Okay. Long post. Two years ago when the pandemic hit, I started making something, mostly to distract myself from those early days of doomsaying and fear. So I turned to two tings I love – gaming and writing. I created and developed a sci-fi tabletop role-playing game that plucked story elements from classic pulp space opera’s and 50’s monster films that I loved as a kid. I came up with a story set 260 years in the future and had fun finding characters to populate that world. I’ve been play testing the game at virtual gaming cons and with friends for over a year. Then, because why not, I decided to write a series of novellas to create the universe around the game and introduce it to readers.

Which is all a quick set-up to say that I am self-publishing my first novella (ever!) on Kindle-Vella (Kindle’s repository of original novellas) next Monday, May 2nd.

RUNNING THE RIFT is the first in a series of novellas that will be released a “chapter at a time” in Kindle-Vella’s streaming approach. And then a couple of weeks later, by the end of May, the Starter Game for the rpg game will release as well. MONSTERS OF IO is a 5-player adventure set in the same universe as the novella, a universe and IP that I like to call, “Sentinels of Sol.” It’s space action adventure; it’s tongue-in-cheek at times; scary in others, but more importantly it allowed me to have fun writing it!

Yeah, I’ve been busy. Discovering the world of self-publishing has been an exciting endeavor, and I hope folks will get a kick out of my pandemic hobby that I am sharing with the world. I’m grateful to great friends and colleagues who supported this flight of fancy by contributing their own time to provide artistic, editorial and play testing feedback. I hope to thank them later in a post celebrating the actual launch.