need it and I didn’t notice. Either way once I’m done I’ll have a few weeks’ worth of work before I send it to the Weditor.

An author I know, and respect, sends her beta readers her new books one at a time. So she’s already edited what the first one says before she sends it to the second one. I think this is a brilliant way to get a book edited and that’s what I’ll do with this one when it’s done.

It’s been a hard book to write. Each of the five main characters is fundamentally broken. I don’t mean a fatal flaw but a mental problem that hampers their development and their ability to deal with the world. It’s hard to include those things and try to make them realistic without caricaturizing them.

There’s still a strong dose of action and adventure throughout but this book has more character introspection than I’ve ever attempted.

I’m very proud of it so far and I hope it will be well received.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow with more random topics.

Éric

The Ridiculous Adventures of Felix Felicis – Part Three

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Part 1 | Part 2

“DINOSAURS!” yelled Felix. The woman had forced him to come to work on his day off, which turned out ok since his house exploded, and then dragged him around town avoiding people who didn’t know how to spell and now she was blaming it on dinosaurs?

“Keep your voice down Felix. May I call you Felix?”

“No you may not. I’m leaving,” he stood up thinking that although she was attractive and saved his life, it was no excuse for him to stick around and listen to her crazy statements. But there was one thing he needed to know, “Why are ‘they’ after me and why does the news think I blew up my apartment?” He was standing now and was mildly impressed by the lack of interest people were showing in his loud and insane conversation.

“Mister Felicis. Please just sit down and I’ll tell you,” she sounded like a grade school teacher chastising a student. Her voice was calm and eyes narrowed.

He sat down.

“Good good. Now the police believe you blew up the building because they found a bomb inside your apartment. Or I suppose remnants of a bomb at this point. The Dinosaurs put it there.”

“And?” He had never tried to hide his impatience with her and he didn’t try now.

“Oh, I’d love to have an ice cream cone. I haven’t had one since two-thousand and twenty five. Oh and they make them with real milk here. What a treat.” She stood up and went to the counter to order her ice-cream cone.

Everything she said sounded odd but she talked about two-thousand and twenty five as if it was in the past. This worried Felix but he wasn’t sure why. When she came back he asked her, “What year do you think it is right now?”

Again she gave him a condescending look and replied, “Two-thousand and fifteen, April 1st.” she was right and ignored his confusion.

“Where are you from?” why was he asking these questions? He knew he wouldn’t like the answers.

“The future,”

“No. Try again.”

“Uhm… I come from the future.”

“Time travel isn’t possible. Any universe that would allow time travel would be messy and filled with paradoxes. In the end it would destroy itself.”

“I’m sorry but you’re wrong. The universe isn’t some priceless vase. It won’t crack that easy.”

This time he didn’t say anything he just stood up and left. The door out squeaked and cool air felt nice on his face. It was early afternoon now and he just walked. He had no idea where to go or what to do but he needed to get away from Miss Eris and her crazy theories.

It seemed that his subconscious had decided what to do when he saw that he was walking towards his brother’s home. Once there he’d explain everything to his brother Dean and his partner Sam and they’d formulate a plan.

Maybe the reason Miss Eris didn’t want him to go to the police was that she had planted the bomb in order to feed her sick fantasies.

His brother’s home was a small stand-alone house not far from downtown. It took Felix less than ten minutes to get there. It was small but cozy and despite Dean’s inability to organize, Felix still enjoyed visiting.

As Felix turned onto his brother’s street there was a loud whistling noise as if someone had built a sky scrapper sized tea-kettle. Felix fell to his knees and covered his ears. When the sound was over her looked down the street and blinked several times.

Standing in front of his brother’s home was a thirty foot tall gorilla. One of its eyes had been converted into some sort of laser pointer and one of its arms appeared to be made of metal. Attached to its hunched back was a saddle, sitting in this saddled was a small scaly reptile. Its yellow lizard eyes focused on Felix and it lifted what looked like a machine gun from an old gangster movie.

With a hissing voice it said, “Felix Felicis, you are tried by the Sauren court and found guilty of crimes against time and space. Prepare to die.”

Read Part 4