Survival of the Fittest (poem)

I could tell a desperation blew through Tom Bombadil’s beard
When first the wilderness said to sleep.
It said, We have no place for you, even though–even even though
He was the Speaker for the Glade, and the Way Things Were.

No more

The nature of things
The dourbark and the deadwood, the ent, dryad, and huorn,
What whistling wind wended its way about
Wan willow and winnowed whim,
A living will-o’-the-wisp what pulled Goldberry through
Hells she never spoke. His betrayal was complete, when
First the wilderness said to sleep.

His truths be shown, when touched the corona of gold,
Danced light among sunbeam, knowing full well the depth
Of cold murderous death. Sméagol’s first name was Cain.
It did not affect the wild thing in guise of man.
The river stones were so deep, when first
The wilderness said to sleep.

Everfree, not deciduous, I hold onto the season with a prayer
And who knows what Tolkien wondered when he sang the dead-
Songs to his child, who went to war when the war was won.
What world it was to survive the end, only to see the end again.
It is a promise to speak, when oak is made meek, when first the
Wilderness sang me to sleep.

Poetry is Easy (Poem)

Poetry is easy:
Write something, but make it about something else.

Poetry is easy:
Write something, but make it about exactly that.

Poetry is
Easy:
Write space white like paint in a can
(She always said: Happiness Writes White)
Shake

Poetry
Is easy: just write hard. Thought the cry out
Mix and jumble and Capitalize the important stuff
(Andmakeitallimportant). Periods like tears, commas like staggered breathing,
And make that one line way longer
Because, damn, how could it not?

Lawnmower in Long Sleeves (Poem)

If you go far enough back in my life’s tree,
You’ll see with each home I inhabited, I mowed.
Eight years old, pushing ol’ gassy up 83 degree hills
In cutoff t-shirts and 10 bucks a pop. Sweat on a promise:
Bag it in the front. Don’t mind about the back. Acorns
Popped like sling stones against my ankle. Cicadas ground
To paste. From the ground we grow, and to the ground we return.
I strung up a hammock between two trees and drank lemonade,
The dryads cultivating mushrooms. That old oak still grows
Thick with children.

I was a late mover-outer, Millennial with a trench coat (before
Columbine; before Matrix.) with that wan tinny I’m taking it back
Smirk as a twisted boy, I would mow like a minesweeper
In sandals and socks while mom worried I’d cut my toes off–
Bradley, Tom’s neighbor did that. Big toe off, pop, but I never
Saw him sway while standing: maybe he didn’t need it that much.
He never played basketball in the dark again. The ravages of war.

The Future of Tabletop Storytelling

(The map of a puzzle house I’m currently running friends through as a one-shot, used both physically and virtually)

If you know me, you know my love for storytelling and creativity knows no bounds. I spend most of my free time worldbuilding, planning, writing, and researching. It’s no surprise I have a BA in Rhetoric, Writing, and Research and an MA in English Composition. I’ve been dwelling in a tabletop gaming space for a while now (see previous posts haha), and I’ve consumed a LOT of information from casual gamers to number crunchers to game developers. I have recognized two very important subsets of gamers: those who believe the tabletop games we know and love should be played online through Virtual Tabletops (VTTs) and those who feel the core point of playing a tabletop game is to play physically, with friends, around a table. Let’s break down the pros and cons of these philosophies.

Sanderson Called an Audible

As an author, I always seem to get paid in “Exposure.”

I’ve never liked Audible as a company: it nebulously tells a writer what they get paid based off credits or cash payment or whatever, they pay out painfully little in return for the product a writer creates for their platform, and they have cornered the audiobook industry for nearly two decades. They also have 63% of the market share (as of 2022), which makes them a monopoly. Invisible hand? My butt.

So when I heard that the good man Brandon Sanderson decided to pick up the fight for the little guy by firmly requesting a more equitable share and clarity of payment for writers who utilize Audible’s marketplace, my ears perked up. For anyone who doesn’t know, Sanderson is an incredible fantasy writer that has enthralled readers for decades, partially because of his character development, but more often because of his magic system development. He takes an almost algorithmic approach to it, and he’s brilliant.

How did he pick up the fight? He looked at his quarterly earnings through Audible, was frustrated by the labyrinthine data that seemed to hint at what he made, and asked if everyone’s earnings were so difficult to understand. Audible said, whoops, let’s fix that for YOU (because Sanderson makes millions from his writing), and Sanderson extended the whole concept out to a full request: Well, if you can do it for me, do it for everyone. Audible balked, gave a nebulous reply, and hoped Sanderson would go on his way. He didn’t. In fact, even though they’ve been working together for years and Sanderson’s works were Audible Exclusives, Sanderson decided to take his work off the Audible marketplace and sell elsewhere.

This would mean a cut to Sanderson’s sales, and therefore an even bigger cut to Audible’s sales, and Sanderson risked losing a lot of first-time listeners (readers) to this decision. And Audible listened. It promised a higher payout to authors, and promised to be clear on where all the money goes for purchases of an Author’s work. Win/win.

Not a huge thing to write about. I thought it was pretty awesome. I don’t get to see a lot of positives in the publishing world, so when I do, I want to share it.

As a side note, I will likely be improving on this website moving forward: I have some audiobook projects of my own right now, and as sooooon as I secure cover art, I will start self-publishing some of my own works. If you want to see a lineup, my unpublished book list is cheisserer.webflow.io. Go check it out!

Chris

From Book to Table: 11 Types of TTRPG Players

(This image has VERY LITTLE to do with the article, though it provided insight while I was a Keeper)

I almost decided against writing this because so many more experienced DMs/GMs/Keepers (D&D Shorts/Dungeon Dudes/Matthew Colville) have spoken so eloquently about this. But as a novelist converting a novel into a game, I feel it’s integral to recognize how others will interact to your work-as-a-TableTop game from my perspective and not the perspective of a native DM/GM/Keeper. If you want pure game tips, click those links–especially Matt Colville’s–as he’s both a writer and a game developer (dev), and I highly respect his work.

From Book to Table: What TTRPG Works Best?

What TTRPG Works Best?

So you have an amazing novel/heist/short story you want to share with your friends. You’ve decided you want to play it out with them because… well… it’s your baby and no one knows how to navigate the story better than you. You feel it shouldn’t be *that* hard, but you’re kind of on the fence as to where to go next. Never fear, adventurous writer! You’re in the right place.

Here are the steps any writer must take in order to adapt a story into an already-built TTRPG.

From Book to Table: Creating a 5e Supplement or Campaign

When your hippy typewriter breaks.

I’ve been a little light on the employment of late. Having just graduated with a Masters in English and Rhetoric from JAXState, my daily dose of applications have kept my nose down and hopes up. While I work to find work, on the other hand, I’ve been watching up on the veritable explosion of third party modules and campaigns found both within the 5e setting and without. While I’m not currently able or willing to put time or energy into developing my own TTRPG–whuff–I have the solid foundation for creating my own content. My own module.

Here’s how I’m going to do it.

From Book to Table: Converting a Novel to a Tabletop Game

iStock photo *Cuz I’m a poor English Boy Without a Ko-Fi

I haven’t been here much in the recent past; partially because I’ve been novel-writing, and partially because the long COVID season (2+ years?) has left me a little breathless and overwhelmed. Finally, I picked up a Masters in English during my downtime. Woot? I’ll post something about my current projects soon.

So. One of the Massive projects I recently undertook was the conversion of a favorite novel to a D&D campaign, as I felt inspired by an amazing friend group who play legendary campaigns. For those who don’t know, Dungeons and Dragons is a highly successful (and highly controversial) gaming system that evolved out of 1980’s tabletop. It’s currently in its 5th edition, with a 6th soon to be out (2024). It’s rife with backgrounds, lore, deities, character classes, subclasses, “races” (or ancestries), and all manner of creative freedoms. For the purpose of this post, I’ll use D&D as the Tabletop Role Playing Game (TTRPG) of choice.

But like a lot of new D&D players (and Pathfinder, for that matter), there’s an overwhelming amount of world (and multiverse/multiplane)-building involved. I don’t have time, energy, OR ability to memorize and study all of this information. Like many who came before me (Critical Role anyone?), I chose to build my own path and convert my beautiful, wild world of Lorcalon to fit the narrative needs of a group gameplay campaign.

The question is! How?

For all those who recently got into it–or those who have played for years but want to know more about how others do it–this post is for you.

Hush, Hush (Poem)

I am a fox. I eat the snow.
The endowment of a warped forest
What steams humid in the deep
Deep winter. Salt dust like shepherd’s tears

You never had patience for that.
Crystal stream-looks and stolen-throat dreams
Tattoos of fish dances, bullets
Coffee against foggy windowpanes:

I am forgotten. I sleep wild.
Crepuscular. Duskrogue. Furred Loki.
You sandman, stole fast my two hearts
Away on grass-shod, grainy plains green

Hung like heartfruit strung high upon
Pine boughs, drip-red and pulp, cosmic.
One heart my fractal fae, one my
Fragmented faith. I wake in fern blades.

I wake in gray. I eat the snow.
I cannot hunt for what-I-once-was.
Sunset speakers trill the night-song
Twilight makers, their clay biceps taut

Haul dewy stars through falling black
Leave no prints in fresh powder, my white
Tails beneath ethereal feet–
You saw me once, a long time ago

But you had no time for that. You
Had gems, had stones, had cake to study
And I, end-day hunter, seldom
Crossed your path. You saw me in the stream

In the eddying pool where deep
Water grows, you saw me reflected
Shallow prowler, playing in words.
I eat the snow, the ink beneath. You,

Guest in this forest, fresh from your
Concrete and glass, iron and brass. Take
Me in your pocket, take me in
Your jaws, watch me pad down kept lawns

See me through grocery-store glass.
A long time ago, I would have gone
Cold, a long time ago, I would
Have gone blind. I walk slow, hunt finches.

Hunt redbirds, race fieldmice, outrun
Other soft-padded winter hunters.
The fruit in my chest grows thick. Fig
And apple. Not native to this vale.

I stole the souls of six stories
Slid their clean bones between brick and stone
Shored up the cellars, dried the words
Saved to season a season away.

I think, I think, if you were to
Skin me, else shear my harefur like sheep
You’d see a wilding path, a map,
An impossibility. I am

A fox. I eat the snow and ink.