The Relaunch

Hello there,

My name is Anthony and this is my blog. Technically this is my second blog. My first blog, Reality Refracted, was started in 2010 and is dedicated to Table Top RPGs, primarily in the form of GMing advice. It's been going strong since then, and I like it, and as table top RPGs are a big part of my life I intend to keep it. However, Reality Refracted is very narrow in it's focus and so I wanted some place else to talk.

About what? Well, about other things that interest me. Music, movies, games, things I am doing research on, life, etc. I want a place to share flash fiction challenges when I do the ones that Chuck Wendig posts on Terribleminds every Friday. Effectively, I want a place to engage with people about things that are not table top RPGs.

So why the relaunch? Two reasons. My recent posts had been more about writing and had mostly been done at times when I was feeling slowed or bogged down and thus didn't reflect what was going on as accurately as I would hope to. Secondly, I want the fresh start to try and make this blog something more than what it had become and a clean break seemed the best way to do that.

Going forward you can expect posts about popular culture and some posts about research I am doing. Hopefully it will be engaging enough for folks to stick around. If not, then thank you for whatever time we've had together.

~Anthony

Award Winning Opening Line ;)

If you head over to Terrible Minds today you'll see that Mr. Wendig posted the winners of the recent opening line contest. You may also notice that I was one of three winners. So, woohoo to that. Now, this post isn't to brag, but I wanted to discuss the line a bit because for me it is kind of loaded.

For those that didn't check, the line I used was:

I'd won a kingdom through iron and blood, but I had no idea what to do with it.

It's a fun line. It is also the beginning premise to a story I've tried to write like five different times and failed each time until I finally admitted I wasn't good enough for the story just yet. It's kind of an excuse, but it could be true. I do, after all, have wild ambitions for the story. The question is how to portray it?

The idea for the story is simple enough. It's basically the "what happens next?" after the classic story of a person recovering their family's land from the people that took it over. The break down then being that you have this young noble who has spent their life learning to steal, fight, and survive suddenly in charge of a kingdom. Their problems are no longer the "shove a sword through it" kind but more the negotiations and compromises that have to be reached in order to run a country. Stuff that makes them balk and gall are common place. Why do you have to make concessions to feed orphans? Because the person with the food won't give it to you without them. Just kill him? Great, now you're in a war, and did we mention they have all the food?

There are also other problems as well. The old friends that helped the person succeed, other nobles, other kingdoms, old debts, the list goes on and on. Perhaps too far. Perhaps too ambitious? But it is something I want to write.

I've abandoned dozens of stories over the past few years. I regret each and every one of them, but this one has never left me. It's refused to be cleared from the stove. It is always just there, on the back burner, waiting to come back out.

Maybe it's time to try it again? Of course, I'd need to finish my current WIP first.