A Late Productivity Update

I promised a productivity update on my personal writing the past couple of nights, but I had a church function one night and caught up with an old friend the other night, so I'm writing this now, before work.

I went to DragonCon with the goal of making contacts with Blizzard in regards to a proposed Starcraft novel entitled The Calm Before the Storm.  It would take place in the aftermath of Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty and before Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm, which is slated for release 18 months or so from now.  I figured it could be a good way of bridging the two games, much like how StarCraft #2: Shadow of the Xel'Naga filled the gap between the first game and Starcraft: Brood War and the Dark Templar trilogy filled the gap between Starcraft and Starcraft II.  If released just before Heart of the Swarm, it could build buzz for it, just like Starcraft II: Heaven's Devils did for Wings of Liberty.

Mike Lee, who writes Warhammer 40K fiction, told me how to get in touch with Andy Chambers, who used to work for Games Workshop but is now the creative development director at Blizzard.  However, he said that typically, publishers bring authors to the gaming company and not the other way around.  And Simon and Schuster, which has published all the Starcraft novelizations, only accepts agented submissions.

(Mr. Lee, by the way, is a really cool and funny guy.  He'll be in another blog post later.)

I have still not heard back from Mr. Chambers.  However, Matt Schafer went to the Blizzard web-site, found their Legal FAQ section, and informed me that Blizzard does not accept unsolicited ideas.

Looks like I'll need to find an agent, then.  Schafer suggested I find out who represented Heaven's Devils author William Dietz on that particular book and try to contact him.  Time is of the essence--it typically takes a year to publish a book.  I haven't had time to go to a bookstore and look in the acknowledgements section, where I could possibly find the agent.  I can also e-mail Dietz himself, since he does have a web-site and a contact e-mail.

As far as my original work is concerned, I just finished Chapter Eight of Escape from the Wastelands.  This is the chapter where Andrew finally gets out of Carroll Town, although we have not yet met Alonzo Merrill.  I had put Escape on the back burner while I worked on the Starcraft project and rushed to get this chapter ready for review by my Kennesaw writing group this coming Saturday.

I also had Chapter Seven reviewed by my Lawrenceville writing group last Sunday.  They gave some good advice, including finally explaining the show/tell distinction as applied to certain episodes in the chapter and pointing out that having two of Grendel's sons having names beginning with "Ha" could confuse the reader.

Revisions ahoy--once I've got time!

I finally added a new chapter to The Revenge of the Fallen Reboot, which I had let sit for three months without an update.  The human cast is now in North Africa for the final battle with the Decepticons.  It's almost done, and after that, no more fan fiction.

Well, maybe.  I had an idea for a one-shot Starcraft fan-fic that would basically be an alternate ending for Wings of Liberty.  However, I might post that later, perhaps in a thread entitled "Lead Us Not Into Temptation."