Another year has ended (and I’ll write about that soon) and another one has started. All comments about arbitrary date changes aside, the beginning of a new year is as good a time as any other for reflection and declaration.

I’m not one for resolutions—no slight against them—but I am one for goals and dreams. It’s no secret that I love my day job. Writing video games is amazing and Volition is an aces place to work. I love coming into the office every day so much that I’ve become horrible at taking breaks from it. But, as do most creatives, I have ambitions beyond a single outlet. I want to create all the things—and I continue to strive to do so.

Over on Twitter, I posted the following:

Goals for 2015: Sell a novel, write a comic, continue to be a better husband, father, and friend.

— Jason L Blair (@jasonlblair) January 2, 2015

Then, a little later, I added this:

Pie-in-the-Sky Dreams for 2015: Turn @LittleFears and/or @StreetsofBedlam into a TV series.

— Jason L Blair (@jasonlblair) January 2, 2015

Now, for the top tweet, those aren’t all crazy ideas. I’ve finished three novels in my life so far and though none have connected enough to move forward to publication, I’ve learned something with each. I am currently working with an artist on doing our own comic series and we’ll see what grows from that. And I endeavor every day to be a better human being in all relations, especially my familial ones.

But that second tweet, well, that’s a bit harder.

Some folks think because I write for a living (in video games no less!) that I have some sort of power and pull when it comes to getting Big Ideas made. Maybe, inside the confines of a Volition meeting room, there’s some truth to that (though video games are all about collaboration and any “win” I have is balanced by the wins of other people) but not-so in the bigger world.

Truth is, hardly anybody knows who I am. This isn’t a cry for pity or validation; it’s simple fact. My co-workers do, for the most part, and both my tabletop and digital games have fans (who are amazing!) but on the big creative scale, where the movers and shakers do their moving and shaking, I’m just another guy with ambition. Sure, maybe some credits too, but not so many big ones that they have to take notice.

I’m trying for that by making the things I can make and meeting the people I can meet but I’m not there yet. I’m not someone who enters a room and draws attention (outside of usually being the tallest person in the room). So, I’m just another anonymous person emailing a plea for connection and fives minutes of their time. When one of my emails hits an inbox, it’s shoved into the same Will-Get-To-Later-Maybe-Or-Maybe-Not pile as the emails of anyone else who doesn’t have some real clout behind their name.

And it doesn’t help that, frankly, the creative fields are tight, crowded areas. There are SO MANY people vying for the same thing that those who swim in the big pond can’t spend their time combing through all those emails looking for brilliance without a good reason. That good reason being name recognition or a referral from a friend or something that shines a light. I can only imagine being in the position the heads of studios are in when it comes to sorting through the in-flood of Folks Who Want Work.

I followed up the above tweets with the following two:

Still holding on to the dream of writing for @archiecomics (Josie reboot!) and @Marvel (Cloak and Dagger!). #dreams #comics #writing

— Jason L Blair (@jasonlblair) January 2, 2015

Please also add Zatanna to the list of comics I want to write, alongside Josie + the Pussycats and Cloak and Dagger. Thanks.

— Jason L Blair (@jasonlblair) January 2, 2015

I wrote a comic, oh, about eight years ago (as I’ve talked about before) and I would love to get back in the field. And I’m doing that small comics project I mentioned earlier but there are some really cool established characters I’d love to take a crack at. I spent a good month putting together ideas for a Josie + the Pussycats reboot that I’d love to work on. Same for Cloak and Dagger. Zatanna’s one of my favorite characters of all time and telling one of her tales would be oh-woah-amazing. I would give blood to work on any of these titles. (And Power Pack too, as my friend Doug Snook reminded me.)

But so would a lot of people. Including folks working in comics right now. So, it’s a long shot. A really long shot. A Hail Mary pass into gale force winds. But it’s a goal. And it’s a dream. And I’m a big believer in having goals and working toward dreams. Once upon a time, working in video games was a long shot for me too.

I see myself as a creative who lives somewhere in the middle of this whole artsy mess. I write for a living but, I hope, I’m not at the top of my potential just yet. I’m just a writer trying to make it. I have my ups and downs, my successes and setbacks, but, mostly, I’m a guy with ambition. A guy who’s trying to do more and be more.

Maybe 2015 will give life to some of these dreams. Time will tell. But I’ll still be here working, no matter what the Fates have in store.

I realize it’s been a while since I updated the sidebar on stuff I’ve done recently so I thought I’d do that and spotlight a couple things in a post as well. If you’ve paid any attention to the 2014 Plan on the left (and I know you all check it daily), you’ll see some of this reflected there. I’m breaking this into two posts with this second one focused on Streets of Bedlam releases.

Streets of Bedlam

I’ve released a pair of new supplements for my Savage Worlds setting Streets of Bedlam recently but figured I’d spotlight all four that have never made it over to this page. First things first.

SoB Stories #1

SoB Stories are standalone episodes that were funded by the very successful Kickstarter I ran back in 2012. Five total planned with the first one below and the second one due out this week.

“Y’know, I didn’t really understand what folks meant when they said no good deed goes unpunished, until I heard the story of Dory Brooker. You familiar? Aw shit then, pull up a chair. C’mon, buy me a round and I’ll fill your ears with one helluva tale.”

One year ago, a well-meaning citizen talked a mild-mannered accountant out of throwing herself off the roof of her apartment building. When that same citizen goes missing, the accountant looks for help in finding the man—not knowing just how many people want her savior to disappear for good.

A Bunch of SOBs

When I have a cool acronym, I like to milk it. The Streets of Bedlam setting makes use of character templates called Archetypes. The book contains a lot but I wanted to give as many options as I could so I decided to release more. The first two were part of that Kickstarter campaign and the third came along later. I have a fourth in the planning stages that I’d like to see out soon.

I recently sat down with the wonderful Lillian Cohen-Moore over at Geek’s Dream Girl to discuss the origin of Little Fears and how the publishing scene has changed since I released the original game back in 2001.

For those interested in getting their hands on a copy of the original Little Fears, I sell the anniversary edition (titled Happy Birthday, Little Fears) directly or you can look for it in the secondary market (though it sometimes runs a pretty penny) or game specialty stores like Noble Knight. To learn a bit more about the editions, check out About Little Fears.

Hey everyone, sorry for the last minute notice but I’ll be sitting down with the folks at #rpgnet for a chat tonight, starting at 8p Eastern/7p Central. I’ll be talking about all things Streets of Bedlam and Little Fears, as well as whatever other topics pop up.

You can pop into the chat via this link. I hope to see you there!

Over the past couple weeks, three different game designers offered me a chance to contribute to their Kickstarter projects as a participant in possible stretch goals. As the first’s been active for a bit, and the second was just announced (the third isn’t slated to go live until next month), now seems like a good time to direct some traffic their way.

Hillfolk: DramaSystem

If you’re reading this, I suspect a high probability that you’re familiar with the work of tabletop game designer Robin D. Laws. I’ve been a fan of his stuff for twenty years, and I always look forward to seeing what he does next. He’s been teasing out his latest, DramaSystem, for a while and now folks will be able to get their hands on it.

As Robin’s excellent GUMSHOE (Esoterrorists, Mutant City Blues, Trail of Cthulhu) emulates procedural shows such as The X-Files, Law & Order, and CSI, his latest centers on the personal dynamics and relationships of more character-driven fare. The first product to use this, Hillfolk, is a game set in the Iron Age. Here’s the blurb from the pitch:

In an arid badlands, squeezed between mighty empires, your people hunger. Your neighbors have grain, cattle, gold. You have horses and spears, courage and ambition. Together with those you love and hate, you will remake history—or die.

The Kickstarter is already over 400% of its original goal and is well on its way through the slew of announced stretch goals. Chief among them are a variety of alternate premises using the DramaSystem. Not interest in Iron Age politics? Step into the shoes of time travelers stuck in the 1940s with Matt Forbeck’s WW2.1. Or play supervillians doing their best to stay reformed in Michelle Nephew’s Mad Scientists Anonymous. Or dip your toe in Cold War espionage with Kenneth Hite’s Moscow Station.

If the project hits $14k (and it looks like it will do that handily), I’ll contribute my own setting, the True Blood meets Being Human meets Vampire Diaries meets Twilight melodrama Inhuman Desires.

One Shot

Subtitled “a roleplaying game of murder and vengeance”, Tracy Barnett’s two-player One Shot focus on personal relationships of a specific sort: the kind that usually have a gun involved. Check out the premise:

One Shot is a tabletop roleplaying game about murder and vengeance. Two people work together to tell the story of the Shooter, a normal person wronged, and set for revenge. One player plays the Shooter, on their path to their one shot. The other plays the Forces, the world and people around and in the way of the Shooter.

Sounds great, and fits perfectly with the work I’m doing on the Kickstarter-funded project I ran last year, Streets of Bedlam.

With a month left to go, One Shot sits near the halfway mark to its goal. If the project meets its stretch goal, I’ll contribute short fiction to an anthology that explores the ideas presented by the game itself. Other authors include Jess Hartley, Will Hindmarch, Filamena Young, David Hill, and others.

So please check out the above and, if they interest you, pledge your support! Kickstarter is a fantastic way for creatives and customers to connect. I love seeing folks like Tracy and Robin putting new ideas out there in a way that doesn’t threaten their pocketbooks.

As for the third, I’ll let you all know when that goes live. I think you’ll really dig it.

It’s not that I get bored easily. But when I do tire of something, I have to change it.

Mostly this means shaving my head or growing a ridiculous mustache but sometimes this means bigger things. I launched Operation: Awesome because I was tired of not being the writer I knew I could be.

Thing is, these years later, I’m still not.

I’m better, certainly. I’m more disciplined, have a much firmer grasp of the craft and of story, and have even achieved a position where I write for a living. But I’m not where I want to be yet.

When I was freelancing, I was also a stay-at-home dad which meant, if I wasn’t taking care of my kids, then I had to focus on writing that was paid for. If not upfront, then it had to be writing I could sell.

Even after landing some big gigs, I continued along that path. Only writing the stuff I could sell immediately. This is how Little Fears happened, how Streets of Bedlam happened.

“Writing what I can sell” meant, mostly, tabletop game material. Or short fiction for the occasional collection. It left no time for spec work such as screenplays or novels.

But now I have a (blessed blessed) day job that fills that gap. I write at work. What I write outside the office doesn’t have to be stuff I can sell right away. Course, now I have a backlog that needs written. Stuff I’ve promised, and even some stuff folks have already paid for.

I decided a few weeks ago, I was going to make a big change. I was going to finish all the stuff I needed to finish, take a break, and then do some spec writing. The type of writing I’ve wanted to do for a long time now.

I’m going to write a novel. One I’ve been mulling over for years. One that goes into a lot of new areas and challenges me like no work has in ages. I’m excited for it.

Before I can focus on it though, I have to clear my plate. Namely, I’m capping off my Little Fears work, finishing up what’s due for Streets of Bedlam, and then taking a break. After that break, I’m focusing my out-of-office efforts on my novel.

I hope to have a draft wrapped up four months after I start. So, say, maybe six months or so out from now. That’s my goal.

I need to focus on something new, try for something new. Whenever I stay put, nothing moves around me. Nothing moves for me. I can’t let the fact I have a dream job let me get soft. Time to reach a new level.

*breathe out*

I’ve been neck deep in my Savage Worlds project, Streets of Bedlam, since the turn of the year. I am very happy to announce that the game is out in PDF as of today! I’m going to allow for a couple weeks of intensive editing and index creation before this goes to print, but the hardcopy should be out next month.

If you’re interested in ultraviolent neo-noir tabletop gaming, check out Streets of Bedlam: A Savage World of Crime + Corruption. For more information, visit the official website.

The latest issue of Savage Insider saw release this past week and, in addition to a bunch of great Savage Worlds-related articles, I speak a bit with Vickey Beaver about the process of conceiving and designing my new game line Streets of Bedlam.

The magazine is free to grab from DriveThruRPG. My interview starts on page 20. Flip through the rest of the book to see the game’s first print ad as well!

I recently sat down with Jenn from the Jennisodes to discuss my latest project, Streets of Bedlam, as well as future plans for the Little Fears Nightmare Edition line and a short rant on stories in video games. Jenn is a wonderful host and runs a fantastic podcast. Be sure to check out the latest episode for me, and then dig into her backlist for some amazing guests and insights into all sorts of gaming-related topics.

Huge thanks to Jenn for having me on, and I’d love to drop in again sometime.

I sat down with Josh Mannon from the Gamestarter podcast a couple weeks ago not once but twice! The first was a sit-down with Josh and fellow writer/designer Filamena Young to discuss various game projects currently seeking funding including Filamena’s own Flatpack: Fix the Future. The second time was an interview focused entirely on me, my upcoming neo-noir crime setting Streets of Bedlam, and the madness that is running a Kickstarter campaign.

Check out the panel with Josh and Filamena here.

You can hear me talk way too much about myself and Streets of Bedlam here.

Thanks to Josh for having me on and to Filamena for being a great co-guest.