Ghoulies and ghosties and October
Kij Johnson's newletter: Why is a raven like a writing desk? • Buttondown
Kij Johnson writes award-winning fantasy and science fiction, and has just returned to tabletop roleplaying games as a designer, writer, and editor. She talks about her work, animals and animal intelligence, books and movies, esthetics...uh, how many words do I have here? Join me for a monthly accumulation of news about my life, as well as my writing, publications, appearances, and plans. Why is a raven like a writing desk?...is the riddle that Humpty Dumpty asks Alice in Wonderland. He doesn’t ...
For the last three days, it has rained steadily, as though the weather is trying to make up for the drought of the last little while. I live in a rental (albeit a pleasant one), so I worry a bit about leaks in the basement, but I am mostly just grateful to see gray skies again and wear fuzzy things. Winter is still my favorite season, and these are hints that it is coming.
October had a lot going on. I visited my mother and found her contentedly pootling along, working on fiendish jigsaw puzzles and visiting used bookstores in the region every chance she gets. She turns 90 this week. I also worked a lot on projects, signed a contract(!), and started to clear out my office at the university, since my time there ends in the spring.
I eventually finished reading the thirty-plus Miss Silver novels by Patricia Wentworth, the complete binge of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the Very Long Scarf, all pretty much simultaneously. I hadn’t watched ST:TNG in a long time, and I was curious about how well it would hold up. Some episodes are eyerollingly bad, but then something amazing would air and I would find myself once again eager to keep watching. Intermittent conditioning really is the strongest conditioning.
Can you really call something a binge when it goes on for months? Maybe “bender” is more accurate?
My real news is that we signed a contract for my roleplaying game! The official reveal will be in March, but I can tell you it will be with Kobold Press and that I am working on it with great delight. Writing for a roleplaying game is a bit like translation, I think. High art can happen, though all too often it does not, as they require more than one skillset that don’t necessarily synch up. In a game, the responsibility of conveying the world and its rules pushes against the flights of language I love so much. I am luckier than almost anyone doing this work, because I am designing it myself from the ground up, and that means the art can be baked in from the beginning, as it were.
Anyway, this is my dance card:
Publications
China Editora just sent me the cover for Al final de un río de abejas, a Spanish translation of my short fiction for the Argentinian market. It’s out next month.
Sales & Contracts
The RPG is now officially on contract! We signed a week ago, and since then I have been awash in playtests, meetings with various folks, reviewing artists, and the like. I need to talk to Kobold’s owner and find out what I can talk about here, but I will be spilling more beans behind the wall on my Patreon, because that’s technically private?
Patreon
I have accrued another Patreon, bringing me to 103. One or two up or down isn’t statistically meaningful, but it always means something to me! https://www.patreon.com/kijjohnson
Workshops & classes
Ad Astra has finalised our dates for next summer’s workshops. Chris McKitterick’s (https://christopher-mckitterick.com/) short fiction workshop will be 6/15–28, and my Novel Architects workshop with Barbara Webb (https://buttondown.com/bjwebb) will be 6/29–7/12. Expect details here and on my website in January.
Projects in progress
The American Tour is still in limbo, waiting to hear from a UK publisher about whether they are interested. If they are not, then I will need to go to Plan M as soon as I figure out what Plan M is. (Hardison does not die in my Plan M.)
New TTRPG [designer] is not waiting for a contract, as I said. We are talking about a Kickstarter launch in May, and that means I have, um, 70k or more words to write in the next six months. And this is going to be quite research heavy...my favorite kind of writing.
Mystery Flesh Pit National Park: The RPG [editor] is still due late this year or early next. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ganzagaming/the-mystery-flesh-pit-national-park-rpg/posts
Dreamland RPG [writer and editor] is scheduled now to launch on Kickstarter early next year, I think; details as I get them. https://www.dreamrpg.com/
Kobold Press TTRPG project [editor] is almost done. I send it back at the end of this week, I expect. The project will be published early next year.
And that’s this month. Hang in there, everyone. Take care and stay kind. Kij