A new short-form, spoken-word piece released every Tuesday and Thursday. Books produced in a similar fashion, but at a slower rate. Branding, content creation and training/coaching for a handful of magnificent clients. I am always writing, writing, writing.
And probably the best one to date.
Those boys at the Roundtable Podcast do it up right. Just listen to Dave’s intro. I wasn’t kidding when I said it turned my whole day around. Best of all, they crammed it all into 20 minutes.
http://www.roundtablepodcast.com/2013/03/20-minutes-with-patrick-e-mclean/
Brian Michael Bendis, a writer who is so talented and productive he needs two first names, described the secret of his productivity like this.
I don’t drink and I don’t play video games.
A new good words (right order) screenbook to help the world be a clearer, more succinct place.
You know what’s nice? A steak seared in a good cast iron pan. Especially when it’s cold and windy outside and the grill is iced over.
You what’s not so nice? A kitchen filled with smoke and hot aerosolized grease. I’ve never really had a good exhaust hood. And now, I’ve got one of those downdraft fans in the center of my range. Useless, I tell you. Useless.
Until now.
Because we do things like reason and use language and make digital watches, we like to think of ourselves as very complex and enlightened creatures. It’s vanity. And I believe it’s totally unjustified. We’re really very, very simple creatures (with pretty specific limitations) who like to trick ourselves into thinking that we’re not. We often overlook the obvious things and pass up the simple truth in favor of a more complex falsehood. Like the Mayan Apocalypse.
I’ve been feeling trapped by success. And by that I mean, I have a lot of cool projects and great things going on in my life right now, which means that I have a lot I have to do. "Have to," can feel like it is in direct opposition to creativity and exploration. If I don’t have adequate time for just messing around, I start to get antsy.
Two weeks ago, I flew to Newport Beach and locked myself in a room with the rest of the Wasteland 2 design team. In this room was a three foot high copy of the complete game script, parts of which each person in the room had been writing for the last three months[1]. To give you an idea of how much material this really is, a movie script is an inch, maybe two at the most. To say that Wasteland 2 is going to be deep and interactive is an understatement.
I’d like to say that the meteoric rise of this anthology was due to the fact that one of my stories is in it, but I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. Here’s the complete list of authors. It’s quite a cast and I’m flattered to have been asked.
Story is tremendously important in any game. If I don’t understand what’s at stake and why I should keep playing, it’s hard to get sucked in. Even Angry Birds (about as story-less of a game as I can imagine) has a very primal story at it’s core. It’s right in the title. The pigs stole the birds eggs (their kids!) so they are pissed. Everybody gets that.
That’s right, if you want How to Succeed in Evil on Kindle, it’s free all weekend. Tell your friends. Tell your enemies. Tell people you don’t even know. Get it right here.