White-Rose-Brian

Some of you may wonder where I am in regards to my personal creative projects.  You may even wonder whether I have taken real steps towards realizing my dreams instead of whining over how distant they seem.  I decided to write and post this. By the way, since I intend to cross-post this to my new page on PillowFort, I will write this as if mentioning them for the first time.

After tooling around with concepts for multiple graphic novels, I decided to first focus on what is currently entitled Strong Woman.  It is the story of a professional wrestler who seeks purpose and meaning as she goes about her career in a odd and tacky type of theater--but it's also the story of some youths whom she somehow touches with her powerful and pretty presence.

I have gone through multiple drafts of the first string of chapters in what I realized would be a multi-volume graphic novel.  As a new writer I know that making a great first impression is crucial. I now have a few rough prose treatments, along with some scripts that I decided didn't need drastic rewriting so I kept them as scripts with mild changes.  I want as much feedback as possible before converting all of them into comics scripts. So far, among most of the people to whom I've sent files, response has been rather slow. Even still I've started jotting down more solid concepts for when I write the second string of chapters (and even the third, along with pre-existing ideas for later parts of the novel).

While awaiting more feedback on those treatments for Strong Woman, I just decided to do some typing for a tabletop role-playing game.  Yes, I have tinkered with an RPG system of my own. Although I don't see myself as a game designer by calling, I keep seeing potential in what I've written thus far and still feel the desire to build upon that.

The game is tentatively called Mystically Gifted Heart.  It is mainly about people who are touched by mystical energies and spiritual entities in a few different manifestations, though I plan on other options for player characters as well.  I don't intend for it to be a generic fantasy game at all. It's meant to be a supernatural role-playing game of psychological and spiritual drama. It's meant to emphasize the minds and souls of characters in addition to their superficial attributes and actions.  The characters are gifted but also vulnerable and mortal. This game is meant to offer explorations of real emotions and vulnerabilities and tragedies, along with phantasmagoria rooted in real-world mysticism and myth, instead of simple escapism.

On a side note, I hope that the mechanics will be sensible and elegant so as to simply provide structure for collaborative narrative.  I've been doing a lot of trials with resolutions based on dice pools, and those have shown promise as well. Even if there turns out to be a large number of mechanics I hope that they will still be easy to run and play, thus adding to the overall experience instead of bogging it down with excessive crunching.

If I get a solid alpha ruleset typed up sooner rather than later, I may sign up to get it playtested at the next GenCon.  If playtests go really well, I might continue refining and testing the game. I've even considered pitching the game to a company like Bandai at some point.  If I'm extremely fortunate it may be a helpful extra source of income. There are certainly less pleasant ways of making money.

I hope that everything will work out well for me, especially with my comics.  I wish to plant a beautiful garden of white roses for all. Bless you all.