Library Building

When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.

—variant translation of a quote by Erasmus in a letter to Jacob Batt, April 12, 1500

Since it’s the 513th anniversary of this quote by Erasmus, one of my favorites, I thought I’d blog a bit about books and the buying thereof.

As some of you out there know, I like books. I like books a lot. I suspect most of you out there reading my blog share this sentiment.

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Sex, Guns, Rock And Roll, And Website Updates!

Nothing much to see here, folx. ;) I just wanted to let the two or three of you who follow this website know that I've finally gotten around to updating it today. I've activated the Fiction link in the left-hand menu, updated the Elvensong Street Press sub-page, shuffled some things around, and made some belated replies to some thoughtful comments on recent blogs.

I also hope to update the blog on a more frequent basis going forward, though it may be tough at times with all the projects I have going on. As opinionated as I can be, it's difficult at times to force myself to fling an opinion out onto the Internet unasked for; it seems kinda rude. OTOH I have no objection to responding to questions or requests, so if any of you ever wanted to know anything in particular about me and my work, feel free to ask. ;)

Which reminds me:  I recently appeared on the Dorkland! Roundtable videocast talking about Hero Games, superheroes, and other fun stuff. Click on through if you'd like to hear me ramble on for an hour or so:

Steve on the Dorkland! Roundtable videocast

Priests Of Power

Earlier this week I finished another short story and sent it off to an anthology where I hope it will find a good home. This particular anthology is for Swords and Sorcery short stories — and as you might guess from some of what I’ve written in this blog previously, S&S is one of my favorite subgenres of Fantasy. In fact, I’d say that the majority of the short stories I’ve written to date, as well as my novel, fall into that subgenre.

So I had a lot of stories I could have submitted to this anthology. Instead of picking one of the more obvious choices (which might have been the better tactic in terms of increasing my odds of getting the story accepted), I decided to try something a little off the beaten path: I made the protagonist of the story a priest.

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Goodbye, John

I got some sad news earlier this week. My friend John Lees died unexpectedly early Tuesday morning at his home in Michigan.

Most of you out there didn’t know John, but if you’ve bought a Hero Games book published in the past six or seven years there’s a good chance you’re familiar with his work

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Skills And Thrills

Time to talk for a bit about one of my favorite RPG subjects — skills and skill systems.

A few weeks ago, game designer Rob Donoghue posted an article on his blog about skills and skill failure, and it’s gotten me to pondering a bit. Rob’s a talented game designer and analyst, so he’s good at making you think about such matters. ;) So I thought I’d riff a bit on Rob’s ideas, offering my own spin and opinions and hopefully more food for everyone’s brains.

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