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March 9, 2011 / 48 Comments

Food Me

It’s like this: I’m slowly developing what I consider to be “my” versions of certain recipes. These are recipes that, by and large, I’m happy with. Last couple of weeks I’ve nailed down recipes for chili and Sloppy Joes — these are not ultimate recipes in an objective sense, but they’re recipes that I’d make again following the same recipe I put forth.

I never used to operate this way: I generally made it up every time using some clumsy pastiche of recipes I already knew, and while that was certainly exciting, it left room for much variation. One day it was, “Gosh, this chicken is delicious!” Three weeks later it was, “This chicken mysteriously tastes like candle wax dripped on the perineum of a professional wrestler.”

With a child on the way, I’m going to have less time to, as it were, fuck around at meal-time.

It is therefore time to establish some kind of culinary canon here at Der Wendighaus.

Every house eventually develops one, I think. Or, at least, families do. You always hear, “Oh, you need to try my Grandmother’s gnocchi,” or, “My mother’s ham salad recipe will tear off your nipples and choke you with them it’s so goddamn good.” Hell, some people will get in fights about it. “My family’s spaghetti recipe is the best!” “No, mine is!” “Get your axe, for now we go to war.”

My Mom-Mom had a host of recipes that live in infamy: pierogies, bleenies, koshe. My mother had and has her own: apricot-glazed chicken, turkey tetrazini, slow-cooked coffee-marinated beef. Hell, my Dad made this elk-meat chili using itty-bitty Thai hot peppers that would melt your molars, but it was awesome.

Anyway, I think I’m orbiting around the point.

I’m opening this to the hive-mind:

What recipes are recipes you think everybody should know? Like, on a generic level, “Oh, everybody should know a meatloaf recipe.” Or lasagna, or fried chicken.

Second follow-up question — if you say, “Everybody should totally know a kick-ass pancake recipe,” then I further beseech you, what is your pancake recipe? Do you have one? (And by “pancake,” I really mean, “whatever recipe you consider crucial.” I’m not asking you specifically for a pancake recipe.)

What meals are canon at your house?

And, how do you make ’em?

Once more, I crowdsource to you because you people are smarter — and, let’s be honest, much prettier — than I am. Hop into the comments if you’re feeling kind, and jam your wisdom into my craw.

March 8, 2011 / 67 Comments

Lies Writers Tell

(Welcome back to Penmonkey Boot Camp, ink-heads and word-punks. Once again it’s another dose of over-the-top tough love shoved unmercifully into your pie hole. As always, any dubious advice I dispense here should be taken not with a grain of salt but, in fact, an entire salt mine. Please to enjoy!)

Fact:

Writers are liars.

We are liars of such a magnitude that our pants are not merely on fire, but rather, they immolate in a bright hot flash, sacrificing themselves to some dark and ancient word goddess.

We don’t mean to be, I suspect. It’s just part of the craft. Authors spend their days and nights constantly making shit up. We become masters of verbal chicanery, of fictional legerdemain. Sure, some writers say, “Ah, but with our fiction we secretly tell truths,” which I suppose is true, except those truths are wrapped in a dense layer of deception. It’s like handing you an appetizer and saying, “It’s prosciutto!” which is true, except for that little bundle of prosciutto is wrapped in a foul purse made from a moldering horse scrotum.

Best thing we can do is try to keep our lies contained neatly within our work and not let ’em live outside of it — though that is sometimes easier said than done. Our lies sometimes creep out of our fiction and get inside our heads like an insidious parasite taken on by accidentally ingesting flecks of cat poop. That’s when it gets problematic, when our lies become not a staple of our work but rather about our work.

And so it’s time to shine a flashlight in dark corners and call out the lies we writers tell to ourselves, to one another, and to the rest of the world at large. Let’s see if any of these sound familiar. (They certainly do to me — I know I’ve told most, if not all, of these whoppers once upon a time.)

“I Write Only For Me.”

Bzzt! Wrongo, you wannabe Emily Dickinson, you. I’m sorry, are you tweeting from your dark, musty attic where your parents have squirreled away Grandmother’s Victorian tampon collection in the hopes that one day it, like Beanie Babies, will see a resurgence in market value? The very act of writing is an act of communication. Communication is an act between two or more people. You don’t write for yourself. Shut up. Shut it. Shh. What, do you write a poem and then sit and read it to your toesy-woesies? This little piggy went to market, and oh, by the way, here’s my 10-book fantasy epic, The Fyre Lords of Slogmarn?

Stop lying. You don’t write only for yourself. Writers write to be read. Go ahead, say it again — I will grab your slithery forked tongue and knot that fucker up good and tight so you may not speak that lie anew. We should be thankful writers write to be read by others. That attitude has produced some — really, all — of your favorite books. This lie exists perpetuated by authors who are afraid to be judged by an audience. It exists to make them feel bulletproof — “Oh, you didn’t like that? Well, I liked it, and I write for me, so please enjoy my two middle fingers thrust upward, each kissed with a tincture made from my own tears.”

Stop that. Stop that right now. Join the rest of the world. Communicate with your audience.

Come down out of the attic, for Chrissakes. Still telling this lie to yourself? Fine. Then here’s your challenge: write in a notebook. Never show it to anyone. Die atop a mound of said notebooks in 100 years.

The End.

“It’s Okay That I Didn’t Write Today. Or Yesterday. Or The Day Before That.”

Nope. Nuh-uh. Not buying it. “I spent a day just chilling out, getting my head around this book, man.” No, you spent a day playing video games and drinking nail varnish to help kill your shame. I’m not saying every day has to be a 5,000-word slam-dunk-home-run-goal-unit-score-point-palooza, but if you didn’t put down 500 words of story, or a handful of editorial comments, or some notes, you didn’t accomplish Dick Butkus. It is a cliche for a reason: writers write. Is it the only thing they do? No, psshh, of course not. But isn’t it the priority? Writers live in their heads so often, you need to lance that boil. Writing is an act of trepanation; free the demons with the power drill of your choice. (Er, not literally. Put the drill down. We’re speaking in good old-fashioned metaphoricals here, y’see?)

Sad reality: we are all one day closer to death. If that day does not put you one day closer to finishing your manuscript, your screenplay, your transmedia epic opus, then this day of life is wasted.

We only get one go-round on this crazy carousel. Like I said the other day, that word count ain’t gonna autoerotically asphyxiate itself. Time to tighten that belt, word whores!

“I Just Don’t Have Time To Write.”

Lies! Filthy, septic lies! You have the same 24 hours in your day as I do — the question is, how do you choose to fill them? I’m growing weary of the narrative that goes like, “Chuck, you’re going to have a kid soon — say goodbye to your writing time, loser.” What? Seriously? Nobody says that to someone with an office job. “Hey, cubicle monkey, you’re going to have a kid soon — guess you’re going to have to quit your job.” Ohh, sure, okay, because my not writing is going to feed my child? I can conjure nega-words from the ether, and each word-not-yet-written will be like a draught of angel’s milk sating my son’s infant hunger.

I am fully aware that my sleep is going to get bombed out and any illusion of having an adult schedule is going to get squashed beneath a mound of dirty diapers. That doesn’t mean I stop writing — it just means I reapportion my time accordingly. Here’s the deal: nobody has time to write. Writers have to make time to write. You must take a meat cleaver and hack off a gobbet of your day and set that chunk of temporal viscera aside and say, “This is when I will write.” Maybe it’s two hours. Maybe it’s fifteen minutes.

Stephen King wrote some of his earliest work in tiny snippets in the middle of his work day.

You must steal time like a thrifty, thieving magpie.

“I’ll Write Later!”

You won’t.

Write now.

End of story. Or, hopefully, just the beginning.

“This Helps Me Write (And I Need It).”

You don’t need caffeine. You don’t need diet soda. You don’t need meth, heroin, video games, German poop-porn, an iPad, unicorn blood, the love of a good woman, a clean desk, probiotic yogurt, cat videos, Twitter, Facebook, Livejournal, Tumblr, healthy self-esteem, double rainbows, a special pen, a lucky shirt, your blog, someone else’s blog, this blog, the word “blog.”

The only thing you need is you, a semi-functioning brain, a story, and a way to tell it.

Oh, and an ergonomic chair. Okay, you don’t need it, but shit, you could damn well use one.

“I Don’t Care About Money.”

Oh, aren’t you fucking special. You’re above money, are you? You have transcended the need to exist in this material world? “I write my inky words on paper and then I eat that paper and live within the ether of mine own storytelling!” Hey, good for you, you crazy little Bodhisattva, you. I tried not paying my mortgage and when you do that, the bank sends ninjas.

I do not have the luxury of caring naught about currency.

This lie is the sneaky mule-kicked cousin to, “I Write Only For Myself.” It is once more a deception sold by those who want to excuse their work not selling, who want to make themselves feel unique or somehow above other writers (“those greedy hacks!”) because they don’t care one whit about getting paid — it’s all about the art, you see. Mind you, this is a lie of artistes, not artists. Artists need to eat. Starving is neither glorious nor honorable — in fact, it’s not even that interesting, trust me.

Remember: Shakespeare got to get paid, son.

You don’t have to care about being rich. But you damn sure better care about money. As said in the past: your writing has value, so claim value for your writing.

“I Have To Build My Platform First.”

Sure you do, as long as you don’t mind getting up onto it and having nothing to say.

“I Don’t Need A Platform”

Sure you don’t, as long as you don’t mind mumbling about your project from down in that muddy hole.

Your first priority is writing. That’s the first barbarian banging at the gate. But it’s not the only one. Having a platform is like having a dinner table — the most important thing about dinner is making the food, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need somewhere to eat it.

“Oh, Drat, My Creative Spark Has Been Extinguished.”

Translation: “Ye Gods, someone has hanged my imaginary friend by the neck until he perished!”

Working on a long-term writing project is like marriage, and the creative spark is analogous to romantic love (or, rather, boner-inducing sexual magnetism). The creative spark is just the thing that gets you together with your work the same way that your goggle-eyed romantic need for rumpy-pumpy is what got you drawn into the marriage. But it is not the thing that sustains.

Get shut of this notion and stop telling yourself — and everybody else — that you’re clinging to this ludicrous and wholly imaginary idea. You don’t need it. Push past it. Keep writing.

“I Never Find Writing Advice Helpful!”

*rolls eyes*

You’re just that good, are you? You are a perfect Beryllium laser, cutting through the bullshit and crafting the mightiest tale to ever grace the minds of men.

Your work leaves no room for improvement, it seems. Well-done. Now, tell your son Jesus to come back to Earth and start cleaning up the mess we’ve all made.

Every writer needs advice. Maybe it’s about commas. Maybe it’s about query letters. Maybe you don’t turn to books or blogs but rather to a friend. Could be that you find it just by reading books you love again and again looking for the secret advice buried within. But everyone needs advice. Don’t pretend you’re somehow outside of it. Don’t act like merely the act of writing is enough to improve itself.

Hell with your cranky meme! Down with this lie!

*voids bowels upon it*

“I’m Just No Good.”

Quitcher whining! The time for your boo-hoo ballyhoo is done. Here then, is the proclamation: shit or get off the pot. Really truly think you’re no good and won’t be any good and cannot write past the nagging self-doubt? Then stop being a writer. Right now! Let go. Loosen your mental grip on the notion and let it float away, downstream, where it will soon be eaten by angry carp.

Or — or! — shut up about it and keep on kicking ass.

If you keep writing, it’s because you’re good enough to keep writing. Stop telling the lie to yourself and to everybody else that you’re just not good enough. Maybe you’re not great. And certainly you have room to improve. So, drum roll please, improve. Don’t whine. Don’t cry. Don’t wonder how your diaper got full and then moan about it without ever taking it off. You’re good at something. You’re an author, a writer, a storyteller — yours is the power of the divine. No deity got where he was going by blubbering about the ice cream cone he just dropped. Write, motherfucker! Write like you give a shit! Write without doubt, without fear, without lies — those, I assure you, will come in time.

You are good enough. Snap the neck of your self-doubt.

And write.

“Insert Penmonkey Deception Here”

What lies do you tell yourself? Why do you tell them, and how can you be rid of them?

March 7, 2011 / 13 Comments

Everybody Can Do Everything: DIY Days

Ahh. Another DIY Days come and gone.

If you don’t know DIY Days, then simply put it’s a free conference for people who really want to do shit — or, as I apparently said last year, “Make Shit, And Make It Awesome” (via mighty Guy “The Dread Pirate LeCharles” Gonzalez). This is a crowd who doesn’t want to sit on their hands. Who doesn’t want to kowtow to gatekeepers, who has no interest in asking for permission. Many are storytellers, but just as many are the makers of the tools that help storytellers tell their stories. As Guy said yesterday in a tweet, the energy there is different than at other conferences, and because of that, feels more inspiring.

I was afraid I wasn’t even going to make it to the conference, honestly. Night prior I spent awake every hour or so with stomach problems — morning came and I felt hollowed-out. Like a gutted pumpkin. Could barely drink a cup of coffee, ate like, 1.5 pieces of sourdough toast. But I felt better than I did at night, so the wife sent me off with cookies and Gatorade (a good substitute for meth and Four Loko in a pinch!), and I drove to Jersey to catch a train into the city.

On the train, got to hear two strangers have a conversation, which is a thing that I love to witness. A Latino man and a black woman had a long conversation about all kinds of things — Facebook, child predators, gang initiations, how gangs used to leave civilians out of their business, movies new and old, etc. At the end of the train ride, they’d formed an actual connection as like, temporary friends. She asked him his name, he hers, they shook hands. She said to him, “God bless you,” and he to her. It was this kind of neat, connective moment — which, perhaps unexpectedly, sits nicely in-theme with DIY Days.

City was great. Weather was — *mwah* — so good. Fifty-five, sunny. Fuck yeah, Spring. Put your earthen boot on Winter’s icy neck and press down until you hear the crinkly snap of an icicle spine.

Still, got there later than I wanted. Missed Lance’s talk about Storytelling Pandemic, though one supposed I didn’t really need to see that talk given my involvement.

First person I met was Jeanne Bowerman — a truly rockin’ Twitter pimp if ever there was one — and this would unfortunately be my only real encounter with her for most of the day. Actually, this is a theme: I met a number of people and really only got to spend so much time with them. Next time I’m in the city, I need to somehow earmark more time to actually be in the city. Which probably means staying over somehow. *makes note — start collecting couches in NYC and LA on which I can crash* I met Iris Blasi, Caitlin Burns, Nick Braccia, and of course Guy Gonzalez, Andrea Phillips and Jim Hanas. Dave Turner — @electricmeat — is an officer and a gentleman. Jonathan Reynolds — @therealjohnny5 — was not lying and did indeed sneak me a little bottle of 15-yr Glenfarclas. Fortunately, not before my talk.

Some takeaways from the day’s events:

• Data can tell a story, says Nicholas Diakopoulos. Though, to play Devil’s Advocate, does it really? Is that how data is intended? Human nature is such where we must draw connections — in many cases, narrative connections — between two unlike things to find understanding and context. But that also doesn’t mean that human nature is correct. Data may tell a story, but seems just as possible that we create stories out of data, or find data to fit our stories. Or something. Here’s some data for you: I wear pants only 35% of the time. What story does that tell? Either way, engaging presentation with some really awesome visuals.

• Mistress of the DIY Empire known as “Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School,” Molly Crabapple, is awesome and full of snark. She tells you how to deal with haters by imagining that the best and most wonderful artist that you love has, when Googled, someone out there calling them fat or telling them they suck or whatever. You would then respond, “That person is crazy,” which is how you should envision your own haters — as crazy people. Love, too, that Dr. Sketchy’s is basically an art-school version of Fight Club, with “franchises” worldwide. Doubly love that she makes sure the franchises pay their models. Finally, she notes that too many artists spend too much time on the “swoosh” in their logo and don’t get down to business. This is true for writers, too — some writers become so obsessed with [fill-in-the-blank] (platform, strategy, worldbuilding, etc.) that they forget they need to actually write something and then get it out there.

• Brian Newman says that if you get involved in any one issue, let it be Net Neutrality. He notes that the name “Net Neutrality” sucks, and if you want to help fix it, then as an artist and a creative human being it’s your job to help re-frame that problem in a way that people understand it. Because, right now? They don’t. Also, don’t let it be DIY — let it be DIWO. Do It With Others. Which sounds sexier than intended.

• Michael Margolis helps you reframe your bio online — the short form takeaway here is “Character Trumps Credentials.”

• Ted Hope and Christine Vachon had a very organic back-and-forth: love the idea that somewhere in the middle of art and business is where we find the way to get our work out there. Like too that neither producer is afraid of digital work, and notes that some of the work being done in that arena is better, sharper, stronger than what you find amongst Oscar hopefuls. Sidenote: if you haven’t watched it, you really need to check out the SUPER trailer (Rainn Wilson, Nathan Fillion, Kevin Bacon). I want to see that pretty badly — in reference to it, Ted noted that girls are taught to be supermodels and boys are taught to be superheroes, and from this kind of diseased mindset comes the movie. Another true notion: creating art and putting your craft out there is an act of running full speed at a wall and praying for it to open. Sometimes, it does open for you.

• Andrea Phillips — of the excellent Deus Ex Machinatio — noted, in her Ethics of Transmedia talk, that her work has been denounced by NASA. This is awesome in ways that cannot be described. I long one day to be denounced by NASA. That’s good press, right there. NASA’s had it too good for too long. Also, in private conversation, Andrea and I talked about how what’s important in fiction (whether in transmedia or in gaming or in the written word) what’s most important isn’t realism so much as it is authenticity. Stay true to the story you’re telling and the world it lives in. Don’t be so concerned with reality and fact.

• Transmedia is becoming an overused word, say some.

• From Faris Yakob and Brian Clark (who probably now thinks I think he’s Mike Monello), an interesting idea: charge as much as possible for half your time so that the other half of your time you can create what you want to create. Basically, become your own investor.

• From Scott Lindenbaum, of Electric Literature and Broadcastr: “When not monetized, creative endeavors are mere hobbies. It’s crucial we protect them as professions.”

• Further proof why nobody should let me speak out loud to other human beings: I will discuss teabagging and hookers. Thankfully, Greg Trefry was there to balance me out. Greg’s an awesome dude. In fact, he’s the kind of awesome dude who runs roleplaying game sessions for his students and asks me questions like, “How important is it that they get to roll their own dice?”Anyway. I think our talk went well?

Overall, the theme of the day orbited around the democritization of creative tools — where once it was expensive and prohibitive to create music or film or transmedia endeavors, it’s getting cheaper and cheaper. This mirrors the publishing world, obviously — where once big publishers were necessary to do X, Y, and Z, we’re seeing a Renaissance (for good and bad) of DIY storytellers saying, fuck it, I don’t need to pay the gatekeeper, I don’t need to ask for permission, I’m going to do as I like — I can hire my own cover and book designers, I can get my own editor, I can find my own distribution channels online. The trick is, democritization of tools does not also mean the democritization of talent. There is in self-publishing communities the idea that the cream will rise to the top — what you might call “Talent Will Out” — but I don’t know that this is proven yet. Which to me shows that the most important component to balance the democracy of tools is filter. We need more meaningful filters across the ‘Net. Vast procedural filters from Google and Amazon and so forth just don’t cut it.

Final takeaway:

Be energized. Get creative. Find a way to put your work into the world. And don’t let me speak in public unless you want to hear about ramping a mini-bike over 100 hookers.

Thanks, as always, to Lance Weiler for putting this thing together.

March 5, 2011 / 9 Comments

Gone Fishing

We here at terribleminds (and by “we” I mean myself and whatever multiple personalities have splintered from the core persona at any given moment in time) have decided to —

*crash of thunder*

Take weekends off from this point forward.

Dry your eyes, pretty ponies. Be still your trembling hearts. Do not wail! Gnash not your teeth. Okay, you can gnash them a little. It makes me feel loved when you tear clumps of hair from your head and punch holes in your dry wall. I will allow you this rage-fed luxury. Just take pictures.

But, yeah. Weekends from now on are, generally speaking, a “no new post” or, rather, “post-free” zone. Reason being, I’m busy as hell. That’s only going to get worse when the Heir to Der Wendighaus — aka “Poop Monster” or “Chubbs McCoy” or any other host of unruly made-up nicknames — is born this spring. Ironically, I’m not actually taking the weekends off so much as I am using some of my weekend time to prep blog posts for the week. As it stands now I tend to tackle a new post the night before I post it, but I’d like a little extra dollop of lead-time whenever possible.

So, that’s the scoop, lords and ladies.

March 4, 2011 / 61 Comments

Irregular Creatures: Flash Fiction Challenge

The Shackleton’s Scotch challenge was pretty dang cool, and the results were, frankly, fun as hell to read. And a number of you said you’d be interested in more flash fiction challenges.

So, here I am, once more throwing down the gauntlet.

As you may know, I have a short story collection called IRREGULAR CREATURES (buy here), which features nine tales of bizarre-o beasties, mythological miscreants, and mad monsters — the creatures found in that collection (flying cats, Bigfoot, mermaids, mystic hobos, evil sex monkeys, the mesmerizing vagina of a fallen angel) are in many ways like the writer himself: an odd-seeming and often irregular entity.

This week’s challenge, which runs from today till next Friday (3/11/11) at noon, asks you to take those two words — “irregular creature” — and craft some flash fiction around it.

Whatever that phrase means to you, run with it.

You’ve got 1000 words.

Doesn’t mean you need to stay inside the margins of genre — while fantasy, sci-fi, horror and humor are apropos, anything goes in terms of the inspiration you take from that pair of words.

I’ll once more compile them at the end of the seven days.

Well, what the hell are you waiting around for? Get thee to the word mines!

Your own irregular creatures await.

The Results

Karina Cooper, “Looking Too Hard”

Josin McQueen, “Irregular Creatures”

Jamie Wyman, “Step Right Up”

Angela Perry, “Dog Farts”

Wes Robinson, “Irregular Creatures”

CY, “Signing On”

Tim Kelley, “Snowbirds”

Albert Berg, “The Life And Times Of Casey Jones”

Anthony Laffan, “Three Nights ‘Til The New Moon”

Elizabeth Newlin, “Irregular Creatures”

Amber Keller, “Running On E”

MKS, “Irregular Creatures”

Ben, “Coyote”

Paul Vogt, “Attempt #3”

Snellopy, “Dogspider”

Shree, “Daddy’s Girl”

Marko Kloos, “Seeds”

Aiwevenya, “Writing Class”

Tara Tyler, “Irregular Creature”

McDroll, “My Irregular Little Creature”

Stephanie Belser, “Irregular Creatures”

Sroot, “Angels Or Aliens”

Seth, “Three”

Letters Bloody Letters, “The Story Of Dirty Mari”

Michael Montoure, “Control”

Boys Behaving Badly, “The Horologe”

Sparky, “Waiting Room”

Valerie Valdes, “Hiss”

Gary B. Phillips, “Mottephobia”

Dan, “Jake’s Wake”

John Murphy, “Unintended Consequences”

DeAnna Knippling, “The Last Diary Of Doctor Frankenstein“

March 4, 2011 / 22 Comments

Once Upon A Playtime, Redux

Yesterday, producer Ted Hope (who is also the producer, along with Anne Carey, on our upcoming feature film, HiM), was gracious enough to let me come and stomp around his sandbox with a short post called, “Where Storytelling And Gaming Collide.” There, I said the following:

Traditional storytelling seeks to tell the story of the author, the director, the creator.

But storytelling in games is about empowering the player to experience and tell her own narrative.

I believe this more and more. I believe that games — from the smallest “casual” game to the hardest of the purportedly “hardcore” — are powerful and compelling to us as players because from the experience of playing games we gain narrative, and from that narrative we gain… well, all kinds of things, really. We gain perspective. We gain entertainment. We can be enlightened, amused, disturbed, challenged. And this is true of games even without a traditional narrative. It’s true of a game of checkers, or chess: the two opponents sitting over a board, learning about one another, traversing the peaks and valleys of competition, exploring strategy. You come out of a game of chess, you have a story — and often the way we see and retell it (in our own heads or to others) bears the elements of escalation, climax, and resolution.

(I play a killer round of Angry Birds or Words With Friends, I’ll tell my wife. It’s probably an awful story in terms of what I’m telling her, but in my head? It’s the shit.)

Anyway. Go read that post, if you please, but here, also, consider the question: how can you allow a game to tell a meaningful story? To me, the key word there is “allow.” Emergent gameplay is ultimately about emergent storytelling, and maybe that’s how we need to frame it: games do not need to tell a straightforward narrative as much as they need to leave room for emergent play and emergent narrative.

Emergent narrative.

I like that.

How’s it sit with you? Swish it around your mouth. Bulge your cheeks, get it in between your teeth. Is it minty fresh? Or is it sewery spew? If you dig on it, what can help a game offer greater opportunity for emergent narrative? I could make a case that Minecraft is hella good at this “emergent narrative” thing I just made up two minutes ago, and that I didn’t actually make up at all — turns out wiser minds than mine (which is to say, most) already conceived of it and use it for games like The Sims or Deus Ex, though I’d argue the idea suits games that go beyond the expected roster.

It also occurs to me that sometimes, when I talk about games, I don’t even know if I make any damn sense. But it’s fun, innit? I mean, sure, my extremities have gone numb, and my shirt is missing.

Ultimately, what I’m saying is —

Aren’t the stories born from gameplay just as important — if not more important — than the stories the games purport to tell in the first place? Isn’t that what playtime is all about?

How can game designers and game writers facilitate this?

(Remember, if you’re in NYC, to swing by DIY Days. There I’ll be talking about the collision of gameplay and storytelling with game designer Greg Trefry. Don’t be afraid to introduce yourself, of course. More information can be found here: DIY Days.)