matt_doyle

After I finish The Hellion Prince sometime this fall (sooner rather than later, I hope, brain chemistry permitting), there are two or trhee projects I want to get underway.

1) The Periodic Tome Of Elementals, which I still have many notes for but no formal work-up.  I'm wondering about crowdfunding this if possible, but I know nothing about starting up a Kickstarter or Indiegogo project.  How much should I ask for?  How much should I have done before I ask?  How should I set my deadlines for the project?

If anybody's got enough expertise to offer me some advice, I'd be deeply grateful.

2)  A stand-alone novel about someone who's not a blonde magician and who has a healthy relationship with their parents.  The novel should be written in under six months, might be crowdfunded, and will definitely be intended to be self-published rather than sold traditionally.  basically, all the things I have yet to do with a novel but would like to try.

3) The same as #2, but to be sold traditionally, on the off chance that a stand-alone is a more attractive prospect to agents than volume I in a trilogy.

All this would make for a pleasantly busy 2013.

Fiction writing going slowly.  The Hellion Prince is sort of staled while the next couple of already-written chapters get typed and edited -- I have somewhere between two and three more nearly ready to deliver, but am fiddling with transitions and pacing and adjusting my outlines for the rest of the book.  Cthulhu Christmas now exists as five different drafts of five very different stories, none of which is wholly satisfying to me.  Or, y'know, finished.

I'm toying with the idea of assembling a local writers' group to help keep me motivated and on task and whatnot.  This last month has been rough, productivity-wise. 

I have, however, started work on something else -- a bit of RPG writing I hope to have in .pdf and .epub form in January or February.  It's called The Periodic Tome of Elementals, and includes templates, spells, feats, and monster stat blocks for well over 100 elementals (from Hydrogen to UnUnoctium, though I may cut some of the synthetics...), plus reactionals and compoundinals.  My good friend and erstwhile physicist and DM Peter is collaborating with me on this, and I hope to drag in an artist or two to do illustrations and cover art.  Discussions this past week have made me more determined than ever to try and make some money and reputation doing game-writing, so if you or anyone you know might be willing to shell out $10 for The Periodic Tome, let me know.

Still pondering an .epub or Lulu self-published anthology of short fiction, as well, but that will probably wait for next year.