Lights! Camera! Wargames!

A couple of days ago I mailed-in my two submissions for the Pacific Northwest Writers Association (PNWA) Literary contest.

My first piece is my short story called Sweet Stakes. It's based on a dream I had where I was a vampire hunter tracking one of the undead. In my dream I found a unique way to paralyze and then dispatch the vampire.

I wrote this last year and received really good feedback, but I didn't make the finalist category. As the story was originally written in First Person, I couldn't figure out how to implement some of the suggestions without breaking the 14 page limit. So I changed it to Second Person just to see what the judges will say.

My second piece is a memoir called Rakkasan Recollections and is about some of the stories my dad told us about his antics during the Korean War and the impression they made on me and my siblings. I wrote this a couple of years ago and submitted it to the Writer's Digest (WD) Literary contest. Unlike the PNWA contest, I received no feedback from WD. I submitted the story as-is because I'm not sure what needs to be fixed. I figure I'll let the judges decide.

I'm also starting another wargaming movie project like my previous made-for-YouTube movies, which are posted here under "Stern Rake Studio Productions." The Historical Miniature Gaming Society-Eastern Chapter (HMGS-E) is interested in developing some short programs to advertise their Historicon 09 convention this coming July.

http://www.hmgs.org/eastcons.htm

The plan is to make as many shows as I can before the convention date. Each movie will be divided into 4-5 episodes of about 2-3 minutes each. They'll be posted about every 2-4 weeks on YouTube.

The movie I'm currently working on, Mayhem in Makassar Strait, is a World War II-Naval Pacific movie. It's based on the Battle of Balikpapan, which was fought on 24 January 1942. I played it out as a solitaire mini-campaign and finished filming a couple of weeks ago. Now comes the long process of adding the special effects--primarily painting some graphic images on each picture and adding music or sound effects.

Here's a link to the historical battle:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Balikpapan_(1942)

So for now my World War II Mediterranean Naval Campaign will be in hiatus for several months.