Monday, March 17, 2008
Twenty Years
Was looking through some stuff on my HDD today, and noticed I had scanned copies of my original letter to Steve Jackson Games, and Steve's reply, in regards to writing a "worldbook for GURPS detailing the world of the 1930's "pulp" style adventures." I probably don't need to point out that it was accepted and eventually became GURPS Cliffhangers, which went on to a second edition as well.
That was twenty years ago, believe it or not. I'm kinda floored by how quickly the time has passed.
Anyway, for anyone who's into that sort of minutiae and pointless trivia, I figured I'd post those letters here as a peek into my beginnings as a writer. You can click the pics to get the full sized image.
Note that the handwritten "Sent 2/22/88" notation scrawled on the original letter, was written at that time. I jotted the date on the letter, and kept a copy, so I'd have a record of my correspondence. This was, of course, back in the days of snail mail and mailing floppy disks with ASCII files and Word Perfect 4.0 files on them. Positively barbaric!
Anyway, it was a good trip down memory lane for me. I still remember when Steve phoned my house to tell me he liked the idea. I was playing GURPS at that exact time, in fact. We were playing GURPS Humanx, based on the writings of Alan Dean Foster. (Hm... wonder what ever happened to that book...).
Anyway, my wife at the time answered the phone, then turned to me and said, "It's Steve Jackson." One of my friends - Dave - was flabbergasted and I still remember his jaw dropping. My wife was all excited, I was nervous, and Theron - the fourth rounding out the game - looked confused. "Who's Steve Jackson?" he asked. Heh. Dave pointed at the name on the GURPS book.
It was kind of a surreal moment; my first big break.
Anyway, thanks for letting me reminisce. I promise not to be quite so nostalgic in my next post. :)
Saturday, March 15, 2008
I'm Not Gettin' Soft
Term's almost done, finally. I finished the last of my clinical rotations - EVER - last week, and have two finals coming up on Monday and Tuesday. I can't believe how fast this term went, but it seems like it was VERY busy. I'm like Huey Lewis these days:
Don't misunderstand me, I'm not gettin' soft
All I want is a couple days off
- Couple Days Off, Huey Lewis and the News
Only two more days and I have a week of rest. Ya-frickin'-hoo.
Then next term I'll have theory on Thursdays, and 156 hours of preceptoring to do. I'll probably be at a boys' correctional facility on the coast. Preceptoring means, in essence, working at the facility as an RN, under a preceptor who monitors you and reports back to the college. Shouldn't be terribly hard, despite it being full-time work for a few weeks. Do-able, though.
Then - amazingly enough - I should be done and ready to take state boards. Here's hoping and here's to the end of nursing school at last!
