2023: Schemes and Dreams

I wasn't going to bother with the New Year thing -- I barely mentioned it last year -- but, since the timing lines up with a couple of announcements I've been waiting to make, I figured that post might as well do double duty. 

The Announcements

First, I put together a new edition of Stars, Specters, and Super-Powers. I did it mostly because it had always bothered me that I rushed it out with such an awful cover. I also had one more story I wanted to add, one that I thought about including the first time but, for reasons I don't remember, left out. Since I was doing all this anyway, I thought I could add a couple more things to make it worth a second look: an RPG scenario I had written up based on one of the stories, and a comic book plot that inspired one of the others. And I threw in the art my brother drafted for a page of that comic book plot. 

The other announcement is audiobook formats for both Stars and Losing Lanterns. I used AI readers because they were free. Think what you will of that. All I'm going to say is, I write my own stories and pay real artists to draw the pictures. A program that converts text to speech is basically just a another kind of printer. Someday I'd love to hire a calligrapher instead, but it's wonderful to have this in the meantime.

Both books in all their various stores and formats can be found at: 

https://books2read.com/ChristinaLea

The Other Stuff

After a fun game of The One Ring at BASHCon, I almost fell back into running RPGs. Boring story for the most part: by coincidence, I missed the first session and that made me think about the fact that it was a mistake to be doing it at all. The thing about RPGs is, I'd like to be using the miniscule amount of time that's actually mine either writing or semi-passively relaxing. Role-playing games are neither. They accomplish nothing and, if you start to relax, everybody gets mad because you're not contributing.

More recently, it occurred to me that what I'm really tired of is the pseudo-social ritual of video-chat gaming. For gaming to be more than just the needy bastard of productivity and relaxation, it needs to be in person. There needs to be hanging out, snacking, ordering a pizza or even pausing to go out together. It needs to be a party. I guess that's why I still enjoy it sometimes at conventions. 

Projects: I've kinda been all over the place creatively, but I can't think of any way it could help me to talk about that. It never has before. I'm actually not sure why I tell you people anything at all. I've already written the other stuff, though, so I might as well publish it. 

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