NaNoWriMo in a Blink

NaNoWriMo 2012 is over. Somehow, unlike past years, this blog was silent throughout the entire month. I was dreadfully irresponsible regarding my blogging. Yes, that does usually happen during the school year, but it's no excuse, and certainly not during NaNo. So this is to recap the month, which was full of firsts and frustrations, tied with a bow of success!

 I am not teaching a writing class this year, so had no students to 'force' through the YWP. I also did not lead it as an after school program, for various reasons. I did put up a poster to chart my own progress, and I spread the information out to some other interested teachers, but as far as I know, I was the only one in the school writing. (I did get a surprising bit of interest in my progress, so will probably repeat that next year, and may again be the staunch supporter of the school's YWP.)

However, this year, I decided to shoot for the full 50k. Then, I had an extra surprise: my wife decided to write! It was a very different experience, pursuing our goals together. Then, we decided to get more social than I have in the past. We attended the regional kick-off party, the "Evening of Scribbling Recklessly" (all-night write-in for our region), and even the TGIO party on Dec 1. We made some friends, got well acquainted with our fantastic MLs, and both succeeded in writing over 50,000 words!

My wife wrote an Elven Fire campaign, similar to The Beginner GM, which was my project from last year. I wrote The Mayan Millennium, and was surprised at how much my characters took over and guided the work this time around. Pleasantly surprised, I should add. I think they made it a much better story than I had planned! I'm glad that I didn't abandon it at the beginning of NaNo and switch to something else. I stayed faithful to the work, and it rewarded me well. I finished Mayan at 50,090 words.

Another new thing? I used the writing program Scrivener this year and LOVED it. It's a fantastic program that any writer would benefit from trying, in my opinion. Winning NaNoWriMo allowed me to buy it at 50% off it's usual price. Great deal, and now I own it.


What's next? Well, I'm planning to submit a story called Slave Princess to the quarterly Writers of the Future contest. Slave Princess is a novella that was never posted to my website or otherwise much advertised, mostly written for a friend during a failed NaNoWriMo attempt in the past. However, I've dug it back out of the dust and am now editing and revising to send it in to WotF. After that, I have two novels to edit! Mayan Millennium and On Common Ground. One of them will be going to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest, and the other will get agent-shopped and then self-published (if it isn't picked up first) this summer! The question is, which one gets what?? Yet to be determined. I'm horrible at choosing between great options!

Also, my amazing wife has taken up a hobby of cover artwork! She did several NaNo covers through the forums, and modified / finished a cover concept that someone else offered for On Common Ground! I love the new look, front to back.

Oh, there's one more thing that will be new, but started in November: the website! DavidJace.com is getting a redesign, courtesy of Stephanie from Arimaspy.com. I am super-excited about this, and will try to keep updates posted here as it happens. (If you have any thoughts about features or pages you'd like to see on the site, PLEASE comment and let me know so I can get them included in the big redesign!)


Happy Holidays, everyone.

Publication!

We'll talk about where I've been later. First, I want to celebrate! I now officially have a published work. Elven Fire for the Beginner GM  is finished and published, through the wonderful folks at CreateSpace.com. It took several re-uploads for small corrections, but it's done and available on CreateSpace and Amazon.

Last summer, George F. Rice published the  Elven Fire manual, introducing his family's 20-year project to the world.
Elven Fire is a new RPG tabletop game, like many others available on the market, but with some very unique aspects such as the Damage Class table that allows a player to use any kind of die in existence (or that can be conceived) to play the game. In addition, it is more "family friendly" than many in the genre, while still maintaining the classic, high fantasy style that has made these types of games famous.

Elven Fire for the Beginner GM is not an alternate manual. Instead, it is a guide for inexperienced GMs of Elven Fire (or if you've never even heard of RPG games before!). 'The Beginner GM' includes an introduction to the special challenges of being a GM (in addition to being a player) and then walks the reader through three 'arcs' (storylines) of labyrinths. Each labyrinth is five rooms, which is a several-hours night of gameplay. Each labyrinth includes step-by-step instructions for the GM, specific battle statistics for every creature or opponent, and occasional tips and tricks for the GM.

You'll still need the manual to make your characters, and you'll want the manual for all of the other great information there. This is by no means a replacement for the manual. However, playing a starting group through all three arcs of The Beginner GM will bring that starter, no-nothing group of rag-tag adventurers all the way to the threshold of the Intermediate level.

The most exciting part, however, is that my name's on the cover!! My author's copies will arrive this week, so I still have some exciting celebrating to do, but I wanted to go ahead and write up the blog post to announce it. I would also like to mention that I wrote this work during last November, while leading several middle schoolers through NaNoWriMo's Young Writers' Program and I would certainly like to thank the Office of Letters and Light for all the hard work they do to make that program happen. (Not to mention the Winner's Codes they give out for those who make it!)

NaNoWriMo's Last Breath

Today is the last day of 2011's NaNoWriMo. Let's see how it all has turned out, with the understanding that there are still about 16 hours left for things to change.

My 2nd period, who had a word count goal of 60,000 (30 kids x 2k words each) topped out yesterday at 62,058 words with threats from some of bringing more today. (Their class doesn't meet today.) Way to go, kids!

My 4th period came in just short of their 38,000 goal (19 kids x 2k words each) with 35,932 words. Remember, there's still 16 hours left for them to come bursting into my classroom waving sheets of scribbled words and numbers, yelling out their total word count. They aren't too very short. One kid could make it happen for them.

Each student that succeeded in hitting their goal is invited to the Thursday Dec 1 afternoon pizza party NaNoWriMo Celebration! (Wow that's a long name for a party.)

I would like to brag and celebrate my own personal success of winning MY first NaNoWriMo YWP, passing my 25k goal with 26,733 and counting! Woot for me!

My afterschool WriMos trudged in with sad faces yesterday. They were falling far short of their goals, but, I am proud to say, they were still writing. There was one that usually comes later, however. (She's in spelling bee practice the first half after school.) Word in the halls was that this sweet girl with a modest 12k goal, had over 20,000 words in hand. She arrived, and it was true. She had over 170%! Oh, how we celebrated.

Then, I went to validate her words, and she stopped me.

"No, Mister! Don't do it."

I was startled, and tried to explain that I was validating her win, so she would have her little purple Winner bar.

"No, I don't want to do that. I didn't finish the story. I'm only half way done, and there's no way I'll finish it in time. I'm not a winner yet, and I hold to that decision."

How can I not respect such integrity? I searched the FAQs but could find nothing on what to do if you hit (or explode) your word count, but aren't done with the story at the end of the month. For now, she remains unvalidated... but she's a winner in my book.


****************************************************

Update: My wife went and found some information and emailed me to have something to help sway the girl, since she couldn't comment from work. The email is below.

From the FAQs, The Basics, "How do you win?":

"You win NaNoWriMo by writing to your word-count goal by midnight on November 30."

Writing to your word-count goal. Not finishing your novel.

Also, in the CreateSpace talks:

"... you will receive a redemption password when you reach your word-count goal and become an official NaNoWriMo 2011 winner."

When you reach your goal. Not when you finish your book.

I'd say it's pretty clear!

So during my off period, I pulled her out of class and presented this information to her. After assuring her that she could (and should) finish the work and pursue publishing in the spring, she confirmed that she did want to validate now. So we quickly grabbed a computer and got her validated. I am so very proud of her, and excited about the future of her story.

Then, when I got home, I had the following email from the Office of Letters and Light. I think Tim said it quite well.

Hi there,

Wow, she has real grit to go with her drive, it sounds like; that's fantastic. Our official position is basically that, if she hits her word count goal, we consider her a winner. We also encourage young writers to continue writing their novels, and to edit them in later months. I'm going to link a FAQ about it here: http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/node/512033

This is also our official position on how to win: http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/node/512006

I hope this helps! Thank you for writing in, and please let your student know that we are incredibly proud of her accomplishment, and that she deserves to celebrate!

Tim Kim
Office Captain
The Office of Letters and Light

Missed a week

Missed a week? I don't know what you're talking about.

Yeah, okay, I admit it. I could blame it on being sick, but I didn't get sick until the middle of last week, so I don't have much of an excuse. I wish I had a really recent update on my students, but I was out sick much of last week, so I don't have their current numbers. The week before that, though, one class had a total of 35,000 words! Fantastic. I'm really excited to see what they have after this week of Thanksgiving break. It'll be the last class period during NaNoWriMo, so really have to be done by that point, and they know it. Crossing my fingers.

I, while still underscoring for the official adult WriMo goal, am having my best NaNo year yet! I currently as of yesterday have just over 15,000 words, which is 60% of my 25k goal. Today and tomorrow are dedicated to writing, with Wednesday as a safety net. I plan to be done by Thanksgiving. It is a marvelous feeling to finish a book like that. To set a momentous goal and achieve it is a sensation that you carry with you. I love seeing it in my students. I love feeling it in me.

Now, on to random-doesn't-actually-matter-just-thoughts-about-me-out-of-my-head stuff. This morning, I spent nearly an hour in Barnes & Noble waiting for the Jewelry store next door to open. I don't usually have the time to just "hang out" in B&N, or any other bookstore, much to my chagrin. Got to tell you, I love it. I imagine finding my name on the shelf. I run my fingers tenderly across the leather spines. (Have you SEEN the new B&N Leatherbound Classics editions? Bibliogasm.) I touch the covers of treasured stories from my past, or of world-changing classics and there's an electric charge that runs through me, connecting me with Captain Ahab, Robert Louis Stevenson, Dorian Gray, Shakespeare, Scheherazade, or HG Wells. It's a world that I love being a part of. The power and joy of the written word, the very feel and pleasure of holding a good book.

I do enjoy having digital books, and I use Shaker (my iPod) to read on, but shopping in iTunes and downloading a pdf just doesn't have that same experience. You can laugh. Apple and the Nook people certainly want you to, and make fun of that sentiment in their commercials, but the reality is it is true. I am not lighting torches and waving pitchforks over the coming of digital publishing; I think it's awesome. Neither, however, am I using my old paperbacks for toilet paper. They can, and will, coexist. And I will indulge in both.

Now it's time for me to get my name on one of them.

Day late and a few words short

This post is going up a day late because, well, life is just like that.

I had 3366 words at the end of last week, and I was excited about the forward progress. Then the weekend came and I had time to really sit down and talk through the project. I realized that i had made a mistake in my planning. Fixing it meant that I had to toss about 300 words of the labyrinth I had begun. (I saved it for later.) 300 words isn't much, but that meant my word count was going backwards! Plus, I no longer had that planned labyrinth. I had to come up with something new. It was just a setback, not an ending, and I am pushing forward and will be successful.

My students, on the other hand... nearly knocked me over with their word counts! They each have a goal of 2,000 words. Most of them came back after the first week with quite respectable word counts. Some, however, really surprised me. I have two that were within 200 words of 2k, and several that passed the 50% mark! This may not be high word counts for the WriMos that are used to thousands a day, but for a class of Middle School students that may not have chosen the class and had no idea it included a project like this, these are great numbers. The best part is that when I asked if they were almost done with the story itself, I got answers like "No way, I'm still early in the Rising Action." and "I just hit the Inciting Incident!"

Wonderful Time of Year

I won't say it's the "most wonderful time of the year," but for me it comes pretty close. I get Halloween, when I can wear costumes without people laughing and pointing (except in a good way), and then stepping on the heels of it starts NaNoWriMo! It's non-stop fun! (Yes, that's me painting my daughter's eyes black for her batgirl mask.)

Like last year, my classes are participating in NaNoWriMo, and I'll be giving updates on them throughout the month. This time, I only have two classes of creative writing students, so they are going to target one total anthology.

This past summer, my family published the game manual for a table-top rpg that they've been designing and playing for about two decades called Elven Fire. (This is still on topic, trust me.) Labyrinths for the game, however, are always in constant demand. I've been writing labyrinths for the past year, both for family games, and for my school's after school program. So I decided to use NaNoWriMo to write a set of labyrinths that I can then put out there for other people to use. The creator of the game is also using NaNoWriMo to write a book of labyrinths, so mine will be targeted for the GM-in-training (Game Master), so to speak.

tLike most things, This is more complicated than it sounds. I have to figure out what information inexperienced GMs need, and how to divide the complexities of the game between GM levels. Well, much like governments sometimes, I will drive ahead determinedly, despite being dreadfully uncertain of exactly where I am going!

If you are interested in getting a copy of the manual (labyrinths coming soon!), You can get it from CreateSpace or Amazon.com Check out the game's history and such at www.elven-fire.com.

Winners!

We've got NaNoWriMo Winners!! (Yeah, I'm not one of them!)

First period (once adjusted for students that left during the month), won with 49,756 words. 8th period hit just over their goal, coming in at 62,514 words. 6th period took the collaborative cake with 69,168 words. The top writer in the creative writing classes was Gilbert with over 6,000 words of short story.

The afterschool program had a lower success rate, but I'm still very proud of not only the winners, but the ones who accepted the challenge and threw themselves at the wall. Two hit their word counts of 12,000 and won. (One had me scared, but slid into home plate literally in the eleventh hour.) I am especially proud of the student we call Poizon Ivy. Her goal was 15,000. She just barely succeeded last year, struggling for those last few words, but never got the complete manuscript typed up to be published. This year, she not only hit her goal of 15k, she DOUBLED it! Her final count? 31,426 words. (She complained that she ran out of time and had to cut the ending short.) This year, I intend to see this girl's name in print!

I hit the collaborative goals for my classroom stories, but fell short of the final for my after school piece, Slave Princess. Thursday afternoon is coke and cookies for all my writers to help celebrate their struggle and accomplishments.

Maybe now, after a short break, I can finish the short story and return to work on my Work-In-Progress, Hero Games. Watch for the Nanite Chaser stories to show up soon on the Frontpage of DavidJace.com. The other short story was taken from the world of On Common Ground. You can read an excerpt of that by clicking on the title link there.

Completions

I have more to write about than is appropriate for this blog. Thus, trying to focus on the writing-oriented topics is tough.

First, let's talk about my students, which have been a focus this month. I'm so very proud of them. (Yeah, I've said this, but they keep giving me more to be proud of!)



6th period, holding steady in second place most of the month, surged forward and not only passed 8th period by percentage and word count, but hit their own goal last Tuesday! (Round of Woot for 6th period!) Then, since that wasn't good enough, they kept writing and passed 8th period's goal, too! They currently have 64,020; their goal was set at 58k.

8th period made a good effort, but weren't able to meet the class goal this week; they are 58.8k out of 62k. Not much left, and I think they'll hit it. Many of them are already done, so most of the strongest writers are no longer adding to the collective word count.

1st period isn't done either, but wow did they put up a fight this last week! They were further behind than anyone, and needing about 14,000 words on Friday to even catch up. They didn't make it, but in that 90 minutes of class time on Friday, they churned out over 10,000 words! They now stand at 49,272 words. A mere 2,728 words from their class goal! I was amazed that they brought that much gain in only one class period!

They don't have class at all this week, being off for Thanksgiving break, but I sure hope they write like I encouraged them to. The game is over next week with only one class each.

Now, as for my own contributions and efforts for NaNoWriMo: I have completed two out of the three class anthology pieces. I'm working on the third class piece now, and then to tackle the afterschool one, which is significantly bigger than the three for class.


Susan's Book Club, which is for the Nanite Chaser series, is complete at 4,297 words. There's a little of the tech fun for those that really enjoy that aspect, but mostly, this one is for the romance and plot fanatics! It's too short to spill any beans, but let's just say Susan plays a much bigger role in this one than usual. Watch for this, and other, Nanite Chaser stories on DavidJace.com

The other Nanite story, Shocking Rescue, currently has 1,308 words, but at least I can tell you a little more about that one! Derek gets an assignment to rescue workers from a major fire: in a power plant! So, let's see, in one big building, we have technicians to rescue, lots of fire, lots of water, and lots of electricity. Derek and the nanites are in for quite the challenge this time!

The last class story is from the world of On Common Ground. This one I hesitate to tell too much about, because it takes place after On Common Ground so has some spoilers built in. However, I will tell you that there's a big fight in a demon trial and the pretty little angel in the picture there was in it! (Notice the wing.) [Image by Boris Vallejo]

The last project for NaNoWriMo is Slave Princess. This one is a new piece, and most likely a stand alone story. The general idea? Kingdom is attacked by goblins. Royal Family is murdered, except for the young children, who are rescued by a knight and caretaker. Unfortunately, little Princess Gemma is captured by the goblins, her knight brought down before her eyes. She becomes a slave in the goblin camp, and grows up in that camp. Her brother may or may not have made it out alive.

After many years, a prisoner is brought in to the goblin camp that recognizes the slave girl. So begins the adventure.

From Whiners to Writers

Is it bad when your "slothful" students are kicking your literary butt?

Friday night was the first Write-In for our school. We advertised it as "YWP Hosts DFW NaNoWriMos." As far as I know, it is the first time in the history of the Young Writers Program that the two groups have mingled. I count it as a success, though I was a little disappointed by the grown-up attendance. (I think the weather threats kept many away.) Our wonderful DFW Municipal Liason was in attendance, however, and was kind enough to bring goody bags for all of my kids (nearly 20 sacrificed their Friday Night for writing, fun, food, and extra credit). The biggest hit of the goody bags were the little googly-eyed "fuzzies". One of my students bartered and begged and acquired a small army of fuzzies with which she will no doubt take over the world.

We had a couple of word wars, and lots of fun and laughter. Overheard throughout the night, however, were conversations like this:

"How many words do you have so far?"
"Two thousand, but I'm still only in the Rising Action!"

I am so proud of these kids. So many of them, only six weeks ago, tried everything they could do to escape the writing class they had been shoved into and hated to write. Now they groan in defeat when their class count is only 39-thousand words and they missed beating the other class by 1.5 percent! Hearing 7th and 8th graders use words like Rising Action, Protagonist, Conflict, and Subplot in casual conversation just warms my heart.


Not every NaNoNovel is a success story, unfortunately. I do have some that are not only behind, but not gaining much ground. Curiously, it isn't that they don't care, they just don't care enough to put in the extra effort, I guess. One girl lied when charting word counts. She claimed to have 200 words, but only had 190. I called her on it, and she pounded the desk. "I want that little green bar!"

Now if only I can catch up to some of my little super-stars! For those following my work, I'm writing 4 total stories: two Nanite Chasers, a supplemental scene based in the world of On Common Ground, and a new short story called Slave Princess. In the Nanite stories, Derek has once again met up with Taryn, but only briefly before off to "serve and protect." Let's hope he hasn't bitten off more than he (and the nanites) can chew! In the other story, we're getting to see a whole new side of Susan. Those watching and guessing on that story arc are going to LOVE it! The Common Ground bonus story centers on Rayne. I don't want to spill many beans on that, but let's just say he hasn't gotten any less arrogant, but has become a much bigger danger! Slave Princess has only penned the exposition thus far, but little Gemma knows how to make quite the entrance! If I don't miss my bet, she'll grab your heart and squeeze out a tear before you've even hit the real story!

Full Pages!

Wow, I am so impressed with my students. They have really rocked the house and brought it to the game this first week of NaNoWriMo. To recap in case you didn't read the last couple of weeks' blog posts: I have three Creative Writing classes of 25-30 inner city 7th-graders. The class happened at the last minute, so none of them got to choose to be in there, they were just put in there because they needed electives. I am doing NaNoWriMo with all three classes, each class creating a themed anthology of stories equal to 2,000 words for every student. (I am also writing a 2k story for each class to help encourage them and be a part of it.) I'm also running the afterschool NaNoWriMo, whose kids are writing 10-15 thousand words each, and is voluntary particpation.

Well, alot of the kids in these classes don't want to be in the class, but this week, you'd never have known it.

My 1st period class, which met twice this week (Tues & Thurs), is writing a work titled "Won't Back Down" along the theme of "Evil vs Good." They logged 15,602 words this week.

My 6th period class got to meet three times, (Mon, Wed, & Fri) and their theme is "Never betray a friend." They are calling their novel BFNFL: Best Friend NOT For Life. This class turned out an amazing 27,239 words this week!

Finally, my 8th period class, which also met three times, chose "Don't pick a fight you can't win" as their theme and "Fighting with Demons" as their title. These students brought 28,427 words to the table this week! Outstanding!

I am so proud of all of them! Some on Friday had even hit their goal of 2,000 words! We gave them a big round of applause. Then I asked each of them one question: Are you done yet? *grin* Nope! They've still got pages of story to write!

In comparison, these are the same classes wherein earlier this year I asked them to write 500 words and they acted as though I had shot them and took two weeks to get it turned in. Now, they churn out 500 words in a class period without blinking twice, and go home promising to double their word count. I can't wait for Monday.


My afterschooler NaNoWriMos have also been hard at work, but many of them didn't get their word counts updated this week, so I don't have a total count for them. There are about 25 of them, though, and several have logged over 2-3 thousand words each.

This coming Friday night, November 12th is going to be really exciting, though. My students will be hosting a Write-In for the adult NaNoWriMo program here in Dallas-Ft. Worth. If you are in the area and doing NaNoWriMo, you're invited! If you haven't seen the information out there yet, send me a message and I'll get you what you need to know. There's going to be games, prizes, food, and drink. Hope to see you there!

Blank Pages

It's here, that magical time of year that fills so many with such joy, and such dread. Yes, I'm talking about NaNoWriMo. One of my students last Friday told me she was scared of Midnight Sunday night, when NaNoWriMo starts. She's going to love it.

Well, in my last post (which was much too long ago; I'm falling down on the job), I talked about how my classroom students are writing anthologies to be part of NaNoWriMo. We discussed and voted and here are the results:

• 1st period is writing about "Evil vs Good" and are calling their anthology Won't Back Down.
  
• 6th period's theme is "Never betray a friend" and they are calling their anthology BFNFL (Best Friends NOT for Life).
  
• 8th period chose "Don't pick a fight you can't win" and is calling their anthology Fighting with Demons.
  

I'm so excited to see what all they come up with. They've shown some real promise and growth all the way around. This 2,000-word assignment/challenge for NaNoWriMo will be their longest work yet (for most of them).

As for myself, yes, I am contributing to each of their anthologies and writing with my afterschool WriMos. For the afterschool bunch, I committed to 12,000 words. That puts my total word count for NaNoWriMo this year at 18,000. It's a great defense against student complaints about writing a mere 2k. My 12k work will be called Slave Princess and is an idea sprung from chatting with a Facebook friend. Bit of a fairytale style story, but it should be fun. As for what I will be writing for the anthologies, I'm not sure yet! I've been so busy getting them prepared and ready I forgot to prewrite my own! So, I need to come up with short story ideas for each of the above classes. I am planning to borrow some characters from the world of On Common Ground for one of them, but that could fit in two out of the three.

So, I need to figure out what to write for the other two. Any suggestions?

NaNoWriMo in site, er, sight!

Friday was October 1st, which is the day that NaNoWriMo unleashes the reigns for this each year's event. While I do exist on the grown up NaNoWriMo.org site, I mostly operate on the Young Writers' Program site, because I lead middle school participants in the program.

Well, this year, the staff at the Office of Letters and Light really outdid themselves on the YWP this year! They've created a Virtual Classroom area to help Educators stay organized and in touch with their students. It's wonderful! I'm so very excited. Tomorrow is when most of my WriMos will see it for the first time, when we meet after school.

The afterschool WriMos aren't the only ones that will be writing this year, though. My three Creative Writing classes will also be participating, making class anthologies of themed stories, about 2,000 words per student. I told my afterschool wrimos that I wouldn't be writing a full story this year, but would be writing as part of the class anthologies. I'm rethinking that idea, though, and considering setting a low target, like 12k, and writing one of the concepts that is swimming around my bowl of ideas, waiting to be written.

Regardless of what ends up happening, I am excited about this year's event. In fact, I'm in the beginning of organizing a NaNoWriMo Night at our school. Student writers writing right alongside the adults, and other students (for extra credit) serving drinks and maybe a bake sale. How inspiring! (I hope.)

NaNoWriMo 1 Failure; 7 Successes

NaNoWriMo is over and I failed miserably. Sort of. My students, I am proud to say, succeeded! I had 7 winners, with a cumulative word count around 100,000!! Incredible! I am so proud of them!

I managed over 10,000 words myself, and really like the character, the world, and the story. So, worry not, it will be continued. As well as Hero Games, which I started in the summer and still need to finish.

For now, Merry Christmas, readers!

Yellow Light-Red Light-Green Light!

So, in my last post at the end of the summer, I talked about how life had rather thrown me a yellow light and my writing had slowed considerably. Well, then I started my new job teaching English to 8th graders and that pretty much threw down the red light on my writing... and reading... and pretty much anything that wasn't planning, grading, or sleeping!

Well, NaNoWriMo is here!! I've been able to offer this opportunity to the students at school and I have 13 middle school students competing in the Young Writers' Program of NaNoWriMo, plus me! So, I'm writing, but it isn't Hero Games, since I started that previously.

I'm currently working on a new sci fi called Thassodar Jax: Terra Ranger. It is about an alien living on Earth as a representative of the galactic government, protecting the still undeveloped species on this planet. He's like a forest ranger for the whole planet. Everything's going fine. He's dealing with standard tourists who must visit incognito and with heavily restricted import/export agencies. Then he starts noticing a suspicious trend of missing elderly. Elderly citizens of a protected species are NOT approved for exporting!

It's just rather sad that some of my students are leaving my word count in the dust! My only defense is that they don't have papers to grade!