December 2022

New Plans and Batman!

Good morning, kids! Hope you are doing well on this fine December morning. I thought I’d update you on what’s been happening with my writing as well as my nonprofit journeys.

Years ago there was a thing called Choose Your Own Adventure, a series of gamebooks published by Bantam Books, currently available through ChooseCo, LLC. These books allowed kids the power of choice as they navigated a story of their own design. It was pretty rad.

The stories came in all sorts of genres: Horror, fantasy, science fiction, slice of life, mystery, adventure. There was even one about apartheid, taking place in early-90s South Africa!

The only downside was that the stories were very short and didn't offer much in the way of adult fare. That all changed with a website that featured choose your own adventure-style stories by a multitude of anonymous writers. Today, that website focuses solely on interactive erotic fiction, so...yeah. Not exactly for kids.

Flash forward to today, I started working recently on a new Wordpress blog that will function as an online version of a Choose Your Own Adventure story. Of course, that term is copyrighted, so I call it a “gamebook,” which is a genre all its own.

The goal of the website is to offer a similar sort of interactive experience, with plenty of material suitable for children, teens, and adults. Eventually, we'll open things up to other users to submit their own work. In keeping with our dedication to excellence, only approved work will appear as paths the player may take. Approved authors will be compensated in exposure, but I plan to offer some form of monetary compensation as soon as I am able. After all, folks die from exposure.

As we go forward, the site will embrace an AV style comparable to the latest in visual novels. Yeah, I know we're a little behind the 8-ball on this, as there are thousands of visual novel sites already in existence.

What makes this gamebook different is that it's all one, sprawling game. A multiverse of stories of possibly infinite scope, all contained within a single premise: You are a Ranger of the Nexus. By the will of the Director, you are sent forth to explore new worlds and hostile timelines, protect the weak of every dimension, and safeguard reality from the vile machinations of the Sentinel.

So yeah, in this gamebook, you can expect to travel the multiverse through a series of cracks in spacetime. You'll experience every genre from horror to cyberpunk to romance to fantasy to slice of life vignettes. Some universes are made entirely of the color blue. Others are made of poetry. It should be a wild ride. The inspiration for this piece owes a lot to the Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks of the 80s and 90s, as well as Star Trek, Doctor Who, and the Holy Bible.

You can explore the site over here. Let me know what you think in the comments below.

In the nonprofit world, I’ve served on the board of Atlanta Autism Consortium for the past year. It’s been fun so far. We’ve been working hard on providing awareness, information, and resources to folks with autism, their families, and other stakeholders. We are currently trying to meet our year-end fundraising goal of 10,000 dollars, and we are very close. Please consider donating here: Atlanta Autism Consortium - MightyCause Site.

Checks can also be mailed to:

Atlanta Autism Consortium

2451 Cumberland Parkway Suite 3776

Atlanta, GA 30339

We have an event happening in January, if you’d like to know more about the type of work we do. Find info here.

I’m also involved with William’s House, a nonprofit designed to help families in recovery achieve self-sufficiency. Our aim is to provide enrichment programming, housing, and other services to help families work their way free of situational poverty. So far, we’ve got one horticultural therapy and one pet therapy program up and running, and we hope to start sponsoring some families in the new year. Progress has been amazing. Though we don’t yet have a facility, we’ve been fundraising like gangbusters with United Way and other local nonprofits and politicians taking notice. Which is neat.

You can learn more at our website williamshouse.org.

Don’t worry. I’m not going to leave you with just a bunch of cries for money.

I also finished my Batman costume recently.

I think it turned out pretty well, don’t you? In the meantime, happy Bat-mas!