Enter the Octopus

Site closed

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Ramones-_Adios_Amigos_-Frontal

After careful consideration, I’ve decided to stop updating this blog – at least for a while. I may come back to it after the holidays. Here are the reasons why:

  1. Pressing deadlines: I’ve got some high profile publicity work that I’ll be busy with at least through January. I’ve also got a few regular writing gigs that I need to focus on. I’m also interested in increasing the amount of writing on assignment I do for other content providers.
  2. Changing priorities: I’m becoming more interested in creating things these days. I’d like to sculpt, draw and paint more, and also maybe learn a few crafts. Plus, I’d like to do some creative nonfiction writing and maybe try to write a story or two.

All of this being said, you’ll probably see more of me, but just not here. I’ll be writing for publication, and of course you’ll see me here and there planning or promoting this or that book title. I still love the genre, but I think that my time and energy can be more constructively spent in other ways.

I’m going to leave the site up here as an archive, and in the meantime, if you’re interested in having me contribute reviews, essays or other material to your blog or publication, feel free to reach out at com Dot gmail At mattormeg

Written by Matt Staggs

September 21, 2009 at 10:45 am

Posted in Journal

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This.

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Get a Hobby

Written by Matt Staggs

September 21, 2009 at 9:35 am

Posted in Uncategorized

Baby Cakes: “Role Play Tournament (Be Aggressive)”

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Written by Matt Staggs

September 11, 2009 at 12:15 pm

In which we discuss “Brundlefield”

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theflyoperaFor some godforsaken reason I got it into my head to conceptualize a mashup between David Cronenberg’s “The Fly” and the “Garfield” comic strip. Here’s a transcript between me and “Ravenbait” another Twitter user:

mattstaggs: Quick! Imagine a cross-over between the “Garfield” comic strip and David Cronenberg’s “The Fly”. GO!

ravenbait: Brundlefield vomiting forth upon his lasagne…

mattstaggs: Hey, @ravenbait what about a scene were Garfield’s tail falls off and he puts it in his medicine cabinet?

ravenbait: Or tries to convince Jon to get into the pod with him? Gets into an arm-wrestling match with Jon’s girlfriend & breaks her arm?

ravenbait: Finds really, thick black hairs on his paw and cuts them off? Dribbles his teeth into his catfood?

Written by Matt Staggs

September 10, 2009 at 3:23 pm

Links and things

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Written by Matt Staggs

September 10, 2009 at 9:24 am

Posted in links and things

NEVER!!!!

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Written by Matt Staggs

September 9, 2009 at 11:09 am

Saying goodbye to a pet

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I had to put my oldest cat, Booka, to sleep today. I knew it was coming, but it didn’t make it any easier to do. She was 16 years old, a beautiful calico with whom I had practically grown from a kid to a man. She’s been with us from move to move, place to place.

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Written by Matt Staggs

September 7, 2009 at 10:07 am

Posted in Journal

Snip: “Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks” by Ethan Gilsdorf

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9780762756759RELEASED FROM CAGES OF IDENTITY

“Geeks are a tolerant people. They take in ‘the other,’ the misfit toys, and not simply because no one else would sit with them at the cafeteria table. They have felt the sting of not being included. They know what it is like to not feel cool. Thus, it didn’t surprise me to learn during my quest that gamers and costumers—particularly LARPers or medieval reenactment groups like the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA)—accept gays, lesbians cross-dressers, and transgendered folk without hesitation.

Populated with cross-bred elves and dwarves, fantasy realms make people feel not quite so freakish, releasing them from their cages of identity. Playing half- or non-human characters can be an exploration of their freak side, a new door into themselves…”

pp. 56-57, Chapter Four, “Into the Dungeon Again”

Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms, by Ethan Gilsdorf.

BUY

Written by Matt Staggs

September 5, 2009 at 2:22 pm

Posted in Book Excerpts, gaming

Get “God’s Middle Finger” by Richard Grant

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gmf_cover-195x300Richard Grant’s new book “God’s Middle Finger” explores the lawless expanse of the Sierra Madre mountain range, where narco-traffickers and murderers live with relative impunity alongside loincloth wearing Indians, rattlesnakes and venemous scorpions. Grant, a British writer with an “unfortunate obsession” with the region decides to travel the range for a year, a tip that ends with him being hunted by night like a wild animal by AK-47 toting “Mexican hillbillies”.

It’s out in trade paperback now. Get it.

Written by Matt Staggs

September 4, 2009 at 12:12 pm

Posted in Journal

Links and Things

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Written by Matt Staggs

September 4, 2009 at 11:13 am

Posted in links and things