Chuck Wendig: Terribleminds

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The Full-Time Writer

This is one of the questions most frequently asked of me.

How do you become a full-time writer?

I am, and have been, a full-time writer (on and off) for the last ten years. The most recent “off” period, many moons ago, was simply because I was trying to get a mortgage on a first home, and the bank was like, “OH YOU’RE A FREELANCE WRITER SURE, SURE, WE KNOW WHAT THAT IS, EXCEPT THERE’S NO BUTTON ON MY COMPUTER THAT SAYS ‘GIVE FREELANCER A MORTGAGE NO MATTER HOW MUCH HE EARNS,’ OH WELL, SO SORRY, GOOD LUCK.” *toilet flushing sound*

This past year, 2013, was my most financially successful year yet.

You want to know how you become me.

In the loosey-goosey full-time sense, of course. To actually become me means cutting clippings of my beard, dipping them in a saucer of my heartsblood, reciting a thousand words of vulgarity that haven’t been heard by human ears since Caligula was prancing about, then eating the bloody beard puffs. With milk. Whole milk, not two percent, c’mon.

And it’s gotta be velociraptor milk.

Whatever.

Point is, full-time writer status: you want it.

But, I want you to slow down, hoss. Ease off the stick, chief.

You want to jump off the ledge and land in the pool 20 floors below. But it doesn’t work like that. I mean, it can — you might get lucky, you might survive the jump. Or, you might crash into some portly lad bobbing about on an inflatable Spongebob raft and kill the both of you.

Do not quit your day job.

I know. Your butthole just clenched hard enough to snap a mop handle. You hate your day job. The fact you call it a “day job” is a sign that you basically despise it as a grim, necessary evil.

But I’ll repeat:

Do not quit your day job.

Not yet.

If you’re going to become a full-time writer Cylon, you need a plan.

Becoming a writer — or I assume any flavor of artist — in a full-time manner is rarely the same thing as hopping to a new job, unless this art-flavored job is working for a company in the same capacity that, say, an accountant or a sex gnome would. (Hey, whatever, writers tend to have a lot of weird jobs, and I was a sex gnome at Merck Sharp & Dohme from the years 2002 and 2005. Trust me, you want some of that high-octane ‘sex gnome money.’) More likely, the job you envision is you sitting around your Art Space, sans pants, possibly sans underpants, creating art in the morning and rolling around in art money in the afternoon.

However, I’ll paint for you a more realistic picture: you, in a destitute hovel, hallucinating because you ate another bowl of ramen noodles with a spoiled flavor packet, and now you’re conversing with the water stains on the wall — and no, you’re not wearing pants, but it’s because the rats ate your last pair and you literally cannot afford any more.

That may sound like I’m echoing the old cry that artists starve and they don’t make any money oh that way lies dragons and ramen but that’s not what I’m saying. Artists starve most often because they didn’t have a goddamn plan in mind when they decided to foolishly disentangle from their old life in order to enter this new one.

They weren’t ready.

Think of yourself like a pugilist. A heavyweight boxer.

You don’t, on day one, step into the ring with Ivan Drago. You train, motherfucker. You punch sides of beef. You run through snow and lava. You let school-children pummel you with cricket bats. You bulk up. You gain new sassy skills. This is five-finger-death-punch time.

You’re probably not yet ready to be a full-time writer.

Here’s what you need to get ready.

First, and this is the most obvious one and yes I will return to this at the end of the post to repeat it as a call to action — but by the sassy miracles of Sweet Saint Fuck, you have to be writing. You. Have. To. Be. Writing. I don’t mean you have to plan to be writing, I don’t mean you have a story envisioned that you fully intend to write. No, I mean: you have to be writing now. Presently. In the midst of a mire of words. And this can’t be fucking new for you, either. You have to have been writing for — well, shit, it’s not like there’s an exact equation, so let’s go with the ambiguously uncertain TEMPORAL SHITLOAD OF TIME. Malcolm Gladwell said something-something 10,000 hours to get practiced at something, and while that number remains wholly arbitrary the truth is seeded deep just the same:

To be a writer, you have to write. To be a good writer, you have to write a whole goddamn lot.

So, that’s your first empty checkbox. Are you writing? Have you been for a long time?

Next up: are you capable of sustaining this writing? Do you have writing discipline? Can you plunk down in front of a computer and eject 2,000 words from your tap-dancing fingertips in a day? Despite a dog scratching at your door? No matter the construction work outside? Regardless of the toddler who’s crawling through your heating vents this very second in order to ambush you in your workspace — oh, and he’s got sticky jam hands and a full diaper and for some reason he’s got a bunch of magnets and he’s totally going to try to erase all your hard drives? Are you prepared?

Do you have one book in you, or a hundred?

Can you write scripts? Comics? Games? Articles?

If you’re going to Art for Money, you need to be willing and able to barf up all manner of words for all manner of money. (Excuse me, I’m now going to change my business cards to read ‘Professional Word-Barfer.’ Hold on. There we go.) If you’re trying to live off novels (*cue laugh track*), you’ll still from time to time probably need to take on other work. That might mean writing dialogue for some clunky online game. It might mean writing an article about the history of artificial bison insemination. It might mean I give you twenty bucks for you to write down really nice things about me and maybe also your social security number and your credit card information.

And speaking of money — do you have some? Like, right now? No, I don’t want any (I totally want some) — my point is that writing money is not steady money. It does not flow to you weekly. You are not afforded the glory of a paycheck. It is erratic, random, sometimes appearing as if out of the mist. If you are not presently holding actual money in an actual bank account, you’ll probably be starving by your third month. And again, not in the romantic “starving artist” way but in the “holy shit starving isn’t romantic this sucks” way.

All the better if the money you have in your account is money you have already earned from writing. Because if you don’t have deals in place, if you don’t have evidence of future effort yielding future greenbacks, once again: you might be fucked. I worked my way to a full-time writing career with freelance wordsmithy — and when I eventually transitioned to writing novels, that transitional year was a tough one financially. Turbulence abounded.

Do you have health care? You’re gonna need that. This is less a problem nowadays, where a year ago I would’ve said: “You need to have a spouse with healthcare.” Thanks to the ACA (aka “OBAMACARE” aka “THE SWEET SOCIALIST KENYAN TERRORIST TEAT”), my family has healthcare that actually covers things and does not cost us in gallons of blood and pain. (Sidenote, if you think this is a good time to rail against the ACA, do not bother. Try that and I promise most sincerely to pepper spray you in the fucking mouth.)

Hell, let’s talk about your spouse. Do you have one? Does said spouse have a job? Hope so. That’s gonna be mighty useful in the coming moons. A steady paycheck, even a small one, can make the unpredictability and uncertainty of Full-Time Arting a far softer sting.

Are you planning on making money off novels? Mm-hmm. This is doable, despite what you’ll hear from the peanut gallery, but it’s not precisely easy, either. Consider: your average advance on a novel might be five, ten grand. Can you live off of that in a year? Nope. That is not full-time money. Okay, maybe you sell a film option, and are able to push some foreign rights deals. Let’s say that’s another… oh, let’s say thirty grand, to be optimistic. Can you live off of $40k a year? If you have a spouse bringing in cash, hey, that’s bad-ass. If you’ve got a family and you’re the only bread winner, then you’re below what most families make. And, let’s remember that those film and foreign rights are value-adds — not guarantees.

Hell, let’s say you just got a six-figure deal. Excitement! Except, that probably means three books. And it probably means ~$33k per book. Which, again, is kind of amazing. But, the reality check is, they might want one of those books a year, and is an annual $33k really the kind of money you can live off of? (If you live in a big city like New York or Los Angeles, that thirty-three thousand is what you’ll spend on groceries, I think. And therein lies another little secret pro-writer tip — if you’re writing full-time, go live in a place where your dollar flies very far.)

Maybe you’re self-publishing. What happens when your book — capably released, well-edited, nicely-reviewed — lands with a turd-splash? What happens when it generates a couple hundred bucks instead of a couple thousand?

Can you write more? Bigger? Faster?

Can you diversify your writing? Can you write in multiple genres? Across multiple formats?

Can you speak to varying age ranges?

Are you willing to say yes more than you say no?

Do you know what income you’ll have coming in for 2015? 2016? Two years down the line? Three?

These are all the checkboxes, penmonkey. These are the signs. You’re able to write a lot. You’ve got deals already cooking. You’re capable of flexibility and you’ve got opportunities made plain. You know what happens when one opportunity suddenly dries up. It’s still not safe. Being a full-time Artmachine is never the safe choice — but hell, you want safe, go work at a fucking bank. (Don’t worry, we’ll always take care of the banks. Poor people? Fuck them. Yay banks!) But if you want to love what you do, go be a full-time creator. I’m just saying, do so as wisely and as pragmatically as you can manage. Protect yourself, protect your loved ones. Don’t just quit your day job. Prepare a slow detachment. Build a parachute. Look for the signs.

And, I told you I’d come back to it:

Write. Write a lot. Write swiftly. Write with your own heart in mind but also the heart of an audience. Find that magic liminal space between what people want to read and what you want to write because that’s where you’ll generate the greatest income. Get better. Write more. Take more shots at the goal. Only the rarest of penmonkeys can build a full-time career off one book or one series. This is chess game time — you have to be writing now and thinking about what you’ll be writing three years down the road.

Good luck, word-birds. Fly free. But fly smart.

(And in the meantime, if you’re on the opposite end of the spectrum and you’re saying, “But I have barely any time to write as it is! Job! Family! Sleep! AHHHH.” Then may I once more point you to my Zero-Fuckery 350-Words-A-Day Writing Plan?)

 

* * *

The Kick-Ass Writer: Out Now

The journey to become a successful writer is long, fraught with peril, and filled with difficult questions: How do I write dialogue? How do I build suspense? What should I know about query letters? How do I start? What the hell do I do?

The best way to answer these questions is to ditch your uncertainty and transform yourself into a Kick-Ass Writer. This new book from award-winning author Chuck Wendig combines the best of his eye-opening writing instruction — previously available in e-book form only — with all-new insights into writing and publishing. It’s an explosive broadside of gritty advice that will destroy your fears, clear the path, and help you find your voice, your story, and your audience.

Amazon

B&N

Indiebound

Writer’s Digest

Lay A Paragraph On The Altar Of Critique

Last week’s post about critiquing opening lines generated a fascinating — and holy crap, robust — fusillade of comments back and forth, which is exciting to see.

So, let’s do it again.

Or, something similar, at least.

What I want you to to do is to grab a paragraph — hopefully a shorter one, but that’s your call — and offer up that paragraph for critique. Drop it into the comments, and let folks talk about what would make it stronger — in terms of description, metaphor, clarity of language, characterization, what-have-you and blah blah blah.

You can grab something from your current WIP.

Or, if so inclined, write something new.

One paragraph only.

If you’re offering up a paragraph for critique, it’s only fair you offer commentary to someone else.

Be respectful of others. Say good things as well as bad.

Let’s do it.

Flash Fiction Challenge: Pick An Opening Line And Go

[Edit: Apologies that this didn’t post! I set it to auto-post and was a bit busy today, too busy to see it actually had not posted. But dangit, it’s still Friday so I’m getting in under the wire.]

Last week’s challenge is relevant here: The Return of the Opening Line Contest.

Your job this week is simple in concept, daunting in choice.

Clink that link. Then —

You need to go through the entries — er, all 400-500 of them — and find an opening line you like.

Then you will take that opening line and use that as the opening line of this week’s story.

(You may not choose your own.)

You’ve got the usual 1000 words.

Due by 4/25, noon EST.

Post the story with the chosen opening line at your blog or online space. Then drop a link in the comments here so we can track back and read the story.

That’s it. Grab a line and get to writing!

(I’ll be picking my top three favorites sometime in the next week.)

Book Announcement: “Zeroes,” to Harper Voyager

HEY, I SOLD A BOOK.

Harper Voyager acquired rights to my novel, Zeroes, in a two-book deal, with publication slated for 2015. What the hell is this book, you ask? Well:

When five hackers — an Anonymous-style rabble rouser, an Arab Spring hactivist, a black-hat hacker, an old-school cipherpunk, and an online troll — are scooped up by the U.S. government and told they face prison sentences or worse, they take the deal that’s offered them: working as white-hat hackers in service to their nation. Forced into an uneasy alliance, threatened by their warring personalities and sabotaged by rival hackers, the five begin to fear for their lives as their orders grow increasingly dark and strange. But it’s only when they discover the truth behind the sinister NSA program that they realize the stakes go well beyond anything they could have imagined . . .

A fast-paced, character-driven thriller with a timely and provocative premise, Zeroes is Michael Crichton meets The X Files shot through with the DNA of Daniel Suarez, Cory Doctorow, and Stephen King.

The second book is as-yet-unnamed.

So: woo! This is exciting stuff. Very geeked for you guys to read this book.

IT’S FULL OF SECRETS AND TWISTS AND GOVERNMENTAL TECHNO-MALEVOLENCE.

Thanks to my agent, Stacia Decker at DMLA, for brokering the deal. And thanks to Harper for loving the book in the first place! So. Uh. Ahem. Is 2015 here yet?

*checks watch*

*pokes calendar*

More cool news to come soon, I think!

Ten Things I’d Like To Say To Young Writers

More and more I’m allowed the benefit of corrupting the minds of creative writing students out there in the world, which is awesome for me, and probably disturbing for them.

Regardless, as I am occasionally mistaken as some kind of “person who knows things” when it comes to writing, I feel like I have a few things I’d like to say to you Young Penmonkeys out there — those of you between the ages of, mmm, say, 16-21. Not to say this won’t also apply to others who want to be professional writers when you grow up, but it is aimed specifically at that age range both in terms of what I remember being like then (ugh!) and what I see when I meet these amazing, ass-kicking creative writing students.

I’m about to be 38 next week (my mantra being a loudly hooted NOT YET 40 WOOOO) and I had my first short story published at 18, and my first taste of professional writing work at… age 21? Or something like that? So, I’ve been out there quite a while. Which means you should listen to me.

*whacks you in the head with my old man cane*

LISTEN TO MY WISDOM YOU YOUNG PUNKS

You Do Not Require That Degree

You don’t get a creative writing degree because you need it. You get it because you want it, and because you have chosen a program that holy crap does what it’s supposed to do — teach you how to write a goddamn story. But don’t go for this degree hoping it’s some kind of Magical Wonka Ticket to the Dreamy City Of Authoropolis in the clouds — in all the writing I have done over the last 18 years, over the literal millions of words I’ve written, nobody, not one motherfucker on the paying side of the fence, has asked me about my degree. They want to know: “Can you write?” And then I write. It is a pure and wonderful relationship.

I’m not saying your degree is worthless. I’m happy I have mine because I really did learn how to hone my wordsmithy as a creative writing student. And besides, these days almost no degree is a Magical Wonka Ticket. Hell, I’m pretty sure most college degrees double-up as placemats and paper towels (though not particularly absorbent, I am sad to report).

And if you’re thinking about an MFA…

If you need it, great.

Otherwise: just get out there and write, yeah? Student loan debt ain’t awesome. That money is better spent on travel, life, experiences, crates of Ramen noodles, porn, boxed wine.

You’re Not That Good

Sorry! Nope. Not that good.

This will frustrate the vibrating fuck out of you because you want so badly to be good. Anybody does when they begin an endeavor, particularly when they’re young — you pick up a guitar or sit down at a video game or Try To Do The Sex and you’re basically clumsy thumbs and inward screaming and then a lamp breaks and someone is crying. You’re looking at published work. Or the work of your peers. And you want to be instantly that awesome. It’s frustrating to be not-that-good because you feel like, this is what you want to do, and you need to justify that desire now by putting out top-shelf, high-octane writing. And you’re young, so life feels shorter than it really is. You have time. This is, as I have said many-a-time, a long con, not a short game.

Ira Glass actually said a wonderful thing about this:

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

But You’re Not Supposed To Be Good

You’re not actually meant to be good. Not being good is how you get better. Not being good means you’re in that formative, fundamental blobby parthogenesis period where The Authorial You just starts to emerge. Not being good is how we are forced to take the time to not just Get Good, but also Become Us. You’re not yet the Author That You Will Become. This is all normal. Be bold enough to suck with gleeful abandon — but also know that your critical urge to be better-faster-now is a good one. Don’t quit. Don’t rest. Force yourself to improve.

And You’re Still Probably Better Than You Sometimes Think

Let’s be honest. The Internet is mostly writers. We’re everywhere. Like roaches inside a hoarder’s house, feeding on whatever old pizza and dead chihuahuas got trapped under that collapsing stack of National Geographic magazines. We’re breeding like cats and rabbits. (“Crabbits?”)

Thing is, if you’re actually in a creative writing program, you’re probably better than a lot of the yahoos on the Intertubes who want to be writers. I’ve read some really awful things by some truly deluded people — people who do not have writing professors tell them, “This is actually very shitty. D-minus. Do better, for Chrissakes.”

So, no, you’re not that good.

But you’re probably better than you sometimes think, or fear.

And you’re almost certainly better than the delusional sub-layer of authorial treacle found on these here Internets. That’s gotta be worth something, right? Hell, most people can’t string together a cogent Facebook status update, so.

Worry Less About The Business Now

You want to ask about publishing and payment and all the perks of being a writer, I get that. And yes, every writer does get a special Members-Only jacket to begin with, and after that it’s like leveling-up your character in a roleplaying game. You can choose new Talents and Tricks. I can actually type with my tongue, for one. I also can transmogrify coffee into words!

But the publishing industry right now is like Los Angeles: it’s sitting squarely atop a giant trembling fault line, and constant earthquakes big and small continue to move the crusty mantle beneath our feet. So, by the time you’re ready to actually sell words, who knows what will happen? PERHAPS WE WILL ALL BE HUNTING EACH OTHER IN A DOOMED WASTELAND. Or maybe it’ll be limousines and eight-figure book-deals, I have no idea.

Point is, don’t sweat it. Don’t sweat genre. Don’t sweat medium. Learn as much as you can about the actual process of writing — think about narrative construction across multiple formats and aim to be well-read and well-taught across the spectrum. The industry will be what the industry will be when you get there. You’re not there. Worry about you and your work, not where you or your work will end up. Think present more than future.

This Is The Time To Write Whatever The Fuck You Want

Not thinking about markets or industry yet means: you can and should go bug-eyed apeshit cuckoo bananapants when it comes to your work. Write anything. Anything that itches so bad at your fingertips that to not write it would constitute a drug withdrawal reaction. Any genre. Any genre mix. Any medium. Any mix of media. Whatever. Fuck it. You are afforded an early chance at play-time. That’s what this stage is. It’s sand-boxes and cheap wine and you making your own toys without anybody telling you what your toys should look like.

Embrace it.

It’s Okay To Ape The Voices Of Others

You will try to sound like the authors you love. This is normal. This is okay. This is also perhaps often expressed as fan-fiction, and that is very rad. Again: this is play-time. So? Play.

Write Often And Write Enough And Your Voice Will Find You

You will chase your voice like a dog chasing a car, but you’ll never catch it. Because you were your voice all along. You were never the dog. You were always the car. You were never Jack. You were always Tyler Durden. And yes, Fight Club is just one big metaphor for becoming a writer. (Okay, maybe not.) (But maybe?) (Nah.) (Buuuut…)

You find your voice by doing. And by rewriting. You won’t want to rewrite now. You won’t want to edit. Edits feel like you’re not good, like you’re being insulted, like having to fix it means it was broken to begin with. But recognizing broken things is a value. A skill. You get as many shots at the goal as you want. Let that be freeing, not punishing.

In writing a lot and rewriting a lot, your voice will find you.

One day you’ll say: “Oh, so that’s what I sound like.”

And it’ll be amazing.

The World Will Lie To You About Being An Artist

Almost nobody in a position of Adult Responsibility thinks you should be a writer. Even your professors will probably, if pressured whilst drunk, quietly whisper: hurry, go learn accounting.

Being an artist is not a path that accords a lot of respect, which is almost ironic given how much our society is driven by art and artists — it is a monster-sized industry, and yet somehow everyone seems to think that it’s tiny and impenetrable, like an old-timey bank safe. A lot of this doubt comes from a good place. They want you to be safe and taken care of and admittedly, being an artist is a risk. Society all on its own doesn’t support artists very well (though it’s getting there, and I swear to Sweet Saint Fuck if anybody tries to take away my new guaranteed healthcare I will shiv them in the pancreas), and so people tell you not to be an artist and the cycle continues.

But creative work exists. It exists, and pays.

You have to get good doing it.

You have to learn how to make money doing it.

Art isn’t just Doing Art all the time, and this is why you should also learn other skills that your creative writing classes probably won’t teach you — from marketing to editing to business practices to how to budget and balance your bank accounts and pay your taxes. I know, ew, taxes. But this is how being an artist is done. Your parents or whoever will tell you just not to bother. I’m telling you to bother, but gather the skills needed — skills that go well-beyond writing, painting, singing, or other art-making.

(A small rant of mine is that so many creative writing programs are way over-focused on writing — particularly writing literary books rather than genre-flavored anything. Art programs in general need to teach more than just the creative stuff. Because you have to also survive at being an artist, and in that survival, practical skills are key.)

Finish Your Shit

But then it all comes back to this.

You will never be the writer you want if you cannot complete what you begin.

Ironically, some of the professors who are teaching you have not yet mastered this.

You’re young, and you will leave behind you a trail of unfinished story-corpses. That’s okay. No shame, there. But there comes a point when you have to stay on that bucking bull till it finally tires and dies in the dust. You can’t just keep not finishing things. Art must reach a conclusion. Stories have endings. You can always go back and edit — but you have nothing meaningful to edit if you don’t finish what you begin in the first damn place.

This is the hardest skill, I think, that I learned as a young writer. Just merely to finish. It’s easier not to. It’s easier to talk about writing than to do the writing. The work you never finish always exists in what appears to be a perfect, gleaming state — a young, preserved corpse on display, its James-Deanian potential perfectly captured in its youth and naivete. But fuck that jibber-jabber. Storm the beach. Suck if you must. But finish what you begin.

And then rewrite until it’s right.

White Wolf: The Dirge

Roll Me
CCP has abandoned the White Wolf World of Darkness MMO.

I don’t know what this means for the larger WOD brand, or what happens to the ragged tatters of the company that has been frayed and shredded over the years since the EVE Online developer bought the pen-and-paper company. I know it means layoffs, so, fuck. I also know that, at present, Onyx Path continues to roll out its gleaming obsidian walkway of horror-fantasy gaming delights, acting as the spiritual and also literal successor to the White Wolf voodoo — and according to Rich at Onyx Path, everything shall continue apace.

It’s worth taking a moment, maybe, to note that White Wolf is part of my DNA. I grew up reading D&D, but I grew up playing White Wolf games. My first Vampire: the Masquerade character was a pre-made Nosferatu named “Sewer Billy.” (I still have his character sheet around somewhere.)

I loved those games so much that I knew as I got older if I was going to continue playing them while maintaining the illusion of being an adult, I had to monetize that experience, which I did by writing for the company. I worked writing some free stuff online in coordination with sites like Ex Libris Nocturnis and Shadownessence. Then later I answered a writer’s all-call from the company and was lucky enough to get the gig; I started off writing Hunter: the Reckoning, and wrote games for them all the way through to me acting as line developer for Hunter: The Vigil and even into Geist: The Sin-Eaters. The games always amazed me and as I worked more and more with them in a freelance capacity, I got to see exactly why they amazed me — because some truly amazing people were making these goddamn games. Fellow freelancers and developers: Ken Cliffe, Justin Achilli, Ethan Skemp, Aileen Miles, Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Eddy Webb, Mur Lafferty, Will Hindmarch, Matt McFarland, Jess Hartley, Rose Bailey, Mike Lee, Patrick O’Duffy, Travis Stout, David, Filamena Young, scads more. So many of folks I count as friends even still.

I learned to write better during my time freelancing. I learned discipline with deadlines. I found out what appealed to me about games, story, character, and horror. Really fundamental stuff.

When they got bought by CCP I was hopeful, you know — more money for them, plus hey, who didn’t dream about a World of Darkness MMO? Turns out, it wasn’t to be. I don’t know why, really. From the outside, it’s easy to suggest that it was fumbled and mishandled — and, actually, even from my limited glimpses inside it looked that way, at times. But I also know that not everything works out and sometimes, shit happens, so who knows? What I know is it’s sad to see good people let go, and sad that the dream of a WOD game is now shriveled up and going dusty like a sun-cooked vampire. Eve was never a game I could really understand, but I loved how player-driven it was, and hoped to see the same here.

Alas.

Onward and upward.

What I will say is, White Wolf has left an enduring legacy behind — the last couple days I was up in Erie, at Penn State, where students read my book, Blackbirds as part of a women’s studies / female superheroes unit (whee!). And while there, I had people still want to talk to me about gaming. I had one professor show me his first edition copy of Wraith. I had one student — college-age! — want me to sign several White Wolf books for her gaming group. Exciting stuff, and makes me proud to have been a part of all that.

*pours a cup of d10s on the curb for the World of Darkness MMO and White Wolf in general*

To those gone: best of luck to you going forward.

To those who still play the games: fuck yes.

To Onyx Path: keep on kicking ass.