GenCon: Indy Writer’s Symposium Schedule, Events, and Workshops

This year, GenCon: Indianapolis takes place Thursday, August 1st through Sunday, August 4th. I’m presenting this year at the GenCon Writer’s Symposium and am offering a couple of workshops for ten dollars along with several free-to-attend events.

In addition to these events, I’ll have some wares on hand. I’m bringing print copies of Pinching Tarts, into shadow: a poetic exploration of personal fears, and earrings I designed specifically for GenCon!

Thursday, August 1st

Rediscovering the Magic in Magic – 2:00 p.m. – Marriott: Ballroom 4

Description: Join our panel of experts as they discuss the development of magic systems in the context of the new, the fresh, the global, the invigorating, and shall we say – the magical. Featuring: Marie Bilodeau, Brandon Crilly, Brian Duckwitz, Daniel ‘Doc’ Myers, Monica Valentinelli

Using Tarot as a Storytelling Tool – 4:00 p.m. – Marriott: Ballroom 3

Description: In this Tarot for Writers workshop, award-winning author and narrative designer Monica Valentinelli will show you how to use a deck of tarot cards as a storytelling tool. From inspirational prompts to building characters and scenarios, you’ll come away with fresh ideas to help you brainstorm narrative elements ranging from character relationships to plot twists. In addition to a lecture and slides, you’ll also perform short creative exercises–so get ready to be inspired! Featuring: Monica Valentinelli

Meet the Writers – 6:00 p.m. – ICC: Wabash 1

Description: To kick off the Writer’s Symposium, you can visit with all of the amazing guests, presenters, and panelists in this three-hour event.

Friday, August 2nd

Book Signing and Meet and Greet: Monica Valentinelli and Gini Koch – 1:00 p.m. – Exhibit Hall : Author Signing Tables (Back of Hall)

Description: Swing by the back of the Exhibit Hall to meet the panelists of the Writers’ Symposium and get your books signed. Or, buy a book or game – and get it signed on the spot. Or, just stop by and say hello!

Saturday, August 3rd

How to Write for the Ear – 3:00 p.m. – Marriott: Boston

Description: Join our panelists as they discuss how the way a story is consumed changes by the way you write it, how a story written specifically for the listener is different than when written for the visual reader. Featuring: Jennifer Brozek, Daniel ‘Doc’ Myers, Jordan Jones-Brewster, Lucien Soulban, Monica Valentinelli

Squeak and Geek – 5:00 p.m. – Marriott: Boston

Description: Ah! It’s Gen Con! Join Featured Speakers of the Gen Con Writers’ Symposium for an evening session of just seriously *geeking* about books, games, manga, and whatever else is on their minds! It’s super chill – join us? Featuring: Jessica Walsh, Briana Lawrence, James Farner, Mary Fan, Monica Valentinelli

Sunday, August 2nd

Adapting Stories to Games for Authors – 9:00 a.m. – Marriott: Boston

Description: Are you an author hoping to turn your novel into a game? Have questions about how the gaming industry works with authors? Glean insights from a 20-year veteran to achieve your goal. In this business-centric workshop, Monica Valentinelli will help you navigate different pathways to show you how you can transform your stories into games. You’ll walk away with a plan and the means to navigate the space more confidently. Featuring: Monica Valentinelli



My Clarion Write-A-Thon Project

Hiya! This year, I signed up to help the Clarion Write-A-Thon raise funds and support the workshop. I just decided what I’ll be writing about and have opted to select six, unique Italian fairy tales to retell. I want to share with you what this means to me in the hopes you’ll follow along and support my work.

Clarion’s six week-long Write-a-Thon is the perfect opportunity to explore a part of my identity while consciously avoiding tropes. I’m pledging six short story drafts in this time period; I’ll be releasing the drafts, one per week, under a password protected area on my website for sponsors to read. The rules? Simply, this: for the project, I will not include cisgendered white male characters.

I have complicated feelings about being Italian-American and the daughter of an immigrant due to past experiences. I’m also fed up with media depictions that focus on a razor-thin section of the entire culture, both here and abroad. In America, the dominant Italian-American stereotype in artistic media is a cartoonish “wise guy” or sometimes “gal”. Over and over again, these stereotypes of Italian-Americans depict cisgendered white men and few cisgendered white women. Of the men, Italian-Americans must be the hyper-masculine, violent tough guy/hottie or the devoted, politically shrewd Catholic priest. Of those few Italian women, we must be sexy mothers or nuns.

In exchange for your support, you’ll read how I process this part of my identity through my brainstorming, story selection, and first drafts. If you’re keen on following my progress, warts and all, I encourage you to become my sponsor and sign up for my newsletter.

If you’re not, that’s okay! There are dozens of other writers you can support, too, and I will always encourage you to back the writer you want to read. Here’s the link to the full list.



The Spectacularity of Cat Rambo

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For the past six weeks, I’ve been part of a writing workshop with a group of fabulous writers. Led by Cat Rambo, we critiqued stories and talked about the nuts and bolts of building a career in SF&F. Part of the reason why I wanted to take an online workshop, is because financially it’d be very difficult for me to drop what I’m doing and go to Clarion West or Viable Paradise. I’d love to go to an intense workshop like these, because though I come from literary-land, I feel like I’ve primarily been on the fringes of SF&F. For me, workshops is where a lot of the excitement happens, where there’s this brilliant mesh of ideas and creativity — that form of collaboration is very inspiring to me in small doses. Mind you, I don’t want to collaborate with another fiction writer long-term because I have specific goals I am trying to accomplish. When those happen, then I’ll reconsider. My goals are very clear.

What I had hoped to get out of this workshop, was to cut all the peripheral noise and anxiety, get back to the basics; and re-emerge with a clear path forward. How had writing for games affected my storytelling? What areas did I need to hone in on? Since the bulk of my time recently has been on writing and developing for games like Firefly and Vampire the Masquerade, I felt like I’ve been losing my perspective on my own, original work. Do I get discouraged? Yep, and those lead to excuses or “writer’s avoidance behavior.” Now, I know it happens to everybody, losing faith in yourself, but it sucks. It’s not a mental thing, it’s not insecurity as in “Oh, I could never be as good as ‘X’, ‘Y’, or ‘Z’.” It’s a “heart” thing. It’s a “what’s the point” and “who cares” thing. Publishing is based on people… And so is another “p” word. A “positive” attitude.

Anyway, to circle back around to what I’d been trying to say, I feel it’s one thing to write and have words down on a page; it’s another to know where you’ve gone wrong through internalization. And for me, I feel that process of internalization is weakened if I “take a break” from writing or am so hyper-focused on a different form I stop exercising those other muscles.

The first lesson I learned was… Don’t take a break. For me (and you may be different) I have to write every day. I have to. Part of that word count has to be spent on fiction even if it’s 500 words. Why? Gaps have an impact like this: I’m working on a few novels and I set them down in favor of paying projects. When I pick them up again, I forget where I left off and I need to “re-learn” where my place is. As I’m ramping up, I then change my mind about the structure, how some of the pieces fit, where I need to research more… It takes me more time to get back into the work than it does to finish it and keep that river of words flowing.

The second, is that I have realized that a lot of the game-related fiction are primarily character sketches or plot-driven to show off the world. That differs from character-driven prose because there’s certain elements that are obscured in favor of the overall goal to highlight the game/setting. I suppose that’s why I’ve been noticing how many writers who “graduate” from games are influenced more by the worlds they’ve worked on rather than the characters. Games are GREAT to learn and develop worlds; certain games are GREAT to understand how to build unique characters. Writing stories, on the other hand, is the only discipline in my mind that will teach you about characterization. That doesn’t mean plot-driven stories are bad, mind you. It’s simply a different style of storytelling and fiction in SF&F has evolved to be more character-specific.

And finally, I just want to reinforce my feelings on this… There are many similarities between writers no matter what your level of experience is. Ego? Online persona? Etc. Don’t get sucked in. I care about people and doing the best job I possibly can. That’s pretty much it. Everything else — worrying about the state of the industry, freaking out about someone else’s kerfluffles, etc. I just don’t have the time. I have a job, a really great one in fact, and writing fiction is in addition to that and everything else I’m doing, too.

Now, to end this messy ‘ole pile of words and get back to the title of this post…

I found Cat to be extraordinarily patient, honest, and excellent all-around. (I’d like to give a shout-out to my classmates, too. They were brilliant!) Cat is a fantastic teacher. Or, to put it bluntly: there was no bullshit. I never felt like this was a top down kind of a class where we were worshipping at her author’s altar. Always encouraging and extremely empathetic, she’s an extraordinarily grounded person and a very fine writer to boot. I am so, so happy for her success and encourage anybody to take one of her classes. I’d also like to thank Kat Richardson for the recommendation (GO KAT!) and the other writers for being patient with me, my questions, and my dry sense of humor.

You can keep up-to-date on Cat Rambo’s online classes and workshops here: www.kittywumpus.net

She’s worth every penny.

    Mood: It’s caffeination-time.
    Caffeinated Beverages Consumed: Pepsi Max and a cup o’ java.
    Work-Out Minutes Logged Yesterday: I exercised my butt muscles.
    In My Ears: The drawbridge. Hee.
    Game Last Played: Dragon Age II
    Book Last Read: Research materials for work
    Movie Last Viewed: Dreamworks Shrek’s Swamp Stories
    Latest Artistic Project: *Still* *still* *still* need to take pictures… It’s on the list!
    Latest Fiction/Comic Release: Last Man Zombie Standing
    Latest Game Release: Friends in Low Places
    What I’m Working On: Primarily tie-in games work and novels.





Monica Valentinelli >

Looking for Monica’s books and games that are still in print? Visit Monica Valentinelli on Amazon’s Author Central or a bookstore near you.

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