First of all, HOPEFULLY a new episode of The Way of the Buffalo will be up this weekend, with another following shortly on its heels.  Recording has been tricky this week, as my next door neighbor is digging a new foundation, which can get noisy.  I'm really excited because the story is read by an awesome podcaster and author, and when people I consider professional help me out, I think a little bit rubs off, even though the episode is still a week late.
In previous news, my latest attempt to complete Script Frenzy went down like a lead balloon.  My idea, which was to convert the story of "Prodigal Sorceress" into a full cast audio production, wasn't a bad one, but I soon found out that taking my novella from the one to the other is going to require a significantly greater amount of editing and rewriting.  So that project is shelved for now.
In its place, I'm working on some more prequel short stories, set in the same universe and following the characters' grandparents on adventures that are a bit more lighthearted.  I've begun by rewriting "The Shadow Over Ironwood" into something that, while still recognizable as a parody of table top RPG inspired writing, can stand on its own and won't get my but sued by WoTC's team of epic-level copyright lawyers.
I've got a few more ideas for characters and adventure plots, so if all goes well, I might just be able to assemble a novella-length set of adventures to either podcast or sell on the Kindle store this fall.

More than halfway through the month, and I haven't gotten a lot accomplished.  I have most of the recording done for a Way of the Buffalo Episode, so I'll still be able to get two out this month.  It'll be a close thing, depending how smoothly the Thanksgiving story I've picked out goes.  I have no idea what I'm going to read in the first week of December.  I am completely stumped.  However, I will be doing a greatest x-mas movies interview with Mac, and possibly also Joseph.
The problem with the episode I'm wrestling with now is that this is my first attempt to do a "full cast" production.  I wasn't prepared for the uptick in work that this entails.  Sarah and Maddie Provided some fun voices, and I even got Jer to do one.  There's another special guest, but I'm going to leave him a surprise for now.  I also started a 'Way of the Buffalo' fan page on Facebook, and hopefully after I discuss it on the air and in the blog, people will sign up for it, and I will have more than the lackluster traffic statistics from feedburner.  I really don't like feedburner, but I have no clue how to do stuff on my own, or fix things, so it's staying for now.  Also, I have no idea how to fix the fact that some of my episodes are explicit, and some aren't.  There must be a way to do it in the episode, rather than the whole feed.  Maybe I should just release a huge string of profanity at the end of every episode, so I can 'earn' it.  Maybe not.
In cooler news, My story "The Waiting:  A ghost story" was aired on the Air out my shorts podcast, which can be found at www.theitspot.com.  This isn't really a big deal, though.  They make a big deal about reading anything that gets sent to them.  But it might be a good destination for all those old Writers' Group exercises I have lying around.  The show is essentially two Toronto nerds sitting around doing a sort of a morning radio thing, so it's not particularly safe for work.  They spent much of the introduction making fun of Buffalo.
But Published is published!
Also, I'm like four days behind on nanowrimo at this point, but whatever.

2.  How many characters do you have? Do you prefer males or females?

I tend to write more novella-length stories that aren't complicated by larger casts than necessary.  I especially try and avoid single-scene characters when I can help it.  My first novel has a cast of five main characters, but there aren't very many secondary characters, perhaps twenty at most, in a sprawling city.  That is actually one of the reasons I trunked it.  It doesn't feel like a living-breathing city.  This is definitely something I am hoping to improve in my writing.

As far as male-female, I don't think I have a gender bias, but I absolutely hate characters that aren't proactive.  Princesses waiting to be rescued do not show up in my fantasy worlds.  So perhaps I should say that I lean towards male characters slightly, but my female characters are every bit their equal.  They aren't just pretty faces.

Tags: 30 days of writing, writing

1.  Tell us about your favorite writing project/universe that you've worked with and why.

For most of my fantasy writing, I have a single world that it all happens on.  Most of these stories are set very far apart from each other.  The first story I wrote there, an unpublished short that was actually a gift for someone on a forum, takes place thousands of years before the next one, which was my first nanowrimo script.
The basis of the universe is the nature of magic.  Magic is a wild, destructive force, and humanity tends to use it destructively and to their own ends.  The end result of this is strange happenings, often in the form of giant god-monsters that form and ravage the world when magic gets too far out of whack.  those who slay such god-beasts gain their powers and become gods.  This has created  a long history of struggle, violence, and war.  There are many stories I have yet to write on this world, and I am certainly looking forward to exploring more of her mysteries.

Tags: 30 days of writing

This week, Episode 4 of "The Way of the Buffalo" went live!  (click the link to have a listen.)

This one feels like the first 'real' episode.  It features a submitted story, and an interview.  This is exactly the kind of production I was hoping to make, although I want to do better with it, of course.  atempestcyclone did a fantastic job with the reading of "Trading Up" by Tracie McBride, and I had a good interview with Dave Schwartz about UB Sarpa.
This week I should be getting final logo art from my artist Tony, and putting up a promo, as soon as my voice recovers from this cold.
Next week, I'm doing more interviews and recording for next episode, tentitively dated for October 11th, which will feature the lovely and talented Buffalo region Nanowrimo MLs, lathriel  and mermaiden  who will be discussing National Novel Writing Month, writing, and whatever else we stumble upon.  Our story for next episode is by Rish Outfield, one of the hosts and editors of the Dunesteef podcast, so I am very excited about reading it.
After that, I have a second scheduled episode to produce for October, and I want to get stories prepared for November, so don't have to worry about doing too much editing during my own Nano.

Tags: podcast, the way of the buffalo

Last night, we recorded the October episode of "The Set List."  It was Joseph's last episode as one of the hosts.  Ann-Marie is leaving at the end of the year.  Suddenly, this is a lot more my project.  I've evolved from editor to host, and hopefully I'll be super-effective.  (sorry)  It was also the first recording I've ever done at the Buffalo Hackerspace offices, and I think it went really well, although there were some loud fire trucks going around the block.  I'm really looking forward to using the space more, and while I don't have the contacts or indie knowledge Joseph brings, he's still going to be helping us with guests, music and other fiddly details.  Also, the other new host, Tony, seems like a solid guy.  We should do alright.

Tags: the set list

First off, there's a new episode of "The Way of the Buffalo" up!
This is just a short episode.  It features a drabble from me that is mostly me experimenting with adding sound effects, and some other promos and plugs.  More meaty episodes should drop into the feed later this month.  Please comment on blogspot or itunes!
The other big event is this Saturday afternoon is the 3rd annual TMF Treasure Island Family Picnic!  I'll be helping out on Saturday.  If you can spare the time and money on Saturday, come on down to the Westside rowing club.  It's going to be a good time for a great cause.
I'm maybe halfway done with a draft of a story for the anthology I mentioned last time.  I'm still quite happy with my idea, and the setting is going quite well.  I'm still a bit worried about it running long, but we'll see how that goes.

i spent most of yesterday working on "The Way of the Buffalo."  One thing that has really surprised me about this project is how much time I'm spending away from the microphone:  Reading slush, Sending contracts, hunting for sfx and music, etc.  Still, I'm having a blast getting back into it, and I think it's going to be a very fun ride.  I'm still looking for an artist to design a logo, so if anyone who reads this is interested, leave a comment.  One of the most interesting things is finding myself on the other end of writing submissions, which is a weird feeling for a struggling writer.  It has certainly taught me to relax and let the process go, and not to sweat rejection so much.
I'm putting together a short episode to relaunch the feed, then episode 3, which I recorded in June, will go up at the end of this week.  I'm recording an interview for episode 4 with Dave Schwartz, a long-time friend who is the Director of Gaming for UB Sarpa, and is organizing a day-long event in October.  He's also a self-published author whose horror-thrillers have sold very well on lulu.
On the front of my own writing, I've been starting to prepare for this year's nano, and I am working on my ideas for this anthology, which is being sponsored by "The Dead Robots' Society," a podcast for struggling writers that I listen to, and is quite good.  I've got some ideas bouncing around, and that should occupy my time until November 1st.

Tags: anthologies, interviews, podcast, the way of the buffalo, writing
Current Mood: determined

 I have resolved to do more writing on my IPad to get myself prepared for this year's nano, which will be written entirely on IPad.  So I've decided that I'm going to write a story, half an hour, every day.  I'm not going to worry about where the story is going.  I'm not going to worry about whether or not it makes sense.  No one is ever going to see this story but me.  (Unless something really cool comes out of it, then I'll reevaluate.)  This is just to get used ot the new keyboard, and the idoscyracies of Pages.  It's a lot of fun so far.

Tags: ipad, nanowrimo, writing
Current Mood: artistic

The last few weeks have been very busy.  I managed to record and produce two episodes of my new podcast, "The Way of the Buffalo."  You can check them out here.  It's also on itunes, which is kind of incredible to me.
The concept behind the Way of the Buffalo podcast, whose tagline is 'fiction, stuff, and nonsense,' is to explore ways that new media (like podcasting itself) reinvents old media formats.  The title comes from the idea that writing short stories is a dying art, that they are going the way of the buffalo.  But online magazines, podcasts, and even social media have given short stories new life.  It's harder to find print editions, but the nature of the internet creates whole new outlets, audiences and challenges for writers and publishers.
Episode one is a very short one.  Mostly, it's just me testing the waters.  I explain the podcast a little bit, read a very short story, and play a clip of Joseph and I issuing a writing challenge.
Episode two doesn't have any fiction.  It is an interview I conducted with taurnufuin  about the author James Joyce.  As a grad student, Alex worked with the Joyce collection at UB's Lockwood Library.  The interview was a blast, and I'd love to do more in the future, if I can find more experts.
Right now I'm putting together episode three, in which Joseph and I bask in our utter failure to write lots of 100 word short stories.  Also, I post audio trailers for some awesome podcast novels, and present "Game Nite," a podcast in which my friends and I play a board game and explain the rules... poorly.
I've already gotten a great number of fiction submissions from authors, and by the middle of July, the fiction reading will start up in earnest.  I've got some more interviews lined up as well.

Tags: editing, fiction, podcast, the way of the buffalo
Current Mood: busy