You are The Magician

Skill, wisdom, adaptation. Craft, cunning, depending on dignity.

Eleoquent and charismatic both verbally and in writing,
you are clever, witty, inventive and persuasive.

The Magician is the male power of creation, creation by willpower and desire. In that ancient sense, it is the ability to make things so just by speaking them aloud. Reflecting this is the fact that the Magician is represented by Mercury. He represents the gift of tongues, a smooth talker, a salesman. Also clever with the slight of hand and a medicine man - either a real doctor or someone trying to sell you snake oil.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Does this mean I can cast magic missiles at the darkness?

Jack is nimble,
Jack is quick,
Pick your pocket,
and turn a trick.

Jack is nimble,
Jack is slick,
Take the money,
get out quick.

-Black Sabbath

So, I'm officially a quarter now. I turned twenty-five on Sunday. It was a LARP weekend, so I was too exhausted to do much celebrating at the time, but Jessica made me a fantastic pie on the following day. I was thrilled. She knows my weakness for peanut butter, so that could prove dangerous later. ^_^

The weekend itself was a mixed bag. Friday was a little disappointing, but the role-playing and combat on Saturday was pretty fantastic. I'm glad I stuck around for the whole game; I had considered leaving early to catch the Dying Kingdoms event. While I'm always sad to miss DK, it was worth staying for the rest of the Wyrd event. I'm very curious what will happen with the rest of the storyline. I've seen some pretty interesting hints about possible directions, but I'd rather not state my theories overtly here.

On the book side of things, I'm in contact with a publisher, but they're still reviewing my first book (which I've essentially put on hold while I work on the second). I wish they were reading my second book, but one of the editor has offered to forward on my second manuscript as well when time permits. Apparently, this publisher had a bunch of layoffs (stupid economy) recently and they're very behind on submissions. I'm not in the least bit surprised. Overall, this means more waiting, but it's still a positive development. No news is good news, essentially. I haven't been rejected, so yay.

I honestly expect my second book to be more successful than the first - I'm not being needlessly negative, I've just learned a lot. My first book was essentially written for my friends, not for a broad audience. I think my second book is turning out to be more appropriate for the average reader.

While I wait on the slow process of talking to agents and publishers, I'm considering picking up a game design position somewhere. I've looked into a few options, but nothing has really jumped out at me yet.

On the LARP side, I'm planning for what might be our craziest game yet - a siege at Camp Trask. There's a fortress at the campsite, so combat is going to be very different from the standard fare. I'm looking forward to it, but the planning has been pretty intense.

Sadly, not a huge update.

I'm living back up in the San Fernando Valley, in case anyone hasn't heard. I'm done writing the book I was working on, but I'm still editing it significantly before I start submitting it to agents. I like the direction I went with it, though, and oddly people seem to agree with me this time. That's a positive change.

I realize more and more that I miss Blizzard. I'm looking forward to BlizzCon and seeing my old friends and my guild. I may talk shop a bit with some of my Blizzard friends and look into going back after I get my novel published. We'll have to see how the whole novel thing works out.

Last few LARPs have been fun. I'm going to a Dying Kingdoms game this weekend, and then a Wyrd of Avilion game on my birthday weekend at the beginning of September. My own next event should be around the end of October or the beginning of November. We've already had our first Plot meeting, which is good progress.

I'm doing a lot more reading lately, which is really refreshing. My love life is fantastic. I'll save you the details. Life in general is looking pretty good at the moment.

So, I haven't posted anything in detail lately. Here are a few updates.

-I'm still attending LARP events nearly every weekend. Last weekend was a Campaign event and a Dying Kingdoms game, both of which were excellent. I'm very envious of the costume and prop quality at Campaign. Hopefully we'll eventually be able to work on our costumes for Beyond the Veil to that point.

-Beyond the Veil's next game is the third weekend of July (the 17th to 19th). It's going to be a crazy huge production and I'm very excited about it. We're trying to do our best to make sure that all the players feel like they have a reason to be involved and that's proving very difficult in some cases. Still, I'm confident it'll work out.

-No real progress on getting my first novel published. Still no agent. I'm working on it, but I'm thinking that I may have a better chance starting the process fresh with my second book. I suppose time will tell.

-I've put a lot of thought into moving out of state, but I'm probably staying in the area for a while - mostly due to my relationship with Jessica, to be honest. That's been going very well. Still, I'll have to change my living arrangement one way or another soon as a result of my job situation.

-I've been unemployed for roughly a month now. It's funny; that hasn't given me anywhere near as much extra time as I had expected. Still, I got some important things done, like a few doctor's appointments. I still need to follow those up, but at least I've made some measure of progress in that department.

-I'm reading a lot again, which is extremely refreshing and helping my writing a great deal. I think that as a writer, I really needed this time off work to get focused on my creative side again. It just wasn't possible to write as effectively when I was working on a technical job 8-12 hours a day.

That's it for now.

Just thought I'd mention that life is going pretty well overall. ^_^

I'm still not quite clear on if I'm currently employed or not. ^_^

The dragonforce concert was awesome. I'm going to have to go to out to more performances soon. I've missed live music.

Basshunter, maybe?

So, I only just realized that I posted my update about my book on April Fools Day.

Well, it was true. I really do have a publisher looking at my book.

I still do not, however, have an agent.

So, if any agents are reading this blog, hi.

<3

(PS: Don't worry, all. I *have* queried some agents and had a couple partial requests already. It's just going to take a little while.)

A publisher is interested in reading my manuscript. There are no words to explain how excited I am.

...I'm probably not doing a lot to sell my writing abilities by saying that. Oh, the irony, it kills.

This hand of mine is burning red.

It's loud roar tells me to grasp victory.

ERUPTING BURNING FINGER!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEaFQT3UdTA

I've finished my first series of query letters. I'm still a bit intimidated by the whole process, but I'm confident that the story is good enough to sell. Eventually.

In the meantime, I'll be starting on my next book - one that should be a little easier to write.

One of the big hiccups in my first projects was basing it on my D&D campaign from up at UC Santa Barbara. As a result, I had to work with other people's characters, and that meant getting permission. I felt an obligation to keep everyone included, and while ultimately a few characters did get pulled, I tried to stay as true to the core of the D&D campaign as possible. That was very, very difficult. I think the end product was worth the effort, but it was also psychological exhausting.

My latest project will be taking place in the same setting as the D&D campaign (and the Beyond the Veil LARP), but begins hundreds of years before.

It's also written first-person by the main character, which should be a very fun change of pace.

I'm getting excited about it already. My outline is pretty much finished, I just need to start working on the hard part - the writing itself.

This should be interesting.

I've started the working on getting in contact with a book company about publishing my novel.

As if on cue, George R.R. Martin decided to respond to a message I sent him on LJ months ago today - which is rad. Helps show me that today, with the coming of spring, can be an awesome new beginning.

This season is going to be rad.

First query letter sent.

I don't have butterflies in my stomach.

I have dracoliches.

I feel pretty strange today.

Life is so random sometimes.

Wait, when did Siyona turn into bad cop?

X_X

The game this weekend was fascinating. Siyona and I *both* had our personal plot/character backgrounds spilled to a lot of PCs publicly for the first time. Ever. We've been playing these characters for, what, 13 years now? That's pretty insane. I'm still a little shaken.

There are still a lot of misconceptions about Salaris - thankfully his backstory is pretty complicated - but at least a few people have a very solid idea of who he is now. I don't even know how to react to that. It's pretty crazy. I'm not exactly disappointed; the way it happened was pretty epic and crazy. The word "Salona" was used. Thanks, Alex, for that.

Now to go meet Mordred.

Dead B's sting more than once.

^_^

The game this weekend was amazing. While I wasn't quite as overpowered of a character as usual (mostly because I never got involved in combat), I still had a spectacular time at at Strategicon this weekend.

I arrived at the convention around noonish with Keri and Jula. We spent the earlier part of the morning at the Live Effects fighting circle. Devon, Amanda, Diana, Tracy, Megan, Joslyn, Ira, and Ian were already there and running the show. As such, I didn't really feel like they needed us much, but it was fun to participate for at least a bit.

Just before 3PM, I went with Keri and Jula over to the DK area. Keri ended up PCing, while Jula and I NPCed for the event. NPCs were basically pre-generated PCs with backgrounds and little else; for us, the game was very similar to a murder mystery party or Red Queen LARP.

The game revolved around the 9 Iron Dukes of Bechan, although in reality some of them were Duchesses - and Jula landed one of the Duchess roles. I played one of the few non-noble characters, Knight Vindicater Joseph Haas. I had some pretty pimpin' combat abilities - I was pretty much MaleSiyonaonCrack - but I never got a chance to show them off.

*Someone* managed to poison one of the Duchesses within five minutes of the event starts. I'm not saying any names, but you know who you are. I felt almost like I was at an Eidolon event. =p It was pretty rad.

The game itself was full of backstabbing, betrayal, and political maneuvering on an epic scale. I was fascinated by how things played out. There were a couple very interesting mechanics:

-Influence Cards. Each player with appropriate status (nobility, military command experience, etc.) was given Influence Cards of one of four types: Military, Political, Economic, or Magical. NPCs were also given influence cards. Some PC and NPC abilities could check what cards people were carrying, steal influence cards, etc. Most NPC characters had goals related to gathering a certain amount of influence of specific types. In my case, I started with one card and needed to end up with 2 cards of a different type that belonged that belonged to specific people by the end of the game. This wasn't overly difficult; some other characters had much grander goals. I had succeeded by mid-game, but I could have failed if I had made a mistake pertaining to the following...

-Most pre-generated characters had at least one Dirty Little Secret (TM). I certainly did. I was able to keep my secret under wraps for the whole event, which enabled me to retain my super powers.

-Consequently, my character's special ability was to find out the Dirty Little Secret (TM) of other characters. The ones I found were pretty rad. WTF Count Strahd?

-Mid-game and at the end of the game, we had a WAR!!!!!! phase where each of the Iron Dukes was able to declare war on other dukes if they so chose. Losing a war meant that you were out of the running for Imperator (or Imperatrix); obtaining that title was the goal of many of the NPCs in the event. The requirements were stringent - the NPC had to obtain at least one influence card from each Duke - but by the end of the event we had a new Imperatrix. I was very impressed.

Overall, the game was very enjoyable for me. I love political events, and while I wasn't as heavy of a political character as in the last convention game (playing Prince Hynthal Nicosa is hard to top) I still felt like I contributed to the event, if only in my shady dealings.

Good game. Totally stealing the influence card idea.

I haven't made an in-depth post about life in a while, so I figured I'd make some commentary and catch everyone up.

Also, I'll be inviting flames with a few things in the post. So, here's some recent updates on my life.

-I'm still working on my first book. I might have a potential lead on a contact with a publisher, but I need to exploit it soon - and I'm not sure if the book is ready for that yet. I'm still trying very hard to get feedback from the people who already have the book in-hand. I'm not planning to distribute it any further at this time.

-Last weekend, I ran another weekend long LARP. We called it Beyond the Veil Game 6, but the numbering really doesn't make any sense. It's mostly because I've been counting one-day games as half events for a while, which has served to do little other than confuse everyone. Technically, it's our fifth weekend event:

#1 was Crystal Shards
#2 was the Tree of Life
#3 was Silent Waltz (our half of the 4-day game)
#4 was Legions of the Dead
#5 was Diplomacy with the Dead

We've had two weekend long NPC practices, but I wouldn't count those in the numbering. We've also run three one-day games and a convention game. Counting all the public events, this would have been Game #9. I may just stop numbering games because it's only throwing people off. ^_^

-I'm currently preparing for Laneque's Chaos, the first Live Effects game that follows the storyline of Red Queen LARP. I had a blast in the first two Red Queen games at Strategicon and I'm thrilled I'll get to attend the first game under the Live Effects banner.

-Strategicon is this weekend. I plan to attend on Sunday for the LE fighting circle and NPC for Dying Kingdoms. I should be going with Keri and Jula. <3 you both.

-After Laneque's Chaos, I'm going to Ira's game the following weekend, and Angel's Tear the week after that. That will mark five consecutive weekends of LARPing (not even counting our Plot meetings). I'm going to need a break.

-I'm single again. Moreso than before, for those of you who are going to be picky about it. =p Still debating what I want to do from here.

-My job has been a bit stressful lately, but at least I'm still working. I got shuffled to another desk for the first time in ages. It's got a weaker computer, but I think I'll manage.

-I'm currently training (poorly) for the LA Marathon. To my credit, I had maintained a decent training schedule until Ira's last game, where one of the many "OMG save us Salaris" yells managed to get my attention a little too quickly - and my knee collided with a metal grill. Whoops. Ironic, I usually would have armor for my knees, but Liz is borrowing my plate mail right now. I'm still recovering from the injury, so I'll probably have to start my conditioning all over when the knee has healed. No idea how long that might take. I probably should have seen a doctor, but I'm a bit stubborn sometimes.

-I've been in communication with the people at Maelstrom and CP to discuss coming out to LARP in England over the summer. No news on how I plan to afford this insanity.

-My cousin Anthony visited for the last LARP weekend and it was great to see him again. Also, he had my gloves. I love those gloves. Sadly, they still have a pretty massive gash in the thumb of the right side. I need to find a tailor.

-I'm almost done with two more LARP weapons - and both of these are actually for my own use. That's a pretty significant change of pace. I have a couple projects I'm working on for other people, too, though.

-I have a new Secret Project (TM) that I'm working on. I'd discuss it here, but then it wouldn't be a Secret Project (TM). No, this isn't the one on the LE forums. That one doesn't exist. Really.

-I'm working on putting together a very unique new costume for the next Veil game. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

-I've finished outlining another novel I plan to work on after this first novel is "ready" according to my standards.

-I'm currently looking into learning blacksmithing at Ren Faire this year. I may start learning a musical instrument soon as well.

All in all, life is really crazy right now, but generally good. I'm optimistic, at least.