Boss Level
if life is a game how come there's never any fight music?
Greetings Gamers and those who hate that stuff:
So…since I last wrote, I drove from NYC to the mountains north of Pennsylvania to pick up my kid, then drove across ALL of Pennsylvania and spent the night on the western border. My son (whose learner’s permit is so new that it still holds heat from the laminating machine) took over and drove across Ohio to Michigan— we arrived at Lithuanian camp exactly at our assigned time of 12:30!
After some typical Lithuanian-camp activities over the first two days (a bonfire bigger than three men, songs every morning noon and night, basket weaving, dancing) my son and I hit the road again: this time to Indianapolis! It was meant to be a three and a half hour drive, but we detoured to see a happy little museum along the way in Muncie - you guessed it: the Bob Ross experience!!
I was so surprised to discover that Bob Ross was never paid to do the PBS show. He mostly made money off swag—not even off his paintings, which he preferred to give away to charities as soon as the paint was dry. The whole reason that the PBS show exists is because Bob Ross couldn’t get any students to take his painting class so he made a commercial. His business partner Annette brought it over to the station and a producer saw it and offered him a show.
(Surprise - Bob Ross who was the most well-known and popular painter in the 1970s and may still be—rarely sold a painting.)
I was also surprised to discover that he made three versions of each painting for every episode - one as a guide for himself, the next within the confines of the hour while on live TV, and finally one with exquisite details to show as the finished product.
But all this was just a detour.
My son & I were heading to GenCon. I don’t know who knows this, but he is quite the board game designer. We went, not to play, but to meet other designers and allow him to attend some craft lectures like IP in Game Design and How to build your video game writer’s portfolio. (Of course we also played a LOT of games!)
This is a massive games and gamer event. Lots of people in costume. Nearly everyone carrying a huge bag that many games could fit into. The vending area alone took four plus hours to explore. There were designers to meet, lectures and panels to attend, boxes to consider, and friends to find.
The “free play” area (a games library with just about every board game in existence) was held in the football stadium where the Colts play.
In addition to watching his eyes light with passion as he met people like Richard Dansky (who ghostwrote a ton of Tom Clancy), I personally enjoyed the writing prompts that were posted in the writers’ corner.
I liked playing the Avatar role-playing game (Last Airbender, not blue aliens) .
I especially liked getting a standby ticket to do the First Exposure Playtest hall - which is a place where publishers and their fan base can unite to critique new games. It’s a brilliant way to test out your mostly-ready ideas. I guess the closest non-game equivalent would be Pitch-Fests for novels.
Both events made me realize that an ordinary person doesn’t buy a new book for its writing or its characters or its plot - they buy the book solely for its “promise.” The “promise” of a new book or game (or movie or snack or whatever) is its external “look” and its quickest description (back cover copy, one-line pitch, blurb, whatever) —UNLESS you already know the author, then you’re buying for whatever it is you already like about the author, and if that changes, the reader is irritated—and if the one-line description and cover do not match the contents, the reader is disappointed.
This doesn’t have to do with selling many copies. This has to do with knowing what it is that you’re offering. At the most famous restaurant in Indianapolis (Harry & Izzy’s, a spinoff of St. Elmo’s Steakhouse, which we also tried) — they have a shrimp cocktail they bill as the best in the world. Life changing. Etc. We tried it and what it has is extraordinary amounts of raw horseradish in the (quite delicious) cocktail sauce. Our eyes fell out of our heads and our sinuses took flight—death was imminent for a quarter of a second and then vanished.
Was it the best shrimp cocktail? I don’t know. But it was certainly the most memorable. Had it been me, I would have called it unforgettable.
We even made time on the last day for Kurt Vonnegut’s quirky sense of humor. (His library and museum are a one-mile walk from the convention center) - photos from that day are here. (Facebook changed links and now you’ll have to scroll down my feed instead of being taken directly to the post - sorry!)
Next up: driving back up to Michigan (4 hours of music with the windows rolled down if the weather holds).
WRITING NEWS:
On Monday we are taking a side-trip to Cleveland where I will be reading from my collection A FLASH OF DARKNESS in a very cool bookstore co-sponsored with a local literary nonprofit and with three other great writers!
Here’s the link to RSVP in case you live in Ohio!
The only other interesting thing to happen this week was that the New York Times said they were considering a submission I made. They’re still looking at my piece as far as I know.
Random Final Thought:
It is easier to understand how to do one thing well when you see it done on something else entirely. For example: I really understand the importance of good marketing strategy now that I spent a weekend doing nothing but choosing which new game to play from a thousand options.
What a trip! and Vonnegut!