David Michael Williams's Blog: One Million Words (or less)

After more than a year of busying myself with freelance projects—while hemming and hawing about what my next project for me will be—I’m calling it:

I don’t know what I’ll make next, and I don’t care.

Truth is, I’m burned out from the business side of things, trying to market my books, trying to market myself. My creative battery needs recharging while I reframe what it means to be a creator.

In some ways, I’m back to where I was 13 years ago, back when my ambition to rise above the rank of dabbler reached detrimental heights. But rather than pine for success in the publishing world, I find myself hoping to recapture the joy of creating without worrying about an audience, promotions, and sales.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy sharing my art with others even at a young age. First and foremost, however, my audience was me. I drew, wrote, and roleplayed for me.

I created just for fun.

That’s where I wish to return. I want to work on something without worrying about whether it’s marketable, whether anyone else will like it, whether I will have wasted my time when it’s done. Self-expression should be enough. Fun is a worthy reward on its own.

Which isn’t to say I’ve only been pursuing profit and prestige along the way. In the past year, I homebrewed a couple of D&D one-shots and ran them for my family—while, admittedly, wondering if I ought to try to publish them through One Million Words or pitch them to a bigger company.

In 2021, I produced a webcomic called Curmudgeons & Flagons, releasing 53 issues for free on this website. Sure, there were times when I thought I might bundle all of them together in a print edition or even expand the premise into a bigger project, possibly a retro video game. Yet even if I sometimes saw it as a potential steppingstone, I made the webcomic simply because I wanted to try something new, no matter how other people reacted, no matter if no one reacted.

It was just for fun.

Art Fight

When my daughter mentioned a website where people upload their original characters, and other contributors recreate them in different styles, all for a low-stakes competition, it sounded, well, frivolous. It also sounded fun. I hadn’t made any pixel art since Curmudgeons & Flagons wrapped at the end of 2021.

Why not give it another try?

Just for fun, I reimagined her original character Corvis…

…in the style of pixel art:

She, in return, rendered my blocky barroom retirees as a digital drawing:

She also sketched Kaf’ael’s portrait:

Relatively few pairs of eyes will see these illustrations. No money will exchange hands. I’ll continue to work my day job while my side-hustle remains sidelined. That’s OK. I did it just for fun.

Hopefully, when—or if—I dive into another big project, one that will be published and distributed by One Million Words, my motivation won’t wander too far from those three little words.

Because if it isn’t fun, why bother?

The post Those three little words appeared first on David Michael Williams.

What’s better than playing a sci-fi video game steeped in mythology that offers a mind-bending, time-traversing narrative?

I had the pleasure of proofing more than 100,000 words of a mobile action roleplaying game (RPG) last summer. My role, as freelance editor, was to comb through all possible text choices, reviewing the translated (from Chinese) text, localizing it so that the phrasing sounds natural to native English speakers, and ensuring consistency from line to line.

The game is called Black Beacon, and here’s the official description:

Upon the arrival of the Seer, a prophet foretold in ancient prophecies, the mysterious black monolith known as the Beacon activates, triggering anomalies beyond comprehension at the Tower of Babel.

These anomalies are far more than mere myths; within them lie hidden truths waiting to be uncovered.

Join forces with your comrades as you embark on a journey to unravel the secrets behind these catastrophic events and save humanity from impending disaster. Your choices will shape the fate of the world and echo through the ages.

Are you ready to seek the truth?

The truth is that this game’s story is far more sophisticated than your average mobile RPG. History blends with imagination, and I had a lot of fun getting to know these characters—especially a particular pair of precocious twins.

Black Beacon launched a couple of months ago. I confess I haven’t found the time to play it yet. Honestly, having proofed the first handful of chapters—twice!—my curiosity to try out the game mechanics are eclipsed by my distinct memory of the plot.

However, I’m delighted to see that the game is getting some good reviews out of the gate. And when I read things like “The worldbuilding and story are captivating, and the character writing shows a lot of heart,” I can’t help but smile, knowing that my work helped to preserve the writers’ vision.

Which is what every editor ought to do.

You can download Black Beacon for free from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store:

Download for Apple DeviceDownload for Android Device

The post Available Now: Black Beacon appeared first on David Michael Williams.

How is it already April?

I went into 2025 planning to pump the breaks on freelancing—only to get lured into a fun, fast-paced project for Goodman Games (GMG). After filling my evenings and weekends with writing and developmental editing for the past month and more, I can declare decisively that I have no regrets.

The Flumph’s Catalogue of Magical Curiosities is going to be beyond great.

But before I go into detail—or as much detail as I’m allowed to share—I want to take a step back and focus on the fruits of earlier labor, which also tie into the “flumph book.” As I mentioned back in February, GMG’s Dungeon Denizens II will include 20 creatures of my own design. I just saw the artwork for one of those monsters, a tasty take on the tongue taker by the talented Will McAusland. I couldn’t be happier with the interpretation and can’t wait to see the rest!

Accompanying that hardcover book is a publication packed with two-page one-shots. I contributed three adventures to Dungeon Delves II: “Blight Makes Right,” “Castaways in the Cold,” and “Speak No Evil.” After writing four of these delves for the original collection and providing a pair of subterranean experiences for UnderDelves (“The Grass is Greener” and “When Hell Freezes Over”), I can confidently say I’ve gotten the hang of penning these abbreviated adventures. I hope more are on the horizon.

But the book I’m most excited about is The Flumph’s Catalogue of Magical Curiosities.

For real, what is a flumph?

A flumph is a bizarre creature that has been a part of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) for several editions. The easiest way to describe them is a telepathic jellyfish with big blue eyes at the end of long stalks. Oh, and they swim through the air, not water.

The flumph is an enduring favorite of D&D players because they are inherently goofy looking and one of very few friendly (i.e., lawful good) underground creatures. You can’t help but smile when you encounter a flumph. So who better to host a tour of the multiverse’s most powerful relics?

Back to the book

Because I don’t want to spill the (magical) beans and reveal more than I ought to, I’ll share GMG’s description of the book:

The Flumph’s Catalogue of Magical Curiosities includes 300+ all-new magic items ready to use in your 5E game. There are potions, scrolls, magical weapons, rings, rods, staves, wands, and of course wondrous items. All rarities are represented, including a selection of artifacts, complete with compelling backstories. Plus, pages of tables featuring magic items sorted by type and rarity as well as tables to randomly determine magic items in hoards. Narrated by our own flumph, each item includes this curious creature’s musings on the item’s history, discovery, or experimental use.

As I hinted in a prior post, I was considered for this publication for the worldbuilding and character development I exhibited on prior projects. Without giving away too much, here is how I’ve contributed to this book:

Came up with a personality and backstory for the titular flumphCultivated the details for an organization focused on collecting magic itemsDeveloped a handful of additional characters in the aforementioned organizationCreated 35 unique magic itemsWrote the flumph’s musings on 34 contributed magic itemsPerformed developmental editing for the flumph’s musings on 241 other magic items to ensure consistency of voice and loreWrote all chapter introductionsWrote the introduction to the book and appendix textManaged details for all items in a master file (i.e., spreadsheet wrangling)

Yes, it’s been a busy few months, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. “The flumph book has allowed me to leverage skills from both hemispheres of my brain. Equally exciting, the BackerKit bundle that contains this book (and Dungeon Denizens II, Dungeon Delves II, and several other tabletop roleplaying game resources) has, as of now, nearly 2,000 backers and more than a quarter of a million dollars in pledges.

I’m excited that so many people will have access to my monsters, adventures, and magic items at their gaming table. Get your tendrils—er, hands—on these books while you can!

The BackerKit bundle containing Dungeon Denizens II, Dungeon Delves II, and The Flumph’s Catalogue of Magical Curiosities will be live for only two more weeks. Click here to take your games to the next level.

The post What the flumph?! appeared first on David Michael Williams.

I basically invented Pokémon back in 1988.

No, that’s an exaggeration. I co-created Pokémon with a classmate back in third grade. On the heels of my “robot phase,” the two of us would fill looseleaf pages with a menagerie of bizarre creatures.

Sadly, I can’t recall what a single one of those monsters (or aliens?) looked like, but I strongly suspect none of them resembled Pikachu. And we had no means of catching or trading the creatures. These raw deposits of our young imaginations could only be shared with each other as we exchanged pages to admire the other’s handiwork.

But these prototypes, lost to time and landfills (or did we recycle back then?), served their purpose. The sheer joy of coming up with strange creatures has endured throughout my life, taking different forms over the years: failed superhero narratives, eventual fantasy novels, a webcomic, and, most recently, tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs).

Neither my self-made TTRPG (The Curse of Er’Mah’Gerd) nor my freelance contributions to Goodman Games’ library of adventures and reference books have come close to Pokémon’s market penetration, but when I think back on all I’ve accomplished over the past 10 years or so, I am more than satisfied with my creative output.

More importantly, I am excited about what lies ahead.

Monsters, Monsters, and More Monsters

On my birthday in 2020, I attended an open call webinar in hopes of getting my foot in the door in the TTRPG space. Goodman Games was looking for writers, editors, and play testers, filling out its freelance roster for a huge project on the horizon—a book filled with more than 500 new creatures for adventurers to encounter.

Of course, I wanted to contribute monsters of my own, but I also realized that everyone would be vying for the writer positions. Given my experience with editing and my keen eye for spotting grammatical and formatting irregularities, I opted for the chance to edit instead. It was a strategic move—and one that has paid off.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The project—Dungeon Denizens—kicked off in early 2021. To say it was a crash course in Dungeon & Dragons 5th Edition mechanics would be an understatement. Yes, I learned a ton while editing roughly 300 monsters for that book and a few more other Goodman Games books besides.

In addition to my editing skills, I contributed a single creature of my own to Dungeon Denizens: the consuming coin, a metal construct that cannibalizes other currency in one’s purse and, when discovered, attacks using an arsenal based on the flip of a coin (heads or tails!).

The book was a colossal project as evidenced by the fact that Dungeon Denizens didn’t start shipping to backers until the end of 2024. I got my copy in December, more than four years after I auditioned for the gig. It was worth the wait!

In November, Goodman Games announced a sequel, and I’m pleased to report that Dungeon Denizens II will include 20 original creatures from yours truly, including a sloth demon, a dragon with arachnid-inspired abilities, and the most dangerous puffin ever conceived. (Eat your heart out, Pikachu!)

If you’re reading between the lines, you’ve realized that my gambit paid off. In addition to ongoing editing work for Goodman Games, I’ve wormed my way into a writing role as well. I’ll share those projects as they are announced and released, but suffice it to say, I’m currently working on a project that lets me draw from the worldbuilding and character development skills I have honed as a novelist.

Speaking of Books…

People have asked me about my next novel, and my admittedly glib answer has been I’m not sure if there will be one. Long story short, I’m incredibly proud of the novels I’ve published but have no desire to dive into another one right now. (Long story here.) Even the “mid-apocalyptic” fantasy setting I’ve been toying with over the past couple of years, The Last City of Mirth, is on hold indefinitely. It could end up being a game or a novel or something else entirely. I don’t know, and I’m OK with that.

I went into 2024 expecting it to be a “light year.” I had just started a new job and expected my side hustle would take a backseat for a while. Although I did work far fewer hours for One Million Words last year, it was still more time than anticipated, and much of that was spent on freelance work—not only for Goodman Games, but also Necromolds and a mobile action roleplaying game (ARPG), which I hope to be able to promote in a couple of months. It was a profitable year both in terms of income and output.

I could blame many freelance opportunities for the neglect of this blog, but that would be only partly true. The fact of the matter is I had no interest in promoting my work because I was having too much fun doing the work. That’s a marketing no-no, but if I learned anything last year, it is that enthusiasm is essential for me creatively.

That’s as true of smudged looseleaf doodles as it is for beautiful hardcover books.

The post Most importantly, do what you love appeared first on David Michael Williams.

My foray into interactive fiction continues with two big projects, though I’m at liberty to talk about only one of them.

For now.

Confidentiality agreements have kept me quiet on a couple of games to which I’ve contributed my writing and editing skills—projects that have kept me busy for the first half of the year and then some. Fortunately, the first has been released, so I’m finally able to share some details.

Without further ado, meet the Necromolds!

New Tabletop Adventure

I was thrilled when Goodman Games gave my name to a publisher of a dynamic wargame looking to bring their creative creatures to the world’s most popular TTRPG system: Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons.

Necromolds has been called “Warhammer meets Play-Doh.” Whereas many wargames depend on metal or plastic miniatures to represent combatants on the battlefield, Necromolds’ golems are formed from modeling clay that can be pressed into existence in seconds—and swiftly squished upon defeat.

The game is a great introduction to the wargame genre for young players or a lighthearted contest for more seasoned gamers. (Yes, those are the same demographic as my TTRPG The Curse of Er’Mah’Gerd.) Given the popularity of 5E D&D, it made a lot of sense to bring the game’s colorful constructs to a wider audience.

Here’s how I helped make that happen:

Consulted with Necromolds creator Clint Bohaty to make key decisions about keeping the lore and flavor of the original game while adapting to the mechanics of 5E.Determined which tier each Necromold should be.Created the Conjure Necromold Wrote the stats blocks for eight of the titular golems.Edited the stats blocks for the remaining eight Necromolds.Wrote a self-contained adventure.

Necomolds Awaken! is a one-shot dungeon crawler that can be played on its own or inserted into an existing campaign. Either way, introducing these unique summonable creatures to D&D brings an exciting new dynamic to the world’s first roleplaying game.

The adventure, spell, and stats blocks can all be found in Basalt LaSeur’s Tome of Golems, available here.

My favorite part of the project—aside from collaborating with outgoing creatives like Clint and his team—was exploring the secretive Masquerade faction and developing such members as Sentinel, Scavenger, Silencer, and Steelsong.

Unrevealed Video Game

My current project leaps off the page to the digital equivalent of a TTRPG: a video game RPG.

Having signed a nondisclosure agreement for a certain mobile game from an overseas developer, I can only say that I’ve had a blast localizing and proofing the text while losing myself in the rich story. I can’t wait until the game is released so that I can tell you more about it—not to mention play it myself!

The post Games that break the mold appeared first on David Michael Williams.

Once upon a time, I was a novelist.

Before that, as a teenager, I created a fantasy world and spent many years defining its cultures, refining its people, and making history. Sprawling storylines coalesced into vast webs of possibility. Then I collected my chronicles and chose a point in time to start telling my stories to this world.

The result was The Renegade Chronicles, a trilogy that introduced my primary setting, the island province of Capricon. The world was—is—Altaerra, and all I ever wanted to do was write novel after novel that elevated my legwork (and finger exercises) of earlier years into a saga worthy of public consumption.

I wrote and published Magic’s Daughter and cooked up an outline and introductory chapters for its sequel Magic’s Disciples. But then I stopped.

Much to my surprise, after more than a decade of cultivating my fantasy setting, I decided to walk away and try other pastures—a children’s chapter book, a dreampunk trilogy, a YA portal fantasy, and most recently a short story collection.

Past is Prologue

No matter how far I strayed, Altaerra was never far from my heart. In fact, 2022’s Ghost Mode & Other Strange Stories includes a tale set just before Book 1 of The Renegade Chronicles. I’ve contemplated producing a collection of Altaerra short stories. I’ve mapped out eleven additional novels, continuing with Magic’s Defenders and culminating in a plot that my earliest notes only hinted at.

Yet I can’t bring myself to return for an extended stay.

Perhaps that’s the problem: all of these people and plot twists have been at home in my head for upwards of 30 years. The thrill of exploration is dulled by the fact that I know the ultimate destination. I can tell myself that there’s value in elevating my earliest writing exercises, transforming those disparate scenes into a cohesive series. However, my meager readership isn’t exactly clamoring for the continuing adventures of Selena Nelesti, Klye Tristan, and all the others.

I know their futures. Sharing them with a slightly wider audience just seems like unnecessary labor.

The younger version of myself would’ve been horrified to read that last sentence. Back when the most important thing was telling Altaerra’s stories, I couldn’t have fathomed abandoning them for other characters, other books, other projects.

History Repeats Itself

Not that any of this is especially noteworthy. Many authors move on to new subjects, new genres. Maybe they, like me, feel that spinning the same yarn is akin to spinning their wheels.

That would explain why, after publishing The Soul Sleep Cycle and contributing short stories to two dreampunk anthologies, I don’t feel compelled to continue my trek into madcap mindscapes. Neither did my stint in the YA fantasy sector compel me to stay the course.

The good news is there are no shortage of categories to explore and audiences to engage. Space opera, superhero fiction, alternate history—ideas for these genres and others perpetually percolate in my psyche.

One might expect that my literary path would lead me to pen a standalone book, a trilogy, or maybe even a series of one genre and then move on to the next. Pioneer new territory. Perpetuate my recent pattern.

If variety is the spice of life, repetition is a grueling gruel indeed.

Sadly, this sentiment extends to the novel itself.

Game On

Whenever I come up with an intriguing premise for a book—any book—I find myself wondering, “Why bother?”

What do I hope to gain from the experience? I know how to write a novel. I’m proud of what I’ve produced so far. I could follow similar steps and release additional titles. Add more books to my shelf.

Maybe this mental state is a symptom of not achieving as much “market penetration” as I had wanted with my prior attempts. Maybe it’s the realization that relatively few people appreciate the immense amount of work required to add to my bibliography. Or maybe I’m simply tired of hoping my next publication will be the one where I “make it.”

Likely, it’s all of the above.

It’s also more than that. Trying my hand at new media has stretched my creativity in exciting new ways. From publishing a pixel-art webcomic to checking “write for a video game” off my bucket list, the challenge of attempting something new has paid off in multiple ways.

That goes for writing, editing, and publishing tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) too. Most of my recent blog posts have focused on TTRPG projects. Last year, I released my first full-length adventure, The Curse of Er’Mah’Gerd. Before and since then, I’ve worked on other publishers’ source books and modules. I’ll be announcing additional contributions and collaborations soon.

I still enjoy pursuing the uniquely creative format of shared storytelling, this unlikely marriage of technical writing and prose—hence, my recent work on my next TTRPG tentatively titled The Last City of Mirth.

This project-in-progress exhibits more examples of my thirst for novelty beyond novels. Instead of sticking with the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition system, I’ve decided to make my own. Even the setting, with its biology-based “magic” and eleven unique sapient species, oozes originality. The Last Tale of Mirth is forcing me farther outside my comfort zone in no small part because inventing a TTRPG from scratch will push my math skills to their limits.

And far beyond the traditional boundaries of sword-and-sorcery realms like Altaerra.

Home Sweet Home

I’m not a fan of the word “never.” Absolutes seldom suit reality. I might return to my first fantasy world someday, maybe in a novel or maybe as something else. I always leave the proverbial door open for possible sequels. Perhaps the book bug will bite again, and I’ll surprise myself overwhelmed by an idea for a novel I simply can’t ignore.

Until then, I’m content to set aside the role of novelist for now and see where my imagination takes me.

For those of you who have been kind enough to indulge my past creative endeavors—not to mention those who have read to the end of this very long blog post—I thank you for your enduring support and patience. Readers who have been waiting for a new novel will have to wait longer, I’m afraid.

If I’ve learned anything on the weird, wild ride of being a writer, it’s that enthusiasm is an integral ingredient of any successful creation.

The post Don’t make me repeat myself appeared first on David Michael Williams.

I might be one of the only writers who devotes vacation days to math homework.

Every year, my wife and I try to get away for a few days to focus on our respective projects and spend our evenings working on a creative project together.

Earlier this month, Steph and I headed to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, for our annual Artist Retreat. Even before we knew our destination, I had big plans this year. After spending the past 10 months working, here and there, on worldbuilding and other preliminary plans for a new tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG), I was going to get down into the nitty-gritty, number-crunching details.

That’s right: game mechanics.

A numbers game

Rather than leverage an existing open-source TTRPG system, such as Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons (D&D)—as I’ve done for The Curse of Er’Mah’Gerd and other freelance projects—I decided to create my own system for this next project, tentatively titled The Last City of Mirth. Why? Well, I suspect that will be the topic for a future post. Suffice it to say, I have chosen to start from scratch.

Over the course of four days, I dedicated 8,890 words to the crunchiest characteristics of game design. I’d love to say I knocked it out of the park, but I’m reminded of a certain quotation about 99 ways to make a lightbulb—or, rather, 99 ways not to make one. Oh well, you can’t make an omelet without cracking a few filaments.

I am happy to report, however, that I’m reasonably certain the raw concepts I came up with could work. With more time. More energy.

More math.

Musings of a mad mathemagician…

In the days following our artistic getaway, I find my mind trying to make sense of statistics and numerical relationships in my dreams. I’m not ready to dive back into such arcane arithmetic during my waking hours, though. No, I’d rather wait until the Muse of Game Mechanics whispers sweet sums into my ear.

In the meantime, I’m content to adopt an adage borrowed from a friend of mine: “I’ll think about it by not thinking about it.”

The beauty of working on my own passion project is I am beholden to no one else’s deadlines. If I hit a temporary dead end, there are plenty of other paths to explore. Such as outlining some side quests, filling in missing details for various factions, and further developing the 11 unique sapient species forced to cohabitate in and around The Last City of Mirth.

No matter how you add it up, I still have a lot of work ahead. What fun!

Dice, dice, baby

Some of my nerdier readers will have already connected the serendipitous dots between working on a brand-new TTRPG in the city of Lake Geneva—the birthplace of D&D, arguably the world’s first TTRPG.

(Incidentally, this wasn’t the first time Steph and I pilgrimaged to this mecca of medieval fantasy. When we were teenagers, we visited a gaming store owned by none other than Dragonlance author Margaret Weis and somehow earned an invite to a pre-Gen Con party with other writers and editors of D&D fiction. But I’ve already name-dropped my way through this anecdote in prior posts.)

This time around, my wife and I saw the humble abode where Gary Gygax first put pencil to paper as he mutated wargames into something new and fantastical. Alas, the nearby museum dedicated to D&D’s early days wasn’t open while we were there.

Nevertheless, we took full advantage of the geeky atmosphere.

We selected resin as the medium for this year’s shared exploration. In addition to making dominos and runes, we created colorful sets of gaming dice as well as a couple of resin boxes to store these strange polyhedrons.

Steph also transformed her childhood jewelry box into an amazing mimic, an iconic D&D monster.

Jewelry Foolery box?

Artist Retreat is a fun tradition that celebrates creativity for creativity’s sake. Sometimes projects go unfinished. (I’m looking at you Bigfoot, Big Heart musical!) And not every pursuit bears financial fruit. (No worries, my beloved pixel-art webcomic.) Not every endeavor needs to turn a profit to be fulfilling.

At least that’s my belief and why I look forward to these annual “working vacations.”

Results may vary.

You do the math.

The post A tactical retreat appeared first on David Michael Williams.

I might be one of the only writers who devotes vacation days to math homework.

Every year, my wife and I try to get away for a few days to focus on our respective projects and spend our evenings working on a creative project together.

Earlier this month, Steph and I headed to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, for our annual Artist Retreat. Even before we knew our destination, I had big plans this year. After spending the past 10 months working, here and there, on worldbuilding and other preliminary plans for a new tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG), I was going to get down into the nitty-gritty, number-crunching details.

That’s right: game mechanics.

A numbers game

Rather than leverage an existing open-source TTRPG system, such as Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons (D&D)—as I’ve done for The Curse of Er’Mah’Gerd and other freelance projects—I decided to create my own system for this next project, tentatively titled The Last City of Mirth. Why? Well, I suspect that will be the topic for a future post. Suffice it to say, I have chosen to start from scratch.

Over the course of four days, I dedicated 8,890 words to the crunchiest characteristics of game design. I’d love to say I knocked it out of the park, but I’m reminded of a certain quotation about 99 ways to make a lightbulb—or, rather, 99 ways not to make one. Oh well, you can’t make an omelet without cracking a few filaments.

I am happy to report, however, that I’m reasonably certain the raw concepts I came up with could work. With more time. More energy.

More math.

Musing of a mad mathemagician…

In the days following our artistic getaway, I find my mind trying to make sense of statistics and numerical relationships in my dreams. I’m not ready to dive back into such arcane arithmetic during my waking hours, though. No, I’d rather wait until the Muse of Game Mechanics whispers sweet sums into my ear.

In the meantime, I’m content to adopt an adage borrowed from a friend of mine: “I’ll think about it by not thinking about it.”

The beauty of working on my own passion project is I am beholden to no one else’s deadlines. If I hit a temporary dead end, there are plenty of other paths to explore. Such as outlining some side quests, filling in missing details for various factions, and further developing the 11 unique sapient species forced to cohabitate in and around The Last City of Mirth.

No matter how you add it up, I still have a lot of work ahead. What fun!

Dice, dice, baby

Some of my nerdier readers will have already connected the serendipitous dots between working on a brand-new TTRPG in the city of Lake Geneva—the birthplace of D&D, arguably the world’s first TTRPG.

(Incidentally, this wasn’t the first time Steph and I pilgrimaged to this mecca of medieval fantasy. When we were teenagers, we visited a gaming store owned by none other than Dragonlance author Margaret Weis and somehow earned an invite to a pre-Gen Con party with other writers and editors of D&D fiction. But I’ve already name-dropped my way through this anecdote in prior posts.)

This time around, my wife and I saw the humble abode where Gary Gygax first put pencil to paper as he mutated wargames into something new and fantastical. Alas, the nearby museum dedicated to D&D’s early days wasn’t open while we were there.

Nevertheless, we took full advantage of the geeky atmosphere.

We selected resin as the medium for this year’s shared exploration. In addition to making dominos and runes, we created colorful sets of gaming dice as well as a couple of resin boxes to store these strange polyhedrons.

Steph also transformed her childhood jewelry box into an amazing mimic, an iconic D&D monster.

Jewelry Foolery box?

Artist Retreat is a fun tradition that celebrates creativity for creativity’s sake. Sometimes projects go unfinished. (I’m looking at you Bigfoot, Big Heart musical!) And not every pursuit bears financial fruit. (No worries, my beloved pixel-art webcomic.) Not every endeavor needs to turn a profit to be fulfilling.

At least that’s my belief and why I look forward to these annual “working vacations.”

Results may vary.

You do the math.

The post A temporary retreat appeared first on David Michael Williams.

When explaining my fiction to prospective readers, I often punctuate my pitch with “I write the weird stuff.”

Of course, some stories are stranger than others.

Given the popularity of fantasy fiction these days, my sword-and-sorcery novels are practically mainstream, though I try to take chances and inject surprises. Even my YA portal fantasy champions my own peculiar twists, as evidenced by characters named Sir Larpsalot, Elvish Presley, and Tom Foolery.

Without a doubt the weirdest category to which I contribute is dreampunk. I confess I didn’t even know the word existed until after I published The Soul Sleep Cycle, only later learning that my sci-fi/fantasy/paranormal mashup fit perfectly in this burgeoning genre. The closest category I had been able to come up with before that was “slipstream”—and nearly nobody knew what that was either!

“Dreampunk” is not only a more accurate, but also a more atmospheric term. Borrowing the suffix and spirit of better-known genres like cyberpunk and steampunk, dreampunk is a subgenre of speculative fiction that focuses on dreamlike states and their interaction with conventional reality.

Moreover, dreampunk challenges our definition of what is real in the first place.

Cliff Jones Jr., an author, editor, and friend of mine, can tell you much more about it and provide examples of dreampunk in books, television, and film. I highly recommend you check out cliffjonesjr.com/dreampunk if you like to read “the weird stuff”; you might have just found your new favorite genre.

Image courtesy of Cliff Jones Jr.

In 2020, I had the honor of contributing to a dreampunk collection that Cliff curated for Fractured Mirror Publishing. Mirrormaze: A Dreampunk Anthology features 29 wonderfully weird stories, including “Drifters,” a tale I wrote to introduce the world to my aforementioned dreampunk trilogy.

Imagine my delight when I was invited to submit another work of dreampunk fiction for a second book.

Somniscope

For Fractured Mirror Publishing’s new dreampunk anthology, I contributed a short story you won’t find anywhere else.

“Darlings” isn’t canonically connected to The Soul Sleep Cycle or any other pieces of my published fiction. The quasi-autobiographical narrative is, however, tied to copious preexisting characters, concepts, and story starters. Think of it as an ode to unrealized potential—or maybe what happens when an idea violently sinks its claws into you and refuses to relent.

Here’s a taste of the story:

The elevator door closed, then disappeared completely.

Urgency gnawed at the man, but the sudden fog teasing his thoughts stole his momentum. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath, inhaling notes of growth and rot, and tried to remember. He was late for something—work maybe, or picking up the kids, though he couldn’t decide if he had one or two or three, let alone their ages. And where had he parked, anyway?

No, he had ridden the bus to campus and taken the elevator to an upper-level history class he hadn’t attended all semester and a final exam destined to eat him alive. With a groan, he opened his eyes and hurried onward. However, the frantic determination that had propelled him through an obstacle course of delays soured to a new flavor of anxiety when he scanned his surroundings.

How had he gotten outdoors?

His swift strides slowed to an uncertain stroll as he squinted at a steamy swamp in the distance. He wiped the sweat from his brow, surprised to find bangs where a balding forehead had been a moment before. No plants disturbed the waters, which resembled a thick violet soup. But movement caught his attention and held it captive.

Unnatural shapes rose from the sludge and separated themselves from the undulating shadows. A few looked vaguely humanoid, though the creatures’ heads varied from a rounded dome to a sharp crescent to an equilateral triangle balancing impossibly on a point. Among the sluggish creatures in the primordial marsh writhed a collection of bodies comprising symmetrical zigzags—foreign but familiar.

It was impossible to tell whether the things were drawing closer or sliding away.

“Darlings” is but one of 27 mind-bending excursions that comprise Somniscope: A Dreampunk Convergence, currently available in paperback and, soon, as an ebook at Amazon.com. If you’re ready to dive into the deep end, here’s your chance.

Buy the Book

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Journey, quest, crusade—these words permeate the vocabulary of most fantasy writers.

I’ll admit I’ve thrown around such metaphors with abandon in the past. Yet I don’t believe it to be hyperbolic when I call my recent experiences at Midwinter Gaming Convention a bona fide adventure.

For those not in the know, Midwinter Gaming Convention is an annual gathering of board game and tabletop roleplaying game (TTRGP) enthusiasts formerly held in Milwaukee but, as of this year, in Pewaukee, Wisconsin. The con was held from Jan. 11 to 14.

While I’ve visited gaming conventions as an attendee over the years, including Gen Con (aka The Big One), I never ran games, let alone my own games, at them before. Neither had I tried to sell my books at any. Up until Midwinter Gaming Convention 2024, gaming events were always “just for fun.”

So this was a big step for me, but something new, in itself, didn’t earn the title of Adventure. Let’s take it definition by definition:

An undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks

“Danger” might be an overstatement, though the blizzardy weather in the forecast certainly cemented our decision to arrive at the venue as early as possible. As for “unknown risks,” well, there was a fair measure of those.

Prior to this past weekend, I had never run a TTRPG for people I didn’t know—or, at least, players who were family members of folks I knew. Simply put, Midwinter Gaming Convention was the first time I ran my game, The Curse of Er’Mah’Gerd, for strangers.

I’d be lying if I said the idea didn’t induce some anxiety. What if I flopped? What if I forgot something important? What if the game simply wasn’t fun? Insecurities can plague a protagonist as brutally as a battalion of minotaurs.

But I knew exposing players to my game was a crucial tactic to drum up interest and to convey credibility to the booth carrying it. Time to banish the nerves and welcome a wider audience into the pun-populated world of Mezzo-Earth.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

An exciting or remarkable experience

Of all the definitions of the word “adventure,” this one takes the prize. I’m delighted to report that everyone who played in the four sessions I ran had a good time. Heck, some had a great time, giggling into their character sheets before the game even started. One guy played twice!

Better yet, I had a wonderful time watching how each player interpreted Sir/Lady Larpsalot, Elvish Presley, Tom Foolery and the rest of Good Company. Seeing how disparate groups tackle the same trials in such different ways never ceases to amaze me.

Here are a few other highlights of my exciting, remarkable time at Midwinter Gaming Convention—from the table to the booth:

Meeting so many interesting people who share a passion for imagination and play.Getting to know my neighbors in the Exhibit Hall, fellow game makers Void Gate Games and Point of Insanity Game Studio.Receiving compliments on my maps, miniatures, and the other accoutrements I brought to my gaming sessions.Chatting with a “foxy” representative of Goodman Games, for which I’ve freelanced as a writer and editor over the years.Connecting with the owner of my local hobby shop—the one I’ve frequented as far back as when I was a teenager—and getting a few copies into his hands and, soon enough, into the store.Coming together with the rest of the conventiongoers when the wintry weather caused the venue to lose all but emergency power for 17 hours.Spending four unforgettable days with my booth babe/business partner of a wife.

But wait. There’s a third and final definition to explore…

An enterprise involving financial risk

Ah, yes, money. Sometimes the heroes in fantasy stories have patrons funding their forays—or perhaps the promise of treasure propels them forward in their quests.

Making the leap from being a novelist at a book event to a game writer at a con required considerable investments of both time and money, including the design and purchase of QR-coded cards, two pullup banners, and boxes of extra inventory.

And that was just for the booth.

Not wanting to skimp on the player experience, I ordered custom miniatures for the PCs, printed out my maps on durable formats, and bought extra dice, pencils, and notepads in case people showed up empty-handed. I even had to buy some ink cartridges to print out player handouts, which we all know costs a dragon’s hoard.

Sales were decent. Sure, they might have been better without the blizzard and the blackout caused by that same force of nature. Yet traditional commerce is just one form of value. As mentioned above, I made great gains in the realm of networking and real-world experience points. After all, the journey is just as important as the destination—maybe more so.

I suspect my future cons won’t be as memorable as my first. Then again, whenever one ventures outside the proverbial comfort zone, the door to unexpected possibilities swings wide open.

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