One of the perqs of the Walk The Fire 2 Kickstarter is a signed “title page” from each of the authors. It’s just a sheet of paper with the name of the story, my name, and my signature (in a font other than Comic Sans).
Anyway, my design sense is sort of crap, so I turned it over to the closest designer I know: my 12-year-old son. This is what he came up with:
The gray circle prints up lighter than it shows here, but that’s to its advantage.
The kid did a fine job, I think.
Today we have a guest post, courtesy of my son. I told him a story of seeing a tiny chicken coop set out between the curb and the sidewalk like a discarded couch (Seattle is full of residential chicken coops) and he wanted to write a post for my blog, which turned out to be a pastiche of his current favorite book: Hyperbole and a Half. Interestingly, he wrote it from “my” point of view. Here it is:
The Box
Yesterday, while walking to my local Starbucks, I passed a Large-ish (is that a word?) Box out on that grassy strip of space between the road and Sidewalk.
I stopped to take a closer look, as boxes sometimes have interesting contents. The Box was really a sort of Wooden frame, filled by chicken wire, and It contained chickens. One was kind of lying there, dragging itself across the cage back and forth, seemingly with no real goal. The other chicken, however, Looked like it was from a horror movie where aliens invade chicken’s brains before they realize chickens are kept in neat little cages.
It repeatedly slammed itself at the walls of the cage.
The chicken didn’t seem to be attacking me in particular, but instead, the shape of the house. maybe this is why the chickens were abandoned out here in the savage sidewalk-roadlands.
I can almost imagine a sign that says “FREE POSSESSED CHICKENS!”
I may have to go back with some paper and a sharpie.
Christmas was pretty great. Everyone was surprised and delighted by their presents to one degree or another, we got to spend a whole lot of time together, and the fact that we got new computers (and had terrible issues with Migration Assistant–come on, Apple, wtf) none of us had our noses pressed against glowing screens, which I guess goes back to spending time together. Nothing better than that.
However! The day after Christmas is my son’s birthday (the answer to the obvious question: 12). Since my wife has to work today, he blew out his candles and opened his presents first thing.
Boy was he disappointed. Here’s why:
It’s been our family tradition that he gets toys on Christmas and books on his birthday; I always thought that was better than “half your gifts one day, other half the next” but let’s just say he feels differently.
Did I say he was “disappointed?” Because I meant that he asked us never to buy books for him again, and he told us books are only for when he’s bored, and he thinks I’m trying to force him to read books that he “ought” to read (the Myke Cole novel prompted that, because wut), that books are “okay, but…”, and why didn’t we get him something he would actually *like*, too. Of course most of those were chosen by me because I thought they’d suit his tastes so I’m the guy who ruined his birthday.
A couple nights sleeping in the yard should change his attitude, though.
For the record, the only books he was excited about were: The Minecraft history, The Oatmeal, Hyperbole and a Half, the Bacigalupi. The rest he views as work. I don’t even.
Yesterday, I took my wife out for our Giftmas trip through downtown Seattle. Our son is almost 12 and old enough to stay home, so we did without him rather than drag him along while he complained. Sadly, without the kid our time turned more toward shopping for him than anything else.
We started with a really nice lunch at the Michou Deli in the Market, followed by a tiny egg nog cheescake on a stick from The Confectionary. We hit Kitchen Basics for stocking stuffers, the walked up to the Sheraton to see the Gingerbread houses.
Everything there is edible. And it rocked back and forth!
The cow jumped over the moon, via a motor.
You can see them all (including close-ups of some sections, video of the moving parts, and a candy version of our downtown library) at the set. A few are a bit blurry; my one-shot camera seems to be on its last legs viewfinder.
Then we dropped by Pacific Place to listen to a church group of male singers muddle through some Christmas songs and enjoy the indoor snowfall. There was much fun to be had, but my wife is still recovering from an injury so we cut things short.
It was a nice time, but I wish we could have brought the kid (and he would have been cool about it).
The day when everyone, supposedly, starts their holiday shopping online. Try not to be surprised by what I write next:
I have a new book out that you can order.
The short version is that it’s the pulp adventure game tie-in I wrote. If you’re reading this on my blog, the cover is just to your right at the top of the sidebar. If not, click through that link: it’s full of pulp adventure nonsense like shrinking beams, infra-purple light, Aztec mummies, and a certain giant ape movie from 1933. Fun!
If you already have that one, don’t forget that I have a page full of books for kids recommended by my own son. Nothing in that list is there because I thought it should go there; everyone got the thumbs up from the incredibly fussy kid who sleeps down the hall from me. As they used to say: Kid-tested, kid-approved.
What’s more, there are new entries on the list. Check it out.
1) Another drive-through prank, skeleton edition. Video. This one is funny and Halloween is coming up, so… (h/t Nick Kaufmann)
2) Banksy kicks off an art institute on the streets of New York.
3) What your style of beer says about you.
4) Hyperbole and a Half explains power, identity, and changing yourself with costumes.
5) 44 of the Best Scared Bros at Haunted House (2013 pictures). I will confess to enjoying these pictures of absolute terror to an unhealthy degree. Oh, and the body language is instructive for any writer, I guess.
6) Test your color IQ with an online test. My wife, who took the analog version of this test in art school, scored a 26, which is pretty good. Then my son took it and scored a perfect zero. I haven’t tried it myself.
7) The internet is full of “life hacks” but how many of them actually work? 30 Common Life Hacks Debunked. Video.
“Nice hair.”
“Oh hey! That’s Sam Axe!”
“wut.”
“Wow, this movie takes forever to get started!” <-- Sarcasm "I have no idea what is happening right now." "This is really cool! Who directed this?" "I like how there's always five doors to kick down." "This is a really great actor." <-- Said while Ash's evil hand dragged him unconscious across the floor "Oooo I can't watch this!" "Ha! A Farewell to Arms!”
“What?”
“Nope nope nope nope.”
“Ha ha! Oh my god! AAAAHH!” <-- eyeball bit "Did he bring the axe? I can't tell. He'd better have brought the axe." "Great. She's dead." <-- when character runs outside. "Oh my god." "What? What?”
“Is this really awesome makeup or cgi?”
“Aw, yeah! Chainsaw hand!”
“What. The. Heck. Whattheheck!”
“Chainsaw! Use the chainsaw!” (singing) “Chainsaw chainsaw to the neck! Chainsaw chainsaw to the neck!”
“AAAAH! Ha ha! Oh my god!”
and finally:
“Dad, did it every occur to you that maybe I don’t like horror movies?”
Hey, it’s on Netflix and it’s just as rough as I remember but even funnier.
Last session knocked off with the rescue of Walt’s daughter Ever, a girl who had her life shortened via genetic engineering. This session opened with a cut scene, in which the players saw a group of Xenari soldiers (those are the aliens who tried to commit genocide against the human race) found the body of the Xenari scientist our team interrogated and then… ahem… executed in cold blood.
In our defense, he was a big jerk.
Sadly, the alien soldiers didn’t seem all that pleased to find his corpse and the scanning devices they used promised to be quite advanced.
Action came up for the PCs with the party split. Evan (our resident mad scientist/anti-alien war hero or terrorist depending on your POV/Xenari executioner) was out of the party due to player illness. Finlay had returned and was sorting through her newly-acquired alien tech, trying to figure out what she could get for them. Walt retired to his home (which, seriously? Rich guys take out a contract on your life and you take your kid to your house?) with his daughter. Travis, for his part, had requested a meeting with his industrialist father and now found himself on a shuttle heading for an orbiting space station.
Ever began to get sick, running a high fever and experiencing quite a lot of pain. Walt shortly began to show similar symptoms, but with added nosebleeds. He called Finlay and she rushed over to help. As the two of them began to show increasingly severe symptoms, an X-Agg hit squad showed up and began shooting at them through the walls. Continue reading
Lots going on here. I’m going to do a brief recap to share news and try to catch up.
1) If you’ve been waiting for my rpg game tie-in novel to be released, the publisher is selling it on their website right now. KING KHAN. If you buy the paper version, you get the digital version gratis.
2) Not an hour ago I put my wife on a bus to the airport. She’s spending three weeks back east to attend a family wedding, make some tough decisions about her late father’s artwork, and generally get some time with her siblings. There was a lot to do to get her ready and out the door, but now I’m a single parent again, so things family/house obligations are not exactly going to shrink.
3) If you missed the announcement yesterday, my Kickstarter passed the $30,000/ 300% of goal. Which is a lot of whoa and thank you and I hardly know what to do with myself.
4) If you haven’t backed but are thinking about it, one of the stretch goals is based on new backers that show up starting this week. I’ve been talking about growing my audience for a long time, so new readers are welcome
5) As a followup to number 4, my son has made some pixel art to demonstrate the progress of the stretch goals, but I need to fix it up and post it before we actually reach the goals. Time is flying by
6) I owe a ton of responses to emails and things. I’m sorry. I’ll catch up as quickly as possible.
Now, back to working on my stuff.
Part of the homeschool project surrounding the writing of my epic fantasy trilogy was that my son would make (with a very little bit of help from me) a book trailer with his Legos and the music software on his computer.
He’s a clever kid. My only input was to explain what happened in the books that he should animate and to ask him to reshoot things that were out of focus.
I think the music is especially nice. Check it out.