I’ve been in a creative mood for quite some time. More than in any other time in my life, I have been spending a good chunk of my free time (as little as that is) on creative endeavors. Most of this creative energy is a result of RPGs and gaming. At least, RPGs have been a catalyst for much of this.
Pen and paper RPGs are necessarily creative. As a player, you bring a character life – giving it a name, a personality, a back story. You are also imagining the events of the game – the flow of a battle, the atmosphere of a tavern. As a Dungeon Master, you are doing all that as well as crafting a story and building a world. In case of my gaming group, there is also a ridiculous (disturbing?) amount creativity put into dick jokes. All this creative activity is bound to spill out of the realm of playing RPGs.
It certainly has for me. For starters, I created this blog which is absolutely a direct result of playing games. My enthusiasm for gaming drove me to express myself. I’ve written almost 30 posts (not so much lately unfortunately) including stories about the characters I’ve played in the regular Swords & Wizardry game I play in. My last post was one such story. This is something I never would have thought I’d do before getting into this stuff. I’ve always felt character stories were silly, a little self-serving, and bit too much like writing fan fic. But, I had fun with it, so I’ve got learn not to judge until I’ve tried it myself. I started painting minis after going to a workshop at Rincon. I’ve found the hobby to be extraordinarily relaxing and creatively rewarding for me.
Finally, my big creative project, the one that has been most rewarding for me, is a short story. It’s not related to gaming, but it came about because of gaming. Really, it came about because of the people I game with. I’m fortunate to game with a group of very creative people. Our DM, Paul Fini, runs his own RPG blog, The Warlock’s Home Brew, publishes game modules and aids, is an accomplished artist, and has published several comics through Indie Only Comics. Many of the other players are artists and have blogs themselves. Check out: Gedleesmote’s Grumblings, Rambles of a Lost Viking, Never Crit, Rebirth of Classic Comic Art!, and Boom Culture. Being around all these creative folks is inspiring.
That last blog, Boom Culture, is put out by Max. He is a researcher studying video games and distance learning in education (I know. How cool is that?). He wrote a short story last summer and sent it out to the group. I thought it was great and felt maybe I should try writing something. I haven’t written fiction in a while. I always had ideas, but never the follow through. Around the same time, several of the guys came up with an idea to put out a pulp magazine called Tales of High Adventure in the style of the old pulp magazines of the ’30s and ’40s like Weird Tales and Amazing Stories. The first issue just came out. Check out Indie Only Comics for details.
This set things in motion for me. I had the inspiration and creative energy. I had a goal to shoot for: write a story that could by published in this new pulp magazine. Also, I had a style, the pulp adventure style, that I found very easy to come with ideas and fun to write. So, I set out to write a story. I decided on a pulp sci-fi story in the vein of Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers with some influences from Doctor Who and Alan Moore’s Tom Strong. Honestly, when I started, I didn’t think it’d be good enough to actually get published. It was just a goal to shoot for and motivation to actually finish. It took me months to write it, but I finally finished the first draft of Doctor Galactic at the Edge of the Universe in “The Creeping Invaders”. I had a hell of a lot of fun writing it. I submitted it and they liked it. After some great editing work (thanks Paul!), the second draft should be close to being ready to be included the second issue of Tales of High Adventure. Exciting stuff. Once it gets close to coming out, I’ll post a preview of the story here.
To add further to all this creative energy, my good friend has started a web comic. Check out Detective Agency. He’s off to great start, so check it out.
That’s all for now. Hopefully, I’ll be able to post more often. If only I had more time to devote to my creative projects . . .
My friends and I started a podcast! After much hard work and planning we launched our first episode Thursday. Creative Commoners is about the creative process and creative pursuits while balancing busy work and home lives. It’s part creative round table, part creative support group for ourselves (and hopefully soon, the audience). There is plenty of talk about pop culture, games (including tabletop games), movies, and other silliness, too. I hope you can check it out.
