Wednesday, January 28, 2015

See Brian Write--Episode #25: Roxie Prince and Co-Op Critics

In the twenty-fifth episode of See Brian Write, writer/artist Roxie Prince helps me kick off our NaNoWriMo-themed season. We talk about her experience with NaNoWriMo, as well as her books (Compendium, The Way We Go) and the projects she's currently working on.

You can listen to the entire episode right here in the player below, or head over to soundcloud.com/seebrianwrite to download the MP3. You can also subscribe to the podcast with these feeds:

RSS: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/44741447-seebrianwrite/tracks

iTunes: itpc://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/44741447-seebrianwrite/tracks



Intro
Dark Carnival hits #1 on Amazon
Get Dark Carnival on Amazon
Get Dark Carnival on Smashwords
Pen & Muse blog: penandmuse.com
Mo Stache webcomic: www.mostachecomic.com

Interview
Roxie Prince
www.roxieprince.com
twitter.com/roxieprince

Compendium
http://www.amazon.com/COMPENDIUM-Horror-Novelette-Roxie-Prince-ebook/dp/B00DYENMR2

The Way We Go
http://www.amazon.com/Way-We-Go-Roxie-Prince-ebook/dp/B00N3GZ9FE

NaNoWriMo
www.nanowrimo.org
twitter.com/search?q=%23NaNoWriMo&src=tyah

Co-Op Critics
www.co-opcritics.com
twitch.tv/coopcritics

NOTE: If you are a writer and want to be on the podcast, either email me (brian@seebrianwrite.com), or DM me on twitter: twitter.com/seebrianwrite. I am now scheduling new interviews!

Thursday, January 22, 2015

The See Brian Write Podcast Returns Next Week!

I'm happy to announce that Season 3 of the See Brian Write podcast will be kicking off next week, and my guest will be Roxie Prince!

As I mentioned before, this season of SBW will be focused on NaNoWriMo, and all of my guests will have participated in NaNoWriMo at some point.

I am still scheduling interviews for this season, so if you want to be on the show, let me know on Twitter (twitter.com/seebrianwrite) or email me at brian@seebrianwrite.com.

I also want to let everyone know that I've arranged all the past episodes into a playlist on SoundCloud, so it's now easier to find the podcast and listen to all the episodes.

Thanks for supporting the show!

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Hey, Gamers--Check Out Co-Op Critics!


If you know me mostly from my fiction writing and the See Brian Write podcast, you might not know that I am a lifelong gamer and I've been writing about games for years now. From 2008-2010 I was a contributing writer for Comic Book Resources, heading up their coverage of video games while I was with them (you can find a list of my CBR stuff here).

After I left CBR to focus on my fiction, I still had the bug to write about and discuss games whenever I could. So, I started the Co-Op Critics blog and podcast back in 2011.

Together they were an outlet for me to talk and write about games with some of my gaming pals. For the podcast specifically, the goal was to take one game or series each episode and have at least two people share their experiences with it. In the early days of Co-Op critics, my most frequent podcast partner was Dan Evans, but over the ensuing years Kim Wong contributed to the blog, and Dave Fetterman, Jeff Rodgers, Erik Haltson and more joined me on the podcast for different episodes.

Since 2011, the Co-Op Critics blog has featured some great gaming discussion, touching on all kinds of games, from RPGs like Mass Effect and Dark Souls to shooters like Halo and Call of Duty, to everything in between.

But, the podcast has not been as regular as I would have liked, and I've been wanting to do more with gameplay videos and streaming for some time now.

SO, Co-Op Critics is going through a bit of an evolution right now. In the coming weeks the blog will be getting a bit of a facelift, and much more frequent content updates. in addition multiple blog posts per week, you'll find gameplay videos that will include quick looks as well as longer playthroughs and commentary. And pulling that content together will be monthly episodes of the Co-Op Critics podcast. The opening segment of the show will highlight what's been going on over on the blog, and the main episode will continue to focus on one game or series, providing an in-depth discussion of the game or games from multiple points of view. My friend and fellow gamer Nick Merritt is a name you'll be seeing a lot of on the blog and podcast, and Jeff Rodgers will be a consistent voice on the podcast. I expect some of the previous contributors to be coming back to visit as well.

I'll still be adding content to the blog, our YouTube page and the Co-Op Critics Twitch channel as the blog evolves, and you'll see us adding pieces as we go along. I will also be posting updates here.

Stay tuned, and in the meantime, you can find Co-Op Critics in all of these fine places:

Blog: www.co-opcritics.com
Twitter: twitter.com/CoOpCritics
YouTube: youtube.com/c/Co-opcritics
Twitch: twitch.tv/coopcritics
Google +: google.com/+Co-opcritics

You can also check out all of the old podcast episodes on the blog itself, or on the archive page.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

DARK CARNIVAL Hits #1 on Amazon!!!!


What a great way to start the new year!

I just found out today that Dark Carnival: An Anthology of Horror is sitting at number one in the horror anthology section of Amazon.

NUMBER ONE.

The coolest thing about this is that it started as project over on the Pen & Muse blog--an event where a bunch of writers and artists created original short horror stories and artwork around the idea of a twisted carnival. My short story was called "Exposure," and centered around an old photo booth.

The stories went up throughout the month of October back in 2013. The response from readers was extremely positive, and Jolene Haley and the crew at Pen & Muse worked with the creators to collect the stories in an anthology. And when I say worked, I mean worked. Jolene put a ton of work into getting this thing together.


Right now, you can get the Dark Carnival anthology for $0.99 on Amazon. You can also get it for absolutely nothing in ePub format over on Smashwords. At some point, it will become free on Amazon as well (they have been slow to price match with Smashwords despite Jolene's efforts). But I can tell you that it is worth so much more than a dollar, and I can also tell you that the money made from the book will be going to charity anyway. We just want people to read this very cool collection of horror stories.

Once again, thanks to Jolene and all the other creators. I am super proud to have been a part of this project, and seeing it sitting in the top spot is pretty darn awesome.

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

The Crawl to the Finish Line and Staying Loose Creatively

I don't know about you, but for me one of the most frustrating aspects of the creative process is that time between finishing the final draft of a book and actually getting it released. From edits to cover design and everything in between, that period can be excruciatingly slow. Sometimes those things are under your control, and sometimes they aren't.

And if you're not careful, you can get caught in a sort of limbo during that time, where you're not writing or creating as much, because that big thing you worked on for so long is "almost done" or "coming out really soon."

For me, it's really important to keep moving creatively during this period. I've got my podcasts (Secret Identity, See Brian Write) and my webcomic (Mo Stache), all of which are ongoing projects. In addition to this blog, I also write on Secret Identity and on my gaming blog, Co-Op Critics. And I do some copywriting for my pals over at Kitbash whenever they need me. So, lots of things to keep the creative juices flowing. But those are kind of always there, and even though I'm keeping up with that stuff, that "limbo" feeling still creeps in.

So it's important for me to keep pushing myself creatively, to keep the momentum of my bigger projects going. This week I wrote up a comic pitch I'd been kicking around as an idea, and I began outlining a non-fiction book that I might make my Camp NaNoWriMo project in April. I'm also getting ready to dive into edits on the next book in the Parted Veil series, Lovecraft's Trial.

I write these blogs as much for me as I do for anyone that might end up reading them, and sometimes I have to remind myself that I am actually creating, even though I may not have something to show for it right now.

Does anyone else fall into that pre-release limbo? I'd be interested to hear how you handle it. It's a topic I plan on discussing with my fellow Wrimos on the upcoming season of the See Brian Write podcast.

Monday, January 5, 2015

Attention Fellow Wrimos: Now Scheduling Interviews for Season 3 of the See Brian Write Podcast!

Happy New Year, everybody!

If you've listened to the last few episodes of the See Brian Write podcast, then you know that the upcoming season will be NaNoWriMo-themed. My plan for this season is for all of my guests to be past NaNoWriMo participants. We'll be talking about our personal experiences with NaNoWriMo and what became of our NaNo projects, as well as the usual topics like the writing process, tools, tips and creative inspiration.

So, if you've participated in NaNoWriMo and you're interested in being a guest on the podcast, drop me a line! You can email me a brian@seebrianwrite.com, or just send me a message on Twitter at twitter.com/seebrianwrite. I record via Skype, so ideally you'll have a Skype account, but I can also call you on a land line if need be (cell phones are . I usually plan for an hour with guests, and we end up recording for about 30-45 minutes on average.

I'm scheduling interviews now, and I hope to have the first episode of Season 3 out by the end of the month. Stay tuned! And catch up on all of the past two seasons at soundcloud.com/seebrianwrite.