My New Blog

I have started a new blog to cover my adventure into fiction  writing.

spencerhartwriting.wordpress.com

Feel free to join me over there.

Time For A New Adventure?

This is not the post I had originally thought of for post #150 of this blog.

Every so often in life, a person realizes that they are just going through the motions on something.

So it is with this blog.

I have not played an RPG session in over 2 years, and in fact maybe a dozen times total since I started this blog.

My schedule just does not allow me to get together with anybody.

So I think it is time to put this blog on indefinite hiatus while I consider another outlet for my imagination – fiction writing.

Over 20 years ago, I wrote a few pretty bad science fiction stories when I was in college.

Characters nobody could understand or care about. Boring dialogue.

I just didn’t have either the life experience or the knowledge of the craft of writing to pull off the trick of getting the stories in my head into a form that others would care about reading.

Well, a few weeks ago I read Damon Knight’s “Creating Short Fiction.” I had bought a few writing books over recent years, but put them aside for “maybe later in life.”

I got to page 18 or so and found myself searching through boxes of old notebooks for anything that was left of my 20 year-old writing attempts.

I found some notes and outlines and scene drafts.

So I’m investing some time in reading some of those books about the craft of writing, and maybe just maybe I can go back to those old ideas for plots and make them work someday.

Just like RPGs were when I started this blog, writing fiction was something I had left behind years ago, until one day I just felt I had to give it another go.

I still feel I have things to communicate, but this blog is not the right platform at this point in my life.

I’ll leave this blog up for anybody who may stumble across it and maybe find some bit of something useful or inspirational for their gaming.

Maybe I’ll be back to the blog-o-sphere someday, but probably at a new blog.

Until then, I’d like to thank all the folks I have communicated with on RPG blogs and forums over the last few years for putting up with my ramblings.

Revisiting the Lost Worlds of ERB

Since the last post over a month ago, I have been reading and re-watching stuff to inspire my “Island in the Hidden Sea of Fire” project.

The Land That Time Forgot and At The Earth’s Core

I consider “The Land That Time Forgot” and “At The Earth’s Core” by Edgar Rice Burroughs as the essential foundation for any sort of “Lost World” setting.

I think you can’t go wrong with ERB as inspirational materials for any sort of “adventure setting.”

Next time, Post #150, in which I hope to have something more substantial to say.

Old School Summer Reading

Here is a picture of the older SF & Fantasy books I have acquired in the last couple of months to add to my collection.

Now that I am done with school & clinicals, this should give me something to do while I search for first job in new career.

Old School SF & Fantasy Books

Maybe 20 years ago I did read Hal Clement’s “Mission of Gravity” borrowed from the library, and I did read Poul Anderson’s “Vault of the Ages” as soon as I got my hands on it a couple weeks ago.

Other than those I have not previously read any of these, despite amassing I’d guesstimate 400+ SF and fantasy books over the last 30 years.

May 2015 Update

In the last month I have been very busy doing clinical hours and studying for certification test. Only a couple more weeks to go!

I did update the Big Page O’RPG Blog Links to over 100 links.

I also followed up April’s “Post-Apoc Movie Week” by reading some 1980’s post-apoc fiction: Paul O, Williams’ “The Ends of the Circle” which is Book 2 of “The Pelbar Cycle.” Had read Book 1 “The Storming of Northwall” a few months earlier. This is a very interesting series with a lot of details of various cultures large and small that exist in its future world.

Then I read the first 3 books of Patrick Tilley’s “Amtrak Wars” series: “Cloud Warrior” (which I had never read before), “The First Family” and “Iron Master” (the latter two I have had since about 1990 or so, just never had the first book until now). This is not on the same level as The Pelbar Cycle by any means, but it too depicts several competing cultures in the post-apoc future, with a lot more emphasis on intrigues and some sort of “magic” (which may very well turn out to be some kind of psionic abilities in later books).

Have also gotten quite a number of old SF / fantasy books for future reading. I already have a collection ranging into several hundred books, but there were some things I was not able to get back in the day due to lack of money as a teenager, and by the time I had some money all my local bookstores kept going out of business (not to mention publishers gradually abandoning the idea of an keeping the backlist in print).

In a few weeks I will be done with schooling and then it’s on to the job search. Hopefully at some point after that I might actually get a chance to participate in some actual gaming!