The Spectrum Rider
First Post
I am very pleased to be able to announce that Dragon #321 (which I got in the mail today) contains, not one, but *two* articles by little ol' me. I won't mention their titles - you'll be able to recognize them because they're matched to my screen name.
Of course, I'm extremely happy they accepted my work, and excited to see it in print. There are all sorts of obvious reasons to enjoy getting published, but some unobvious ones as well. One thing that's fun is when somebody - a professional, who you never met - illustrates your article, and you get to see somebody else's visual image of your stuff. It was also a strange thrill to see my name in the Coming Attractions section of #320 - there's something so official about it, like being in an index. (I was in the index of a book once, and it was almost more fun than being in the book itself.)
I have to admit that they did a certain amount of editing. Like most authors, I would of course prefer that not one letter or comma of my writing be altered in any way - but in truth, I have no real complaints. A lot of the editing was for simplicity - cutting down on the number of dice rolls needed, the variety of certain effects, and so on. There's also a tendency to make new things more like existing things, using exisiting mechanisms and formulae. But this is all perfectly understandable, and I liked the way the articles came out.
The glimmerfolk turned out a little more fey/elvish than they were in my draft. And they left out a monster called the spectrum leaper (and the disease it spreads, called "glowing pains"), and a highly flavorful spell called walk into radiance (analogous to shadow walk). Space constraints, no doubt. If people are interested, I'll post them here.
And if any of you fine people here on EN World have any comments about the articles, I'd be happy to hear them.
These are not the first articles I've had in Dragon Magazine. In #109, May 1986, I had an article describing two new character races, the half-satyr and the half-dryad. Look for me again in another 18 years! (Or hopefully sooner.)
The Spectrum Rider
Of course, I'm extremely happy they accepted my work, and excited to see it in print. There are all sorts of obvious reasons to enjoy getting published, but some unobvious ones as well. One thing that's fun is when somebody - a professional, who you never met - illustrates your article, and you get to see somebody else's visual image of your stuff. It was also a strange thrill to see my name in the Coming Attractions section of #320 - there's something so official about it, like being in an index. (I was in the index of a book once, and it was almost more fun than being in the book itself.)
I have to admit that they did a certain amount of editing. Like most authors, I would of course prefer that not one letter or comma of my writing be altered in any way - but in truth, I have no real complaints. A lot of the editing was for simplicity - cutting down on the number of dice rolls needed, the variety of certain effects, and so on. There's also a tendency to make new things more like existing things, using exisiting mechanisms and formulae. But this is all perfectly understandable, and I liked the way the articles came out.
The glimmerfolk turned out a little more fey/elvish than they were in my draft. And they left out a monster called the spectrum leaper (and the disease it spreads, called "glowing pains"), and a highly flavorful spell called walk into radiance (analogous to shadow walk). Space constraints, no doubt. If people are interested, I'll post them here.
And if any of you fine people here on EN World have any comments about the articles, I'd be happy to hear them.
These are not the first articles I've had in Dragon Magazine. In #109, May 1986, I had an article describing two new character races, the half-satyr and the half-dryad. Look for me again in another 18 years! (Or hopefully sooner.)
The Spectrum Rider
