Jack of Harts

Yes, I know, I’m a day late, but I’ve been thinking about the whole Festivus thing all day and decided that I had something to say that would fit. One of the things you’re supposed to do with Festivus is “Airing your Grievances.” And it comes to mind that I have a rather fun one to look at this year.

Many of you know that I am a writer. I have written stories most of my life. I don’t in fact remember a time when I HAVEN’T been writing stories. They started out as fan fiction. Star Trek. Star Wars. Transformers. BattleTech. I’ve actually published multiple fan fiction supplements and organizational rules compilations for BattleTech over the years. Rules. Both fan rules and official rules organized in different ways. Fan Fiction Sourcebooks. Stuff I wrote or adapted because I loved the game and wanted to give other fans the ability to play more of if they wanted to.

I even published something called the Human Sphere, which was a Forty Year Update step forward on the old FASA BattleTech universe. The quick and dirty background there is that FASA went out of business for a while, other companies took over the license, and took it in ways I didn’t like. The Human Sphere was my little way of taking the FASA BattleTech universe that I loved and moving it forward in a way I enjoyed.

It served me well as a blue print for what I would need to do when I finally decided to start writing my own Jack of Harts stories. It taught me how to build a universe of interlocking parts and how to keep things straight. Mostly. My Jack of Harts stories sell because I first practiced writing fan fiction to make myself a good enough writer that people would be willing to buy my stories. That’s a fancy way of saying that practice makes better. 😉

But, there is a grievance here. You see, there are people out there who do not like me. I have earned some of them through righteous reasons and my own actions and words, and some people have groomed others without any involvement of my own. They tell stories that do not reflect on me, but on the me who lives inside their mind. This Straw Medron is a very bad person according to the stories I hear. Many, many stories. A liar and a troublemaker in some. An asshole in others. Well, even I can be an asshole at times, so there may be a kernel of truth there. 😉 But one story I recently heard is that this Straw Medron claims the Human Sphere is the canon future of BattleTech and that anything anybody else does is wrong.

So my Trial of Grievance for this day is with this Straw Medron that people tell stories of. The Human Sphere is Fan Fiction. It always was. It always will be. The claims of this Straw Medron are the creation of others, and have no relation with my own thoughts on the matter. Period. End of Line.

Make no mistake. I am glad that I wrote the Human Sphere. Others enjoy it, I enjoyed my time making it, and it helped make me a better writer. I will always cherish it. And I hope that any of you who see a story you want to write, will do it and publish it so others can read it. I fully believe that Fan Fiction is the breeding ground of writers. We learn to tell stories by telling stories of characters we like. Don’t let others shame you by saying it is bad writing. I guess that’s another grievance there. Hehehe.

So go forth and write. And perhaps, one day, you will find your own Jack of Harts who will drive you to write stories about him that other people will actually buy…