Jennifer Brozek | All posts tagged 'Tell-me'

Tell Me – J. A. Pitts

I have the great pleasure of calling John Pitts a mentor and friend. He is an excellent author and the Sarah Beauhall series deserves to continue on. I know a lot hinges on trade paperback sales. Forged in Fire is worth picking up in physical copy. Something to think about.

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On July 23rd, the trade paperback of Forged in Fire hits the shelves.  This is the third in the Sarah Beauhall series about a young lesbian blacksmith in present day Seattle who repairs a sword that just happens to be the legendary Gram and the chaos that ensues.

In Forged in Fire, Sarah has uncovered even more that is wrong with the world in the form of a blood cult lead by a seriously anti-social necromancer.  Justin, the necromancer, just happens to have once dated Anezka, one of the blacksmith masters that Sarah has had the pleasure of working with.

I love this book for several reasons.  It was a good chance for me to step out of my comfort zone in several areas which is a HUGE bonus for writers.  Breaking through the walls and trying things, exploring themes or touching on subject matter that is outside our norm makes for powerful story telling.

Sarah really has embraced the way her world is unfolding and is approaching it with a fervor she never knew she had in her.  Katie, her lover and best friend, begins to really come into her own as a bard, with the music and magic literally bursting out of her. 

The rest of the crew jump in and round out the story with depth and consequences.  Every action has meaning, magic has a cost, and even the most well intentioned decision has a ripple effect that goes beyond any careful (or not so careful) planning on everyone's part.

Another thing I find fascinating about this series in general is the fun of layering in story.  I get a very real sense of joy by planting clues that may bear fruit in this book, or maybe the next.  The world isn't a single D&D adventure that is completely wrapped at the end.  Oh, the story has a fine resolution, but the world rolls on, the characters have lives beyond this book, and I dearly hope that you the reader can't help but wonder just what might happen next.

At least that's the feedback I've been getting from eager readers.  Of course, as the author, there are things I know that the readers don't always catch.  But I can live with that.  What I'd really love is when you read the books, that you'd contact me, ask questions, let me know what you liked and what you didn't like.  Let me know if there are things I should do better in the future, or things that you want to see.

I can't promise I'll do any of those things, but it's a real boon to a writer to hear what's working and what isn't.  I especially want to know if the things I'm foreshadowing are what you the reader is anticipating as the next thing.

Beyond that, I just hope you're entertained.  That's the whole point of this exercise, after all.  I'm a sucker for a damn good story, and I hope Forged in Fire fill that for you. 

Tell Me – Nayad Monroe

Nayad is an author / editor friend of mind that I’ve been privileged to work with upon occasion. This is one such occasion. I have a story in the kickstarter anthology, What Fates Impose, that Nayad talks about below. In an unexpected turn, Nayad asked me to write my own “Tell Me” about the Karen Wilson Chronicles and the story that is in this anthology.

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What Fates Impose: Tales of Divination

When I consider potential anthology themes, I'm really thinking about what kind of stories I would like to read. That's what led me to pitch the idea for this book of stories about predicting the future. I was curious about what various writers would think of when given the theme about fortune-telling. I wanted to see the dark side and the conflicts of divination, and the possibilities that other people would imagine. I was thrilled when Steven Saus of Alliteration Ink decided that he wanted to publish it.

Getting a glimpse of what's ahead is a special kind of cheat. It's not as easy as you want it to be. You don't know how the piece you're told will fit in with the whole puzzle of your life. You don't know when it will happen, or what will lead to it. Oracles are notoriously vague and inclined towards a trickster mentality; they're not trying to make life any easier for you. You can never tell how much of the truth they're telling, if they're telling any truth at all.

Looking at my own ideas about these matters: I don't believe that fortune-telling can work because I don't believe the future is already planned. I think that each decision we make steers the future in its own little way, but we each have a range of decisions we could make in any given moment. But what if predictions could be made based on trends and probabilities? What if there were ways to use magic to catch glimpses of what could be ahead? I can imagine worlds in which fate is inescapable, and worlds in which there are ways to change a predicted future.

The authors who wrote stories for me came up with ideas I never would have gotten on my own. A psychic elephant came from Eric James Stone. A conspiracy to fulfill a prophecy came from Ken Scholes. Jennifer Brozek's Tarot cards can change the world. Tim Waggoner shows us a fortune-telling creature that lurks behind a waterfall in the forest. And Lucy Snyder's predictions come from a grim creation in a secret cellar. All of the twenty-two stories I chose for the book showed me distinct, interesting possibilities.

From now until July 14, 2013, Alliteration Ink is running a Kickstarter campaign to raise enough money to pay professional rates for these stories. If we reach our goal, we get full funding, and if we don't reach our goal, we get nothing. Want to help? By pledging from the Kickstarter page, you can pre-order copies of the book and choose from a wide range of backer rewards. We are also offering random prize-drawings for backers when we reach important milestones. You can see it all here: http://bit.ly/kickfate (and you might want to do your ears a favor by listening to a portion of the book's intro, written and read by Alasdair Stuart). We will be gushingly grateful for all support.

Tell Me – Amber Michelle Cook

What is FCI?

It's my term for three of the most wonderful things in life:  fantasy, creativity and imagination

Life is a serious business.  We have to be deeply grounded in reality.  But life is also incredibly complex.  It’s made up of matter and the rules that govern matter, and it’s also made out of emotion, thought and desires that all affect one another in sometimes unpredictable and immeasurable ways.  In a complex world, FCI is one of the best tools to help us negotiate them all and find our place in life. 

My blog, Caution: Adults Playing, is where I take the misconceptions around FCI seriously, while having fun playing with them.  There is an oppression of young people, and an oppression of adults.  Like you can insult a man by comparing him to woman when you believe women are less than men, you can insult an adult by comparing them to a child because we believe children are beneath us.  The oppression of adults runs a little differently.  Adults are expected to sacrifice everything in order to be, or at least appear to be, capable and productive.  As such, you can’t be seen acting ‘childishly.’  Between the two oppressions, they account for most of the personal and societal pressure to cut FCI out of our lives just when we need it most: to counteract the wear and tear on us from the burdens of too many routines and over-responsibility.  Just like we don’t have to adhere to a list of attributes attributed to our gender, we don’t have to go from being a child to leaving everything from childhood behind in order to become an adult.  

In my writing I champion and explore the benefits of using your FCI.  And I write my stories using all three. 

My first book, What the Faeries Left Behind, is an urban fairy tale in which Abigail Watson—stuck in a rut—is given an unexpected opportunity to allow FCI back into her life to help rejuvenate it.  My second book, Defense Mechanisms (coming out later this month), is also an urban fairy tale.  It’s the story of how thirty something Janey was bullied into giving up FCI growing up, and what it takes for her to reclaim it and give herself permission to be her real, whole self.  And my third book, Sleepwaking (coming soon) is a modern adaptation of Through the Looking Glass that takes us back to Wonderland—an urbanized version of it with an adult Alice—because the satire, word play and innocent fun that delighted us as children can be just as refreshing and stimulating for us as grown-ups. 

I’m launching Deep Meaningful Fun:  Defense Mechanisms, an urban fairy tale—a Kickstarter campaign for the release of my second book—on June 24th, 2013, to run for the next three weeks.  As an author/artist I’d love to connect with more people who relish their FCI and want to read more fun fiction—deep, meaningful fun fiction that is.  Participating in the campaign is like ordering an advance copy of my novel and getting backstage passes to the behind-the-scenes world of writing and publishing a book. 

And come to www.ambermichellecook.com, the gateway page to more of my FCI:  my Wubbulous Writing Website, the blog, and Chromatic Daffodil Shadows. 

Tell Me – Sarah Hans

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Sarah at conventions and publishing her in anthologies. I’m really happy she got to do this anthology with Alliteration Ink. She and I will both be at Origins Game Fair Library this next weekend.

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If you’d told me two years ago that I would be editing my first anthology in 2013, I would’ve laughed at you, because I was a new writer with hardly any publishing credits under my belt. Two years doesn’t seem like much time to go from barely-a-writer to editor. But a series of events conspired to place me in the right place at the right time and friends with the right publisher. Steven Saus of Alliteration Ink asked me if I had any ideas for anthologies I’d like to edit, and I said yes! In writing, every door that opens leads to bigger (and sometimes better) doors, and if you want to make writing a career you have to diversify and try as many as you can. So I took a deep breath and opened the Editor door.

The idea for Sidekicks! came from the novel I’ve been writing since Summer 2012. The book is about a girl who is the quintessential sidekick, someone who is perpetually overlooked and continually underappreciated...even by herself. I wondered what other authors would do with the same concept. Why would anyone choose to be a sidekick?

The anthology was invitation-only because I’m too busy with a full time job and graduate school to deal with hundreds of submissions. I primarily chose authors I knew from writing groups and conventions, and Steven gave me a list of authors Alliteration Ink had worked with in the past. So if you’re an aspiring author and you’re out there wondering how to get on an editor’s invite list, the answer is to join a writing group and go to a convention or two. Networking is still surprisingly powerful in this day and age.

Sidekicks! contains twenty stories in a variety of genres. The authors we invited took the concept of the sidekick and really ran with it. We have a few of the stories you’d expect, about superhero and supervillain sidekicks, but I think you’ll find the trouble the characters find themselves in unexpected and entertaining. We also have stories about a telekinetic gun slinger, a dictator’s conniving brother, a stone-faced Martian warrior, and a kidnapping victim who takes matters into her own hands. We’ve got sidekicks who are female, male, people of color, soldiers, students, gay, straight, etc. Some of the stories are quite funny, and others are very serious, and still others are rather dark, so there’s a little something for everyone. We tried our hardest to answer the question of what motivates someone to become (and remain) a sidekick. I think the answer is different depending on which character you ask--but they all have their reasons. And they’re all good ones.

If you’d like to hear some of the authors from Sidekicks! read their work, we’ll be at the Whetstone Library in Columbus, Ohio on June 8 from 5-7pm (Facebook event here). To keep an eye out for future events or to ask me a question about this blog post, please find me on my blog, twitter, and facebook! Thanks for reading!

Tell Me – David Raiklen

I've backed this movie kickstarter because it looks like exactly the kind of thing I love. Toss in some of my favorite creators and how could I say no? They are very close to being funded. Here's David to talk about the awesomeness of working with creatives.

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Why Blood Kiss?

First, thank you Jennifer for letting me guest blog, I feel honored to contribute here plus it's great fun. There's a sense of magic on this site. And that leads to Blood Kiss.

There's a sense of wonder and magic in the screenplay and the people involved. I want to help bring a unique story to life, and work with some of the most wonderful creative people in the world. Neil Gaiman, Amber Benson, Michael Reaves, Tom Mandrake and Daniela Di Mase are warm, funny, creative, and inspiring. Every day one of them says or does something that makes me think, laugh, and do better than I could before. Being part of a great team is key to having a successful project, and somehow I fit into this creative team. We blend our skills and make something new happen every day.

We all want to make the best movie possible, and that involves a lot of people, time, money, and resources. With such strong personalities there are differing opinions, and finding a middle way that works for everyone is a real challenge sometimes. Designing the campaign for Kickstarter took months, and everyone contributed. Because we believe in the project, the final version looks great and holds your attention. All the parts fit and help tell the story. In a sense it's a microcosm of how the whole filmmaking process works. Collaboration-Communication-Completion.

I'm a composer and love the Golden Age of Hollywood. Blood Kiss is set in that world and gives me a chance to update grand romantic gestures and spice them with creepy electronica. To do that takes money to hire live musicians. People are better than boxes. And more authentic. That means we have to raise enough money to hire great performers, string players and brass. In a project like this everything goes on screen and the more we raise the better our production values. Everyone knows what classic movies sound like and I have to create that sound. A real challenge. But with the support of fans it's possible.

Michael tried to get the studios to see the value in a new kind of character driven, glamorous Hollywood vampire tale. They didn't get it. But you do. We can do this together with your support. That's kind of amazing, that Michael's dream can come true, Neil gets to act, Amber can sing, I can orchestrate melodies, do things we really believe in and do well. With fans giving us the green light.

A big reason I'm part of Blood Kiss is that crowdfunding gives me a chance to to my best work, be creative in ways the old system might never allow. If we have great success, maybe we can even change the system a bit.

I'm grateful to Michael, Neil, Amber, Tom, Daniela, Leah, Dave, Dan, Tommy, and Fernando for doing amazing work. Please see their work at PledgeBloodKiss.com We're making magic here!

—David Raiklen, Producer/Composer, Blood Kiss

Tell Me – Warren Schultz

The whole concept of Geek Field Guide started with the idea of traveling the world and documenting regional and local martial arts styles for others who share our passion for that sort of thing. The idea quickly took on a life of its own, and grew as we assessed where our talents and passions overlapped that we could provide a more compelling project to a larger number of people.

Some background… Photography has always been a great passion for me, and I’d always felt restricted by technology. Using cheap 110 film as a child was a great learning experience, but the quality ultimately left me disappointed by the results. The 35mm point and shoot that my dad owned was a significant improvement, but it wasn’t something I could go play and experiment with due to the rather significant cost of the camera for my family at the time. It wasn’t until college that I took a photography course and bought an old fully-manual Minolta SLR that I really grasped photography as an art form.

The ability to present a view of the world with such carefully-tuned composition and exposure was a door flung open in front of me into a new world. Between my third and fourth year of college, I took a trip to Italy through the university and studied art in Florence (Firenze) for a summer. This falls under the category of Life-Changing Experience. This was when I realized that I was truly happy out exploring and seeing the world, camera in hand. But… You can’t make a real career out of that, right? So I went home, and continued down the path of life toward jobs that happen in office buildings. Fast-forward through over a decade of game development from QA to co-owning an indie studio, a couple years of finally giving in and taking up fiction writing (including one published short so far), and splurging to get a DSLR, I finally had the experience I needed to re-assess my dreams.

Working in an office was no longer a requirement to my subconscious after freelance writing and dev work. I’d spent enough time living in hotels that I found that while it is essential to have a home base somewhere, the amount of time I feel I need to spend there isn’t that significant. I realized that the time to put all the skills and networking to use had arrived.

As the idea for The Project (as we came to refer to it) became more concrete to me, I started reaching out to friends with varied hobbies and careers for feedback on what would be useful to them. The response was staggering. Finding good reference for the types of projects that geeks do for fun and profit can be extremely time-consuming, or sometimes impossible to find. Everyone I talked to wanted to see me try to make this project happen.

I'm a tech geek at heart. While I no longer get as excited about technology for the sake of technology, new hardware, software, and techniques for furthering my art will grab my attention every time.

For this reason, the increasing low-light capabilities of DSLR cameras (I prefer to shoot in natural light), portability of HD video cameras (such as the GoPro), and techniques such as photogrammetry (turning a series of perspective photos into a 3D model), leapt into my mind as ways that we could document the world in new and exciting ways.

We tried to capture a cross-section of these techniques in our promo video on Indiegogo.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/geek-field-guide/

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Tell Me - Janna Silverstein

Building a Worldbuilding Guide

How do you build a world? How do you convey that world to your readers? How do you manage the business of worldbuilding, whether it's your own world or someone else's? These are questions that everyone who's ever worked in science fiction, fantasy, and role-playing games has asked. When Wolfgang Baur asked me to edit an anthology of essays on the subject for Kobold Press, I was both excited and a little overwhelmed. It's a huge topic. I wasn't an expert, that's for sure. But between the two of us, we knew enough worldbuilders that we figured we might be able to get near to answering the question. And thus was born The Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding, a collection of essays by some of the top worldbuilders in roleplaying and in fantasy, with an introduction by Ken Scholes, bestselling author of The Psalms of Isaak.

What did I love about working on this project? I loved working with the people who wrote for it. Wolfgang Baur, for example, isn't well-known to mainstream SF and fantasy readers but he's a rockstar in the RPG world, and he writes about the creative side of worldbuilding with the insight and flair of someone who’s done it his entire adult life. Wolf explains difficult concepts with ease and real authority. He explains what is and isn’t important with the experience of someone who’s done it for games including Dungeons & Dragons, Call of Cthulu and, most recently, the Midgard campaign setting for Pathfinder.

I loved working with Michael A. Stackpole, with whom I’ve worked for decades. Mike’s produced wonderful original fantasy novels including The Books of the Crown Colonies as well as novels in some of the most beloved licensed universes around, including Star Wars and Battletech. He contributed a dynamite piece on creating cultures. Jonathan Roberts, who created the maps for George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, produced a terrific essay on creating the topography of a world, and writes as beautifully as he illustrates. I loved working with Jeff Grubb, who writes about post-apocalyptic worldbuilding—and who presents some key insights about it that never occurred to me before. Jeff’s fingerprints are all over Magic: the Gathering, Guild Wars, and Star Wars, too.

In case you’re curious, I didn’t just edit the book; I contributed an essay about worldbuilding in licensed universes—breaking in, following the rules, managing your role in such a situation. I’ve worked with properties including Star Trek, Star Wars, Aliens, Superman, and so many others. I’ve got opinions and I didn’t stint in sharing them.

Now, I know what my friends in mainstream SF and fantasy will say; I know that there’s a prejudice in our business that divides novelists and book publishers from game designers and game publishers. We don’t talk about it in polite company. Having straddled the divide between the two industries, I’m here to tell you something very important: the business of building a world is the same, whether you’re writing a novel or designing a game. If there’s a difference, it’s in how that world is conveyed to an audience, whether via a novel or interactive storytelling. But the effect is the same: drawing an audience into a fully realized world, convincing them of its authenticity, and carrying them away from their own lives in the service of adventure.

There’s no question that this book, targeting as it does, aspiring RPG designers, has a slant toward game design. But the lessons apply to novel-writing in ways you may not expect. I certainly didn’t when I started this project, and Ken Scholes certainly didn’t until he started reading the essays in order to write his introduction. The people who contributed to this collection have made worldbuilding their business, and they have a great deal to teach. What I want people to know about this book is just that: There are teachers here offering decades of knowledge about what it takes to make a world live and breathe. Take their advice; it’s solid gold.


The Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding
Edited by Janna Silverstein
Essays by Keith Baker, Wolfgang Baur, David “Zeb” Cook, Monte Cook, Jeff Grubb, Scott Hungerford, Chris Pramas, Jonathan Roberts, Michael A. Stackpole, and Steve Winter
Introduction by Ken Scholes
Kobold Press, January 2013
http://www.koboldquarterly.com


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Janna Silverstein is a science fiction and fantasy writer and editor with a number of anthologies and short stories to her credit. Her work has appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, 10Flash Quarterly, and in the anthologies Swordplay and The Trouble With Heroes, among others. She was twice a Writers of the Future semi-finalist. She edited The Kobold Guide to Game design, vol 3: Tools & Techniques, and the Gold ENnie Award-winning Complete Kobold Guide to Game Design, both from Kobold Press. She lives in Seattle.

 

Tell Me – Luna Lindsey

Printing Emerald City Dreamer - When Thoughts Become Reality

Why do I believe in faeries?

 

I'm not sure if I believe in faeries. You might call me a faegnostic. The existence of faeries is just about as likely as most other phenomenon of the unseen world. There certainly are enough eye-witness accounts to put them on par with more serious cryptids. Yet extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

 

What I can prove is that I write about faeries. And maybe I believe in magic.

 

Sometimes I get lost in all the mechanics and business of writing to remember why I focused in on these ethereal beings, out of hundreds of other speculative topics I might have chosen. Across three novels and a handful of short stories, I've written 275,000 words about faeries. So they must be important.

 

Over the weekend, I attended Faeriecon West. But not for fun. I had a quest to scope it out, with four simple tasks:

  • Find a spot to place my promotional bookmarks; 
  • See if any book vendors might carry my print copy of Emerald City Dreamer next year; 
  • Make some faerie-industry contacts; 
  • Develop ideas to promote my books at Faeriecon in the future.

I chickened out on most of these. A very jaded me walked past, with barely a glance, at merchandise I've seen at a hundred other cons. All the faerie costumes and glitter and twigs and flowers.

 

To fill the time, an uncharmed me listened with a skeptical ear to Raven Grimassi, who believes in actual faeries. His stories threatened to destroy my world-weary veneer, especially when he spoke about a faerie he met, who believed humans are the only magical creatures in the universe. Faeries can turn thoughts into things in a way that seems magic to us, he explained, yet these objects are made of ether that disappears when thought moves on. Only humans can turn thoughts into real things – by constructing chairs and buildings and books.

 

A me not-long-past would have reveled in the whole spectacle, silk and wands and pagans and all. Instead, I went home early.

 

It took at least an hour into the Woodland & Faun concert the next night for all the fae stuff to finally sink in, and I remembered what it is about faeries that has drawn me to them year after year.

 

It's their magic. It's not always good magic; sometimes it's quite terrifying. But it's magic all the same. Real or not, the fae represent the hidden wild nature of humanity: our animal instincts, our emotions, our occluded fears. Our subconscious, be it collective or individual.

 

Fae folk are earthy, childlike, capricious, and full-of-wonder. They are also vicious, cunning, duplicitous, and debauched. They represent the powers of creation and the other edge of that bronze-age sword: the powers of destruction. The fae are avatars of dream and nightmare, and that is how I present them in my Dreams by Streetlight world.

 

I am releasing Emerald City Dreamer in print this month, and I needed a reminder of their energy in the midst of the mundane work of cover design, font-choosing, layout formatting, software troubleshooting, and price-calculating. These tasks are as oppressive as cheap newsprint that rubs off on your fingers and clothes. Hardly inspiring.

 

As dull as the minutia of publishing can be, it is a form of creation no less important than the day two years ago when I created Ezra, the religious boy unaware he is a troll. No less charming than planning the BrughHaHaus, a University District dwelling full of faeborn housemates ruled by their Elf Queen. No less enthralling than giving the antagonist enough magic to torment, attack, enslave, and terrify my other characters.

 

No less vital than drafting, revising, and editing the thousands of words to form the novel in the first place.

 

And nothing could be as inspiring as the moment I first held a hardcopy of my novel in my hands, with its glossy cover, the captivating image of Jina staring at me, determined to use that sword or guitar or both; to turn it over and admire the layout on the back and spine; to flip through the pages and see all those words, in tangible form, for 320 pages.

 

In my novel, I label some people as dreamers. They are the creators of art who, through their power of painting or singing or writing, produce the energy consumed by the fae. The fae transform those dreams into glamour to create illusions – things that seem real, but are not.

 

Faerie magic.

 

In my way, I have done the opposite. I have transformed my thoughts and dreams into words, and then, through a humdrum process of layouts and formatting, transformed the words into a physical object – a book.

 

I made a thing from a thought, just like the magic described by Raven Grimassi's faerie.

 

It's no mistake that the word "spell" is a homonym with two meanings: "to correctly write a word" and "to create something of magic." A book is a real thing full of thoughts that, while imaginary, will never disappear.

 

Perhaps I am wrong to be skeptical. Raven's faerie spoke wisdom. Humans possess true magic.

 

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Luna Lindsey lives near Seattle, WA. At some point, she accidentally became an expert on mind control, computers, and faeries. She began writing full-time in 2010 and has been published in the Journal of Unlikely Entomology and in Penumbra eMag as the January 2013 Rising Talent. She tweets like a bird @lunalindsey and blogs at www.lunalindsey.com. Her novel, Emerald City Dreamer, is now available both on Kindle and in print.

Tell Me – Kelly Berger

I’ve known Kelly off and on for a while. I know she’s a hard-working, geek-tastic lass who is following her dreams. She really should be supported in this. Plus… ice cream!

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Today I'm pretending to be a writer.

This week I'll have to pretend to be a publicist, an accountant and probably a lawyer. What I'm actually good at is making ice cream. In starting up  my business, Cosmic Creamery, I spend more time pretending to be all kinds of other things instead of actually getting to make ice cream.

It's a very weird dichotomy: having to pretend to be so many things I'm completely unqualified for just so I can do something I'm really qualified for.

I love making ice cream. Ice cream is delicious, full of awesome memories and sooo customizable. Eating Crazy Vanilla at the boardwalk in Ocean City, Maryland on sweltering, humid summer nights. Stuck at home with the chicken pox and having my mom hand me a whole pint of Rainbow Sherbet. Every time I make a flavor I've had before, I enjoy it for all those good memories. I also adore designing new recipes. It's a snowball effect, the momentum is powerful. Ooh, I wonder if I can make a better Mango sorbet recipe. Wait, what if I added some cayenne pepper to it? What about a swirl of chocolate? The ideas just cascade all over the place. Not to mention when other people get involved! Anyone I've ever talked to about ice cream immediately wants to share their favorite flavor, or suggest flavors to me. A lot of the suggestions are really, really good!

Starting a business isn't just about the ice cream, though. As with many creative arts, you end up spending a lot of time tackling the business side of things instead of actually creating. So I do tons and tons of research. I read books, articles, and websites. I talk to friends and family who have done any number of the things I'm pretending to do. I spend waaaay too many hours at the computer, staring at spreadsheets and sending emails.

When it gets to be too much I go over to my notebook full of my own ice cream recipes. I flip through each page and remember how good it all tastes, I let myself daydream up more and more ideas (hmm, what about honey lavender ice cream? Or a chocolate blueberry sorbet?). If the day job and the small-business-starting tasks aren't too demanding then maybe I get a chance to actually get in the kitchen, churn something up, and scoop up a bowl full of sweet, delicious ice cream. Tonight I'm making chocolate hazelnut. What flavor would you like?

If, like me, you love ice cream, please consider backing my ice cream business on Kickstarter. We only have until March 3rd to get funded for this summer. I have some snazzy rewards for my backers, plus you get the opportunity to enjoy more of my out-of-this-world ice cream this summer.

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When not making ice cream, Kelly Berger spends way too much time reading, playing board games, and roleplaying. Kelly has been making ice cream as a hobby for almost ten years. Her successes (Blackberry/Lemon ice cream, Mango/Cayenne sorbet!) and disasters (Turkey ice cream) have led to the creation of Cosmic Creamery.

Tell Me – Erik Dahlman

Over the past year we’ve had to license game mechanics and intellectual property from a variety of game designers and authors. I’ll be honest, this used to seem like the most complicated and expensive endeavor in the world and scared the hell out of me. I always envisioned a week-long meeting with a roomful of high powered attorneys discussing terms and conditions, finally culminating with a contract signed in blood with a clause for my firstborn.

Fortunately, I’ve begun to look at licensing for what it really is: an additional revenue stream that you can leverage if you choose the right people to partner with.

This definition is of course from the side of the person licensing the IP. A good way to look at it is that you are partnering with someone that has the time and resources to take the world that you’ve built and introduce even more people to it. And as a nice side effect, you’ll hopefully make some extra cash along the way!

So what are a few things to look at? Let me turn the tables and tell you what it is we look for as a game publisher:

Strength of the brand
The greater a following your IP already has, the more likely there is to be some crossover with a new product. If you have a strong fan base, you can usually negotiate for a higher percentage.

Terms
I don’t make a game thinking that it’s going to fail, so I want to leave myself open to as many opportunities as possible to cash in on that success. This means I’m going to ask for the rights to produce expansions and a digital version of the game. Since we have the skill set to convert the assets we’ve already created in order to have them do double duty, this makes a lot of sense for us.

Another stipulation here is normally the length of time that a license can be utilized. Typically, I’ve seen a length of five years during which time the licensee should be actively producing and/or marketing the products using the license. Of course the term ‘actively’ can be pretty arbitrary so you have to be a bit careful with this one.

How much do we like the person we’re licensing from?
You may think that money is money and this doesn’t matter. Maybe for some people it doesn’t, but for us, we don’t want to deal with someone that’s going to turn what should be a fun endeavor into tedium. We tend to gravitate towards those with a similar vision and approach.

How well do we know the license material?
I think it’s difficult to really immerse yourself in a product and capture its full flavor if you don’t really know it. Our company doesn’t deal with anything if at least one of us doesn’t have intimate knowledge of the subject material. This is really the only way we can tie in little nuances that true fans would appreciate and make something that truly captures the essence of the IP in our products.

How passionate are we about it?
A game can take up to six months for us to produce (not counting manufacturing time). That’s a very long time to work on something that you don’t like, so we make sure that it’s something we really enjoy.

If you’d like to see the result of one of these licensing endeavors, check out Dragon Whisperer. We licensed the game mechanics from the legendary game designer Richard Borg and crafted a rich and vibrant world around them that we’re really proud of.



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Erik Dahlman is CEO of Albino Dragon, a game publisher based in Austin, TX. Within the past year, Albino Dragon has launched and successfully funded five Kickstarter projects that have raised over $180,000 to date by leveraging licenses ranging from Richard Borg’s game mechanics to Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu. An avid gamer and businessman, Erik strives to maintain transparency with Albino Dragon in an effort to help others also realize success in the industry and give back to the community.