The stories of Bryan Young

So, I missed my post last week and I considered skipping a post this week. Why? We have a brand new baby in the house. Her name is Valkyrie and she's great. Naming tiny humans is a much harder thing to do than naming characters, and I find naming characters to be one of the hardest parts of a story for me. But I know that if I'm at any point dissatisfied with a name, I can find+replace the old name and insert a new one. With a kid, it's fairly permanent. Valkyrie was on a long list of names and it's the one that seemed to match what we wanted the most and came out on top of the compromise. That's the other thing about naming characters versus children. Unless you're collaborating with someone, you have the final say in what your character's names are. While I'm taking some time off from other forms of work because of the new baby, I'm not taking time off from writing and I've been chugging along on a new novel and short story, as well

 "Monsters" is the new fiction anthology from Silence in the Library and I have a story in the main book, as well as the companion, "Soothe the Savage Beast." "Monsters" was edited by Kelly Swails, I edited "Soothe the Savage Beast."  I'd highly recommend you check it out. The stories in these books are cool, the artwork in both books is great. You're going to want them both. There are stories by Michael Stackpole, Timothy Zahn, Aaron Allston, and dozens of other writers you like, even if you haven't yet heard of them yet. You can click over to the kickstarter here directly. $7 will get you an eBook and your name in the back, $10 gets you the eBook of both books. It's an offer you can't refuse. This collection began as the convention exclusive from Origins Game Fair last year and so I was able to reconnect with a lot of the authors whose work stands next to mine in the collection. It's quite an august group and

I'm heading off to Origins Game Fair tomorrow ( you can see my panel schedule here ) and will be there until Sunday. My panels are all focused on writing and they're always highly informative and a lot of fun. I find conferences and conventions an invaluable source of inspiration and contacts for freelancers across the board. In fact, most writing gigs I've landed have been a direct result of meeting and interacting with editors and fellow writers at conventions. Origins, San Diego Comic-Con, Star Wars Celebration, Salt Lake Comic Con, those and many more have been a great place to network. They're great not just for networking, though, they're great for learning, too. Getting different perspectives, and meeting people that you wouldn't ordinarily come in contact with, and talking to people is a great thing. And it'll expose you to all kinds of writing you might not otherwise pick up. It was after two different conventions of meeting Patrick Rothfuss tha