Writing up a Storm

[Kevin]

Writing up a Storm

I’ve spent most of the last three days writing up a storm. As you may know, I’m working on the Rifts® Tales of the Chi-Town ‘Burbs, a collection of short stories, and having a blast working on book.

Friday and Saturday, I wrote my Erin Tarn opening story, edited and retooled Braden Campbell’s and Jeffry Hansen’s stories, and thoroughly enjoyed Jason Richard’s and Jason Marker’s stories (both a bit different than I think what people might be expecting, and both excellent).

Today, I finished my main story for the book (23 pages) and I’m quite content with it. It provides a some history about the ‘Burbs, the Coalition and the Bloody Campaign from an interesting view point, as well as telling the story of a grizzled Headhunter who used to be in the CS military and actually fought under General Prosek the First.

Josh Hilden gets co-credit, because I was very much inspired by the story he had submitted. Ironically, he suggested that I trash his original story. He had started the story with what he thought was a cool opening. Then he wrote what he thought was great ending and set about trying to write the middle to connect the two. He go a little to clever for his own good, and didn’t count on the middle taking on a life of its own. As a result, the story was disjointed and confusing, and suffered from a number of awkward moments. The three parts didn’t work as a forced whole, and when I spoke to him about it, he told me wasn’t happy with it and that I should just throw it out of the book.

The only thing was, I loved the main character and many of the ideas. I also loved the fact that it was also a tale of unrequited love. The middle part was the best part, so I kept it, and built upon it. I threw out the beginning, though I kept the idea behind it (dead man walking) and tossed out the end. The end, by itself was touching and well written, but just didn’t work with the rest of the story. So I tossed it out and ran with the rest.

The end result is a story that I think Josh will applaud, I hope you will enjoy, and that I absolutely loved writing.

The more I see of this book, the more I know you are going to enjoy it immensely.

I’m about half way through the short stories and so is Alex with the editing, which means we are on track to send the book to the printer sometime this week.

Add in my writing and art for The Rifter #43 and my work on Robotech and Project X, and I've been a regular creative dynamo as of late and loving every minute!

Sincerely,
Kevin Siembieda
Publisher, Writer, Artist and Storytelling Guru

© Copyright July 6, 2008 Palladium Books Inc. All rights reserved.
Rifts®, The Rifter®, RECON®, Splicers®, Palladium Books®, Phase World®, The Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game®, Megaverse®, Nightbane®, The Mechanoids®, The Mechanoid Invasion®, Coalition Wars® and After the Bomb® are Registered Trademarks of Palladium Books Inc. Heroes Unlimited, Beyond the Supernatural, ‘Burbs, and other published book titles, names, slogans and likenesses are trademarks of Palladium Books Inc., and Kevin Siembieda.