New Project?

For a long time, I have enjoyed playing a tabletop RPG called Shadowrun created by Catalyst Game Lab. It a cyberpunk meets Dungeons & Dragons, meaning if you want you can play an elf that has so much cybernetics they're practically a robot or a human that can fling fireballs and call up spirits to do their bidding. It's fun, exciting, and I have had a character die twice (Had to permanently spend an edge point both times to keep that from happening but totally worth it!) I confess that I've only played the game when my husband was running it, but I've always had fun strapping on my Colt Manhunters, cybering up my elf, and taking to the mean shadows of the Sixth World on Mr. Johnson's NuYen.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that there were novels based in this world of science and sorcery, some stand alone and some in trilogies. My husband has quite a few of them to go along with his two shelves of Shadowrun gaming books. Here, I could return to the cold streets of Seattle whenever I wanted or follow someone into any other dangerous pit of scum and villainy.

Back when I started playing, it seemed like a lot of the campaign books seemed to focus on the West Coast, the West, or the South but not too many in the North. And me being the imaginative person in love with the setting had two little words whispered in my ear.

What If.

Dangerous words, yes, but the basis of so many delightful story beginnings.

What if I wrote a novel in this corporate controlled landscape, creating my own team of Runners, and perhaps fleshing out a little used area to enjoy on my own terms?

So, this past week, I started seeing about making this a reality. I sat down with paper and pen and started fleshing out what had been a small story. Another author, R. L. King, was polite enough to give me the basics of what Catalyst Game Labs wanted in one of their novels when I asked, and I was even offered the professional e-mail address to the gentleman in charge of novels for the company. Yesterday, while doing my best to ignore the increasing cloud cover, I sat down at my computer with all of my notes, and I wrote this gentleman an inquiry to see if he would be interested in my novel idea. When putting my story together, I raided my husband's source books on Shadowrun because I found out that a couple of them had information on the area I was looking at. One book only had half a page while the other had an entire chapter dedicated to Boston in the Shadowrun world. I hoped that the plot I outlined in my inquiry would be just as attractive to him as it was when I started writing it.

Now, I sit and wait for a response back. I hope that Catalyst Game Labs will find my story intriguing and will take a chance on a relative nobody to let me write my little novel, indulging in my self delight in doing two firsts for me: Writing a novel based on a game, and writing a novel from a first person point of view. Both will let me stretch my wings a bit more as a writer, and I'll be able to share this incredibly fascinating world with people who might decide to take a chance because they enjoyed the other stories I wrote. I'll keep everyone updated as I get any information, but until then...

See ya in the Shadows, Chummer....