Freelance Resume

did this freelance resume recently, and I was moved to do the same:

1. Aria Worlds: Canticle of the Monomyth… I wrote an introduction. This was about 3000 words, but possibly a lot less than that.Paperback • Publisher: Last Unicorn Games Inc (August 1994) •Language: English • ISBN-10: 096459031X • ISBN-13: 978-0964590311

2. Jerusalem by Night… I wrote a couple of the clans, including the mad guy with the Black Torah. Maybe I wrote 10,000 words for this, but it could have been only 8,000 or even 5,000. Paperback: 125 pages • Publisher: White Wolf Publishing (June 10, 1999) • Language: English • ISBN-10: 1565042999 • ISBN-13: 978-1565042995

3. Manacle and Coin… I wrote the appendix on money at the back of the book. It was OK, and fun to write. This was about 10,000 words. Paperback: 128 pages • Publisher: White Wolf Publishing (June 30, 2003) • Language: English • ISBN-10: 1588466671 • ISBN-13: 978-1588466679

4.Houses of the Bull God… I wrote the section on Ahlat, and did some substantial rewriting on the kingdom of Harborhead. Some of my best work to date. This was about 75,000 words, I think. Paperback: 125 pages • Publisher: White Wolf Publishing (October 4, 2004) • Language: English • ISBN-10: 1588466779 • ISBN-13: 978-1588466778

5. Bastions of the North… I wrote the Haslanti Confederation. Good, but I don’t think it’s really been well-received. Maybe I’m mistaken. Wrote 25,000 words for this, judging by the contract I still have. Paperback: 144 pages • Publisher: White Wolf Publishing (October 31, 2005) • Language: English • ISBN-10: 1588466868 • ISBN-13: 978-1588466860

6. Exalted: Second Edition… I wrote the Realm, and some revisions to the money system. I remember this as about 60,000 words. Hardcover: 400 pages • Publisher: White Wolf Publishing; 2 edition (March 13, 2006) • Language: English • ISBN-10: 1588466841 • ISBN-13: 978-1588466846

7. Book of Terrestrial Directions: Scavenger Lands… I wrote Greyfalls and Nexus. If you don’t like them, you can blame me. I also drew the base map for Nexus, so if you don’t like that, you can blame me, too. I think this was about 25,000 words, too, but may have been 30,000. Paperback: 160 pages • Publisher: White Wolf Publishing (May 31, 2006) • Language: English • ISBN-10: 1588466876 • ISBN-13: 978-1588466877

8. Scion: Hero… I wrote the pantheons, and the guidelines for introducing new pantheons. This was 20,000 words exactly. Hardcover: 256 pages • Publisher: White Wolf Publishing (April 18, 2007) • Language: English • ISBN-10: 1588464687 • ISBN-13: 978-1588464682

9. Exalted: Dreams of the First Age… I wrote some pieces of this, but I can’t talk about it yet. Wrote 10,000 words for this project, and still have the contract.Paperback • Publisher: White Wolf Publishing; Second edition (February 20, 2008) • Language: English • ISBN-10: 1588466205 • ISBN-13: 978-1588466204

(10. As Yet Untitled and unpublished… some clannish stuff, 10,000 words. No idea about publication dates or any of that.

It’s not a bad body of work, I think. I wonder if it’s appreciated sometimes, since I try not to go looking for reviews, but I don’t get hatemail… yet.

Writing Project

I took on another writing project for a Georgia games company this winter, which was kinda dumb. I didn’t really have the time to devote to it, and I’ve been paying for it. On the other hand, I’ve managed to complete a good 80% of the project now, and another strong afternoon of writing should do it. If today had been a real snow day, of course, I’d be done, and I could move on to other more important projects, like sending out a bunch of envelopes with very polite letters on good stationery.

Scion: Hero wins a significant award

I found out from over on the White Wolf community (no… I have no idea how to link to an lj community), that Scion: Hero won the Ennie for Best New Game. In his words,

Scion: Hero won the Ennie for Best New Game. Much praise to John Chambers and Matt Milberger. It’s a lovely book, a terrifically fun game, and a great read. Congratulations and many thanks to all the fine artists and writers who turned the ideas of Scion into a real book.

I wrote the pantheons for Scion: Hero, and it was a great pleasure to be involved in this project. I hope to be able to tell you similarly stunning things about future endeavors with White Wolf in the near future

Various Matters

Various items are on my mind to share with readers:

1. I have received authors’ copies of Scion: Hero. I’d like to run a demo of it sometime in the near-ish future, which either means coming down here to northeast Connecticut and putting up with my students this weekend or next weekend, or someone volunteering space for the game on a Monday night (not this Monday, because it’s Passover, and not next Monday, because my sweetie and I aren’t getting much time together these days), or this (I repeat, this) Thursday, before my Armory class picks up again in mid-April.
1.0.1 I have also been paid for Scion at the same time, which is a first for White Wolf. Usuallythey take their full month (sometimes more) to pay me back. This time, I’ve got check in hand at the same time the books arrived.

2. I have been in DC for a week for the annual school field trip.
2.0.1 I had a good time, I learned a lot, I got to see the Tuskegee Airmen receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. It was such a tremendous gift to lead my kids in a round of applause for a former fighter pilot who fought for a country that wouldn’t even let him vote because of the color of his skin. He was so gracious, too. “I should be applauding you!” he shouted to us from his wheelchair. But no, he deserves standing ovations from everyone, white and black and red and yellow and maybe even green.
2.0.2 It was really cool to see his grandson in a US Air Force dress uniform, with the gold medal — as big as my palm! Bigger! — in his hands.
2.1 Apparently two Republicans repeatedly mispronounced “Tuskegee” during the award ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda, to widesperead murmurrings. They really ought to know better.
2.2 My apologies for not seeing any of you who live in DC during my visit. I was, as I said, there on the annual school field trip, and it was busy in the extreme. Maybe next year.

3. Eleven people are descending on my house on Monday night for a Pesach Seder, put together by the mother of one of my students. Yes, Isaac, you and your lovely bride are invited. E-mail me and I’ll fill you in on the details.

4. I read Sou MacMillan’s Novel Chrysanthemum on the train ride back from Washington, DC to Connecticut. It is an awesome read. Go out and buy/beg/borrow a copy. I give it FIVE STARS. Full-scale review forthcoming, after I have a chance to mull on it a bit.

5. I have been fabulously unproductive today. It’s both frustrating and exhilarating.

6. I’ve been dismayingly unproductive about poetry this winter, and I find it wearing. Every time I sit down to write a poem, something else beans me in the head to do, usually not very important — or else very important and worthy of immediate attention. I’ve been writing other stuff, just not poetry.

I miss you, poetry. Why don’t we ever hang out any more?

7. Classes start again Monday. I have no idea what I’m going to be teaching.

Game Book: Scion Hero

My most recent project for White Wolf has a release date: April 18, 2007. Awesome.

Here’s 22 ways to overclock your brain.

http://ririanproject.com/2006/11/03/22-ways-to-overclok-your-brain/

Money…

Found and deposited the check.

Got my September paycheck. Lots of money rolling in suddenly. It’s nice.

White Wolf, where are my redlines?

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“you are mighty,” they said.
“The whole earth heeds your command.”

In response he set his throne on the high tide line,
facing the open ocean, the roaring sea,
and commanded the tide to turn back.

Out it went, and left the wet beach empty.

He made them sit with him, all the flatterers,
arrayed like they were in his hall,
facing each other in long rows,
as the petitioners came forward,
one by one.

He heard their grievances,
for he was a good king,
and he apportioned land to the widow
and divided the old cow
between two peasants,
and gave permission
to a woman to marry
against her father’s wishes.

Yet the tide drew up
between the legs of the
would-be bride.
It flowed between the hoofs
of the old cow,
and dampened the socks
of the arguing peasants.
The sea wet the hem
of the widow’s kirtle.

Still the tide came on.

He heard an embassy from France
and the flatterers in their ermine
and their finery
were wetted to the waist.
The spray gathered in their beards.

The monks and bishops came
and waded into the sea,
to hold up the gospel book
and ask his conversion.

And still he did not leave the throne.

Still the tide came on.

At last, when the sun began to set
behind the green hills of home,
he rose from the throne,
and dismissed his court,
who struggled out of the water
pulling themselves shoreward
out of the riptide and the oncoming flood,

and he told them,
“Perhaps the whole world hears me,
but water, at least, obeys its own wishes.”

Turnitin.com

Turnitin.com is a website that enables teachers to turn in a student’s assignment and check it for plagiarism against 1) other student papers, 2) a body of reference works, and 3) some other stuff. It’s supposed to help nip source-lifting-without-credit in the bud. It’s also got a built-in grading program, and a whole raft of other tools.

I spent most of the day wrestling with it, trying to get all my classes set up. Now, admittedly, I only have around thirty-six students, which is not many, but I found the process both elaborate and confusing. Why, when I submit a list of kids and their e-mails in Microsoft Word, do they appear on-screen with their first and last names reversed, relative to the same list in .txt format? Is there any @(@*#$ing way to add an assignment simultaneously to the calendar, the gradebook and the assignment list? Is there any way to export all the calendar work I type in, so that I can robustly develop my offline curriculum planning?

Argh. Drives me nuts. And yet it’s still easier than trying to maintain a pen-and-paper gradebook. We’ll see.

Outdoor adventures today, not so good. We went to a nearby state park, where I can walk the Lake Trail in 45 minutes. Them, it takes an hour and a half. Beautiful walk, lots of wildlife, austerely beautiful, not too many people around… but we’ve only got an hour and a half total to be in sports. Add half an hour of transit time there (because we’re stuck behind a public school bus that comes to a full stop every sixty yards, and fifteen minutes of transit time back, and we’re an hour late getting back to campus, 5:30pm instead of 4:30. Argh. Not doing that trip again, at least not without some serious pre-planning. Keeping day student parents informed of such outings is going to be critical. Maybe the other state park? But then we miss out on the walk around the lake, and there’s not as much wildlife, and there’s lots more people around.

Study hall also ended early tonight. Not sure why, but around 8pm discovered kids wandering room to room on my hall. They were supposed to be in study hall for another half-hour. Have to go downstairs and keep an eye on things for a little while, and make sure no one is getting into trouble.

Still no word on White Wolf work from a month ago. The theoretical due-date for the final draft on that project is September 30, but I suspect it’s going to be late. Need to write to my editor and learn what’s what.