Dungeonmaster to Novelist

I was once a creative Dungeon Master who developed my own milieus in that old tabletop roleplaying game which was popular back in the 80s - Dungeons and Dragons. I realise now that the skills involved in being a Dungeon master ruling over players, creatures and milieu alike was perfect training to be a novelist. Maybe a successful novelist.
Today gamers don't have the interaction they once had. Most games seem to be restricted to a few favourite milieus which the Dungeon Master no longer personally creates for the players. How many DMs actually modify their milieu to tease and torment their players? How many create their own maps, traps and creatures from scratch? My guess is that few now do.
If you long to create your own millieu and adventure within it with your friends - there is still no replacement for D&D. A set of dice, some graph pages, a map, a pencil and imagination and maybe a few other people is all you need to create something entirely new, progressive from moment to moment and interactive to a degree which computer generated games and internet generated games can merely hint at.
Writing a novel has the same level of excitement and creativity - a seriously good thing.
It was and is kind of sad that more milieus have not been utilised by D&D gamers - there's plenty of scope for Christian milieus - with the Soldiers of God hunting down and destroying the angels of darkness, Hospital adventures, Local neighbourhood adventures, Sci Fi adventures, hunting animals and humans through Africa or Asia, or in NYC; instead of a perpetual presentation of opponents from the monster manuals - undead and orcs - who do not interact and are simply disposed of as rapidly as possible in a maze or invented planet or continent - often imitated from some other person's creative vision.
While many pleasant hours may be had online adventuring - the player is trapped within the parameters of the set milieu offered by the game. There is no scope to go beyond into pure creative action and reaction.
If you as a player want to attempt something oddball like paragliding in a medieval war setting - well you just can't do it in an electronic setting - it has no flexibility or creativity. Whereas if you were in MY game and you as a player wanted to paraglide, hell, I wasn't going to stop you. But you would have to develop your glider, build it, fight off the wolves and natives and convince your group that it was a good thing. And then fly it. No problem. I LIKED my players to come up with new ideas. You wanna go to sleep in that room? Sure - you are going off on your own down that corridor cause no one else wants to go there? Excellent!
It is true young gamers do not necessarily have the breadth of vision, patience and creativity that a novelist develops - but a background of gaming and the creativity that pure old fashioned D&D offers will stand a novelist in good stead.
I've discovered that much.

Amazon $2 surcharge for The Rest of the World - Solution!

A suggestion for indie authors and readers who find Amazon charging that extra $2 surcharge for foreign readers is hurting you or your readers.

Check out other sales venues which do not charge Amazon's mysterious mean surcharge. Smashwords.com, or www.xinxii.com as examples. If your fave author has no books for sale there, directly ASK the author to consider listing their book there as well as on Amazon.
These sites are good for adding to your sales - indie authors, and pay better royalties than Amazon too.
Don't take my word for it, check them out.

Training an Editor.

Over the weekend I have been studying the nature of editing. My co-writer and I need a capable editor, a person who is both an ordinary reader and sensitive to the requirements of a novel. Someone who is keen to read our final draft and yet courageous enough to be open to finding faults in it. In addition this person needs to live not too far away so we can get together and talk about the book. Find out what he or she likes and does not like, what worked and what did not work for them in the book.
I was reminded of an address at the Edinburgh Festival around 1980 by Scott Berg about his biography of perhaps one of the greatest US editors, Maxwell Perkins. I had an audio file of this address which inspired me to also write biographies, but also informed me about the role of an editor.
Perkins did not hesitate to tell Scott Fitzgerald that his book The Romantic Egoist needed a new title. I doubt a book with that title would have sold as many copies as The Great Gatsby.
Max did not hesitate to tell Thomas Wolfe to take 90,000 words OUT of his first novel. Even though the 6'6" giant fought to keep every word he saw fit to write IN his book "Look Homeward Angel"
Editors have to be brave people, rather often.
Books are author's Word Children - at times it takes as long to give birth to a book as it does to grow a child to adulthood.
To take a book and help the author craft it into a better book, not only without grammatical and spelling errors, but with stronger plot, more interesting characters, and no continuity issues takes strength of character, attention to detail, a grasp of plotting and a willingness to take on what seems to be the intention of the author and craft the writing into something which achieves that intention.
I hope I have found this magical person in a friend who is a journalist and keen reader.
When our adventure romance novel Atlantia Soulmates is completed to the best of our ability - she will be given the opportunity to edit the book.