2022 is off to a productive start so far as I try to juggle a bunch of different writing projects. Here’s what I hope to do in the first half of the year:
Finish Guild of Magic by the end of March
Finish a first draft of my comic issue 1 by the end of March
Finish the middle grade adventure book I’m writing with my daughter by the end of March
Launch the Guild of Magic Kickstarter in late spring
Top secret project!
I know that's a lot to tackle, but I'm up for the challenge!
On top of that, I’ll be launching a new regular feature here on ARC Worlds. Back in his Page 2 days, Bill Simmons used to do a feature called "The Curious Guy," where he would trade emails with someone successful and ask them questions. 20 years later I have independently come up with the same idea!
But I need your help coming up with a name! Click the tweet below to vote in the Twitter poll (or post a comment on this post) and be on the lookout for the first interview next week!
And now, on to the links!
Teh Internet
The world moves fast in Internet time. Since the last monthly round-up, the word game Wordle has exploded across the Internet, leading to its acquisition yesterday by the New York Times in a seven-figure deal. Guessing it has something to do with my fail-proof Wordle strategies.
RIP Bob Saget. The drummer of my favorite band (Guster) shares this amazing Bob Saget story:
Cats will fight the wars of the future:
We don’t talk about Bruno
Unless you’ve been living under a rock or not living with a child during the past month, you no doubt have heard the now no. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100, We Don’t Talk About Bruno, from Disney’s Encanto. The song is that rare combination of catchiness, amazing lyrics, and fun and I promise you won’t go crazy listening to it.
Howard Ho breaks down the secrets of the song on his YouTube channel:
Lin-Manuel Miranda is just an O(scar) away from becoming the latest person to EGOT. He was previously nominated for an Oscar for Moana’s How Far I’ll Go, losing to La La Land’s City of Stars, a result that will history will not look back kindly at. However, if he’s nominated and wins, it won’t be for this song. Because the Oscar submissions were due November 1, before the movie was even released, Disney submitted the movie-ending ballad Dos Oruguitas instead.
How Disney storyboarded the song’s choreography:
The song works in any language!
You get to look for metal things lying around, while I have to decode a completely alien language without any information about how they think or what they might be writing about. Yeah, that's a fair division of labor.
Steven Spielberg’s first foray into video games ended up turning into the LucasArts game with the longest development. Still, The Dig was unlike any of the company’s other games, departing from the humorous adventures of Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion for a sci-fi expedition on an alien world. Instead of using a chicken with a pulley to traverse a ravine, there were logic puzzles, music puzzles, machine reconstruction puzzles, and more, all set on an eerily abandoned world. And whatever you do, make sure you listen to Maggie.
Once again, Jimmy Maher is doing the yeoman’s work of chronicling game development, which cycled through many iterations and project leads before Sean Clark brought the title to market.
Interview with Sean Clark, project leader of The Dig
I dug deep into the bowels of the Internet to bring you this fresh anecdote: Steven Spielberg loves Day of the Tentacle (which will be featured next month):
This Month on ARC Worlds
Guild of Tokens, Chapters 14-22
Guild of Magic, Chapters 6-7
Thanks to my misadventures in counting, you get an extra Guild of Magic chapter this month.
As a reminder, weekly Guild of Magic chapters are available for paid Guild members, but I will be unlocking one free chapter each month for everyone and including the link in this section so you won’t have to go hunting through the archive. Also, going forward, you’ll receive the monthly unlocked chapter in its own email on the third Wednesday every month.
Part 1 of the new Building a Readership series, From 0 to 1 Martian, went live last week. In this series, I’ll be examining how authors/creators find their fans in the current publishing era.
I gave a behind-the-scenes look at how Felix Ortiz created the amazing special edition cover of Guild of Tokens. And, if you’re a paid subscriber, you got an exclusive sneak peek at the cover illustration for book 2, Guild of Magic.
Stop by the monthly Guild open thread to introduce yourself and let us know what you’re reading or watching! I’ll be posting a new open thread the second week of the month to give you a breakdown of what’s coming your way.
ARC Worlds in the press
Rachel from The Shades of Orange BookTube Channel recommended her favorite fantasy audiobooks, and I was blown away that Guild of Tokens was chosen alongside Neil friggin’ Gaiman and Brandon Sanderson.
I'm quoted in Jackie Dana’s article on Substack in this month’s issue of Indie Author Magazine!
Looking for more stuff to read?
The Fantasy Adventures Bookfunnel promo is now live through February 15. Over 50 fantasy stories for your perusal.
The Sample is a newsletter recommendation engine that will send you a sampling of newsletters customized to your interests (and some random ones to boot).
That’s a wrap for this month’s ARC Worlds! Let me know in the comments which links you enjoyed, which video game series you want to see featured in the future, and drop your own best reads of the month!