What is the Pulp Aesthetic?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 3, 2016

Misha Burnett writes a bit about what, in his mind, represents the “Pulp Revival Aesthetic.” I’ve read a bit about this from various corners over the last year. In part, I was trying to educate myself a bit after hearing some of the bickering in SF literary circles. And the fun part was that in exploring it, […]

Filed Under: Short Fiction, Writing - Comments: 3 Comments to Read

Off to a Writers’ Conference

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 23, 2016

Today and tomorrow I’m off to the League of Utah Writers Fall Conference, down in Provo, Utah. I’m going purely as an attendee this time. There’ll be classes on the craft of writing (definitely stuff I’ll always be working on!), publishing, marketing, and business. And of course, hanging out with a lot of friends and […]

Filed Under: Writing - Comments: Comments are off for this article

Being a Part-Time Indie: Finding the Rhythm

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 7, 2016

One of the reasons I really enjoy the Day Job is that … for the most part… it doesn’t depend much on employee heroics or people working 50-60 hour workweeks to survive. Given my senior status here, I work hard to make sure that’s NOT the case. Usually. However, sometimes the craziness happens. That’s pretty […]

Filed Under: Game Development, Geek Life, Writing - Comments: Read the First Comment

Cirsova #4 – My name is on the cover!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 18, 2016

The cover art is not done, so it’s currently just a black cover, but there’s my name on the publisher’s print review copy for Cirsova #4. BOOYAH! There is is, right up there at the top of the right column. Not sure if it will stay there in the final version of the issue, but […]

Filed Under: Books, Short Fiction, Writing - Comments: 3 Comments to Read

Games vs. Stories, Revisited

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 21, 2016

I have often posited that you can have a great game, or a great story, but not both. Having spent some time improving (well, reducing the suck level of) my fiction-writing chops, I think I’m ready to offer a more informed opinion: You can have a great game, or a great story, but not both. […]

Filed Under: Design, Writing - Comments: 5 Comments to Read

Heinlein’s Rules and the Resubmission Blues

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 20, 2016

I understand that one of the key tricks to being successful as a writer (or, really, anything else in life) is perseverance. The first Harry Potter book was rejected a dozen times before it was finally accepted for publication. Which means that only one in thirteen editors that reviewed the manuscript thought it was good enough […]

Filed Under: Writing - Comments: Read the First Comment

The Pulp Legacy: Modern Pulp Fiction

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 1, 2016

My previous post was all about classic “pulp” fiction from the late 19th century up through the middle of the 20th century. But then… it died out. Maybe not as dead as disco, but that particular form faded into the background. The rise of easier, more accessible entertainment probably accounted for much of it. However, in […]

Filed Under: Books, Writing - Comments: Comments are off for this article

The Pulp Fiction Formula Presentation – Tomorrow!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on May 27, 2016

As previously posted, I’ll be at the Spring Into Books event at the Viridian Event Center tomorrow, Saturday May 28th. I’ll be signing books ‘n stuff. So if you happen to be anywhere around West Jordan, Utah… it’s a free event, and there’ll be lots of local authors and presentations on writing. Plus food trucks, […]

Filed Under: Books, Events, Writing - Comments: 2 Comments to Read

The Publishers Who Will Destroy Your Career

Posted by Rampant Coyote on May 24, 2016

A publisher can be awesome. Even as an “indie” – having someone else manage the crap you don’t want to may be absolutely worth it. Things are changing, and the role of a publisher is changing along with it. And in many cases, a publisher can really make a tremendous, positive difference in your sales […]

Filed Under: Biz, Game Development, Writing - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

Game Development: Try it, you might like it. Or it might consume your soul.

Posted by Rampant Coyote on May 6, 2016

James Wymore talked recently about the difference between those who want to write novels, and those who want to have written a novel. This resonated with me both as a writer and as a game developer. When interviewing people for positions for the game studio, there were people who I felt would do anything short […]

Filed Under: Game Development, Writing - Comments: Read the First Comment

Create Something New

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 5, 2016

Dave Farland, fantasy author, writes about “Dream Making.”  This hit home: “But several times in the past few weeks, I’ve heard people describe the basic ideas for their novels, and felt that the basic concept was so weak, that I had to wonder, “Why would you write that one?” In each case, I was talking […]

Filed Under: Design, Writing - Comments: 3 Comments to Read

The Triangle of Game Development Speed

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 1, 2016

Rachel Aaron – author, geek, and gamer – once figured out a way to drastically improve her writing speed, by a factor of 5, with some tweaks to her process. I’m always reading these kinds of things with an eye towards optimizing both of my passions — writing and game development — and I noted […]

Filed Under: Production, Writing - Comments: 3 Comments to Read

FanX 2016: The hangover. I mean, the debriefing.

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 28, 2016

I spent the weekend at the Salt Lake City Comic Con FanXperience (or FanX), and had a blast. I was exhausted, I sold books but not as many as I would like, bought way too much stuff (mainly books and T-shirts), and I only went to one major celebrity panel (Alex Kingston of E.R. and […]

Filed Under: Events, Writing - Comments: Comments are off for this article

Some Thoughts on the Craft of Writing

Posted by Rampant Coyote on February 16, 2016

Back in high school, I thought I was pretty good at writing. I have one surviving example from that era. I used it as reference for an article I wrote for The Escapist several years ago on my first LARP experience (before that was even a term). I winced a lot when I read my […]

Filed Under: Books, Writing - Comments: 5 Comments to Read

The Jedi are Mother, the Jedi are Father…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 4, 2016

We’re still in a spoiler-free zone here, as this has nothing to do with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, other than having helped inspire this musing. It was also inspired by our Thanksgiving family session of the D20 Star Wars RPG. I haven’t read many of the non-canonical “Expanded Universe” Star Wars books. So a […]

Filed Under: Design, Geek Life, Movies, Writing - Comments: 5 Comments to Read

The Four-Step Universal Indie Survival Guide

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 25, 2015

The first day of Salt Lake Comic Con 2015 is done. Thursdays are typically sparse, so if the wall-to-wall people and standing-room-only crowds for some of the panels this afternoon are any indication, Saturday is going to be absolutely crazy. The panels I attended (all three of them) were writing-specific. Naturally, the rooms were packed […]

Filed Under: Game Development, Writing - Comments: 2 Comments to Read



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