We take a break from G.I. Joe’s Dr. Mindbender to bring you some shameless self-promotion!

Back in 4th grade at Oak Terrace Elementary (those glorious “80’s kids on bikes” days), our teacher ran a class writing contest. We all had journals to turn in every week, and if you completed the minimum required entry, Ms. Rubenstein gave you a sticker on the big poster board showing your progress.

However, if you wrote extra entries—fiction, non-fiction, whatever—you earned even more stickers. And whoever had the most stickers at the end of the contest won… some unspecified prize.

I didn’t care about the prize. As a kid who sure as hell wasn’t going to win any athletic competitions, and who had just gotten deep into Dungeons & Dragons and fantasy, I was all in!

Near the end of the year, it was neck-and-neck between me and another kid (Shannon? I think? Sorry, Shannon.) when I turned in a 20-chapter “high fantasy epic”. Basically a recap of D&D sessions (real or imagined), my story involved Eric the Knight1 and his many adventures fighting monsters. It was… a big, sloppy mess. But I was immensely proud of it, doubly so when it ended up helping me win the contest (tough loss, Shannon!).2

The unspecified prize ended up being a G.I. Joe toy (the Polar Battle Bear skimobile), which Ms. Rubenstein had clearly spent time picking out for the individual winner and buying with her own money. When she asked if I already had one (I did), I was savvy enough to lie and explain that I used to have one, that it was a favorite of mine but I lost it that winter in the snow. (More storytelling! Finding the right story for my audience!).

Are you really skimobiling without twin 55mm laser cannons or heat-seeking “Rampage” rockets? Doubtful!

Somehow, Ms. Rubenstein also managed to bring in a freelance editor to work with me on my story. We met in the library for a few weeks during silent reading, and I remember the editor being extremely patient… and my own frustration at not having the right vocabulary for the fully realized story I wanted to tell. (Struggles with editing!)

In one scene for example, I wanted Eric the Knight to use his staff to pole-vault out of danger, but I just couldn’t grasp the right phrasing. I didn’t know the term “pole-vault” even though I’d seen it done on TV.3

Before the school year ended, Ms. Rubenstein offered me the opportunity to read a few chapters of my story to the rest of the class. I… declined. To be honest, I would have pole-vaulted straight through the window to get out of that offer. It was too embarrassing to read anything in front of the class, much less my own story! Couldn’t I just turn it in quietly and earn stickers? I ended up going back to the library while Ms. Rubenstein read it to the class instead. (Fear of readers! Fear of self promotion! Look at all these things I was learning as a writer.)

This is right about where I usually add this little, blue button. Please consider becoming a regular subscriber!

I’ve been involved in creating content—writing, editing, or otherwise producing—for almost the whole of my professional career (except for a couple of years teaching abroad in the Peace Corps, and even that involved teaching English). This has been mainly in the gaming industry, both for digital games (starting with Microsoft/Xbox) as well as tabletop (with a nearly 20-year stretch at Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast), and included work on Magic: the Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons, and other brands—even, thankfully, G.I. Joe.

And what do I enjoy most after a long day at work?

More writing!

Bolted to the Bone

I’ve always been a “hobby writer,” which I feel is a perfect term for me; and while I continue to write in my spare time in order to do something with all these story ideas running around my head, it’s also time to finally do something with a story I’ve actually finished.

Bolted to the Bone is now available for preorder (on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, and Kobo) as well as an ARC on NetGalley (but hell, interested in an ARC? Just hit me up directly.). Release date is set for November 1.

Even Eric the Knight needed help and support from my teacher and editor, and it’s no different now. Bolted to the Bone has benefitted greatly from contributions from fellow Substackers—including interior illustrations from (damn it was thrilling to see my characters appear in ink!) and cartography (what’s a fantasy story without a great fantasy map?).

The cover art comes from Lucas Korte. If you’ve played the OSR/TRPG Shadowdark, you’re already familiar with his work. Lucas created it’s distinctive monstrous cover (which you can view right here)!

The title, Bolted to the Bone, refers to the wandering knights-errant of the world: “saints” so committed to their cause that their armor is literally—you guessed it—bolted to their bodies. Originally, the thought was to have the saints earn individual pieces of armor throughout their quests, until I watched this same execution handled in The Mandalorian. (Someday I’ll have to write here about handling multiple discovery.)

The cover depicts more the theme and tone of the story than an actual scene. That said, one of the inciting incidents does involve a monster, a hydra who grows new heads in the likeness of whatever prey it eats, which the cover looks to reference.

The composition is also meant to recall something of the 1st edition D&D Monster Manual and its various “tiers”—the sky, ground, and what lies beneath. All of which applies to Bolted to the Bone as well—above the knight, for example, you can see where a panel of the artificial sky has fallen out, revealing the stars above…

Ultimately, I’m still writing about knights and monsters. And while there’s no skimobile in the book, there is a polar bear… of sorts.

Maybe after all these years I haven’t moved on from 4th grade and Ms. Rubenstein’s class (I may have grown a bit taller, but am still very much fearful of a live audience. The Dragon+ Dungeons & Doodles livestream I ran was an absolute terror.).

Then again, knights, monsters, quests and adventures… with added Celtic legend and lore—what’s not to love?

There’s plenty I’ve learned already about self-publishing in the process, and still have so much more to discover. I look forward to sharing my own experiences, and I greatly appreciate whatever lessons, advice, and cautions that folks may have to share with me as well (writing back of cover copy! Navigating Atticus!). Please reach out (right here, or at contact.bartcarroll@gmail.com).

In any case, thanks for your time here and I hope you enjoy the cover!

Next time: We (probably) return to our consideration of Dr. Mindbender. While he might not be a successful example, there are better ways to explore the “evil scientist” trope.

Thanks for reading Curious Figures! This post is public so feel free to share it.

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1

Not the most exciting of fantasy names. I must have been studying Vikings/Eric the Red at the time. Later in the story, he was joined by a companion named Crow, blatantly stolen from that inimitable fantasy classic, Hawk the Slayer.

2

The next year, my younger sister was in the same class. Murder She Wrote was a big hit at the time, and so she created Murder She Typed stories in her own journal—and took the time to add typewriter-esque serifs to all of her lettering!

3

In the end, instead of gloriously pole-vaulting out of danger, Eric merely “dropped his staff to the ground” and ran away.