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A "bag of holding" is a magical purse or sack that contains more on the inside than it would appear to from its size. (Yes, SF fans, it's like a TARDIS.) A "Bundle of Holding" then is a collection of books that contains more than it would appear to -- or more, perhaps, than you would expect to find for what you've paid.
1. Tell us about your gaming work.
I started out as an 8-year-old kid sketching bizarre and unfortunate
D&D modules on a gigantic roll of graph paper. I was certain that no
sooner would TSR see these works than I would receive the full and
incompletely-conceptualized riches of a major game designer. Sadly
they were unable to publish this early work, as I did not know the
actual process, at age 8, for actually submitting work for
consideration.
They never even sent a scout to my elementary school!
Fast forward to 1999.
By then I'd fallen in with a reclusive cabal of game designers bent on
. . . I'm not quite sure. Possibly some sort of world domination?
There someone explained to me that it is not enough to simply write
ever-more-complete RPG stuff, wave it in the vague direction of
friends, and then move on to something else; one must also show it to
people with the power to publish stuff!
(This, incidentally, turns out to be wrong.
The actual secret is to always be writing RPG stuff, and to _know_
people who publish stuff. At that point they will pick up enthusiasm
about your project by osmosis. If you try to pitch your product to
them directly you will probably fail because they are too busy
publishing RPGs to read stuff.
But I digress!)
I put together my first real RPG, Nobilis, published it through Plaid
Rabbit and later a much-revised and expanded version through Hogshead.
It did pretty well, which helped me get freelance work for White Wolf,
SJG, and later Eos Press.
People are still fond of Nobilis, which pleases me; I've just recently
come out with a third edition through Eos, complete with a very shiny
ePub edition. I also did some well-regarded work on Exalted (and some
controversial work, and some work that nobody noticed, and then there
are the parts I keep getting blamed for that happened before I'd even
seen the game . . . .) and the core rules and setting material for the
Eos game, "Weapons of the Gods."
(Minus a little bit of the setting that came from the Tony Wong comic
of the same name.)
I've spent most of the past two years putting together my next RPG,
"Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine" and its first two
supplements. (And in fact have just finished that and am going into
editing and art/layout planning now!)
2. How, if at all, does your game background influence your approach to fiction? How does it help or hinder narrative writing?
I think experience with gaming writing makes it harder to write
extremely long sections — I start feeling uncomfortable the more words
I go without a new header. A 10k word chapter doesn't feel right as a
single block of text!
Other than that, there isn't really a directional influence.
3. Do you have other books related to your Bundle of Holding book?
My bundled book is part of a larger transmedia project that also
includes the RPG that I'm currently working on. But it was also the
first release in that project, and the second isn't out yet.
4. Which other writers in the Bundle would you recommend to your readers?
looking forward to a free moment to read Playing for Keeps. ^_^
5. What are your current projects?
over on books.hitherby.com, with awesome illustrations by Tony
Damiani.
That's kind of current!
Also there's the RPG stuff I mentioned in question 1. How I am wishing
that I could turn back the clock and move that answer down to here!
But the moving finger writes and having writ moves on. That's my
inerrant philosophy at work!
6. Where can readers learn more?
Best wishes,
Jenna
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