A Crazy Idea

Here's the thing: like most gamers I want to be a writer. Technically, I already am a writer and have been for years. Besides this blog, I've written quite a lot of gaming material. But that's not the same as being a writer, by which I mean a writer of fiction.

I've got a lot of ideas for short stories and, as any aficionado of swords-and-sorcery literature will tell you, short stories are the native form of the genre. The problem is that there aren't a lot of outlets for short stories anymore. There are a handful of magazines out there who are theoretically interested in swords-and-sorcery tales, but it's just a handful and many of them tend to have slush piles so tall that the odds of breaking into print are slim. On the book publishing side of the equation, fantasy generally means interminably long books that are part of an interminably long series that started out as trilogies and then just never ended. I have no interest in contributing to that literary miscarriage, even if I had stories I could somehow extend in perpetuity (which I don't).

What I do have, though, are some ideas for a series of short stories about a failed wizard's apprentice named Ya'govian of Volmar. What I think might make my stories interesting -- and dare I say unique in the annals of swords-and-sorcery -- is that Ya'govian is a family man, married to a respectable priestess and father to three children. Because of his wife's position, Ya'govian doesn't lack for much in the material sense, but, as he approaches middle age, he's growing bored of his cosseted lifestyle and looks back on his failed apprenticeship with increasing regret -- which is naturally how his adventures begin.

In any case, what I plan on doing is posting these stories here once I write them. I have a large enough readership that I ought to be able to gauge how much people like what I'm writing. If there's actual interest, which is to say, if my readers think my writing isn't terrible, I might then be able to collect these short stories together and do some kind of print on demand edition or even try and sell them to a "real" publisher. The point is I'll be using this blog as a testing ground for my fiction every now and again. It won't be often and the first installment might not come for a month or more, but I wanted to give everyone a heads up so they won't be surprised when Ya'govian of Volmar makes his appearance on this site in the future.