Andrew Vecchiarelli

The Mines of Phandelor

andydrew — Sun, 26 Jun 2016 00:50:16 +0000

At lunch, my co-workers and I have been playing Dungeons and Dragons, Fifth Edition. It’s been a great experience thinking about fantasy worlds again. Rather than play “The Lost Mines of Phandelvor” we branched off into a different direction.

This short story is their eight-part adventure, and now it’s part of the Village of Erb canon

The link opens a new window and downloads an ePUB file from Dropbox.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Avoiding Intentional Fallacy

andydrew — Sat, 12 Apr 2014 01:38:34 +0000

So, this iBooks thing was finally approved!

On Monday I was a guest speaker at a book club for C:\anada. It was a really interesting experience to talk about the book with people I didn’t really know.

I was pretty nervous before I got there. I had been going through each of the chapters trying to think about some of the stuff that I wanted to say about Mckenzie and her journey and some of the decisions I made. And somewhere between chapter four and five I kind of remembered that whole “Intentional Fallacy” thing, so I stopped obsessing about the story I wanted to tell and instead focused on what story they got out of it.

It was nice to hear their thoughts.

Also, this:

It’s also made me want to go back and write about Mckenzie’s next adventure! This book really started to take shape back in May 2012, and I have a ridiculous brainstorming board of ideas and stories I still want to tell.

Coming Soon

andydrew — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 03:32:12 +0000

I’ll just put this here.

Always judge my books by the cover

andydrew — Tue, 28 May 2013 02:34:19 +0000

The covers make them look professional.

This is the first piece of concept art Ibrahim created for my Canadian techy-mystery-thriller that I’m still calling /Canada (although I’m not crazy about that title).

Over the long weekend I went on a scavenger hunt with my sister to all the locations I mention throughout Toronto. It was a lot of fun to take pictures and walk the steps of a fictional character running for her life. Good times.

I’m almost done revisions after the first wave of feedback – which means a new version will be available for anyone interested

somewhere between moderate and epic proportions

andydrew — Sat, 18 May 2013 02:58:50 +0000

Spoiler: I’m not very good with last names.

Last spring, as I sat down at my desk, I found a tiny pin propped up on my keyboard. It was a small token from a team building course that my boss found tucked away in her drawer and she thought I’d like it. I didn’t know that at the time. I just stared at it, confused. Had I been secretly initiated into a special group of excelleron-ness?

Obviously the first thing I did was google the pin – followed by a quick sense of disappointment because my imagination had come up with a better, yet less-plausible, version that involved awards of awesomeness.

BUT, I liked the idea of finding something that led to a grand adventure. It sounded pretty exciting in my head. So I wrote another book. After finishing the first draft, I’ve been making adjustments, tweaks, and changes. I kinda like where it is now (almost a year since I started it).

This book follows Mckenzie Noble, an app developer in Toronto, who happens to uncover a Canadian conspiracy of somewhere-between-moderate-and-epic proportions. It starts by finding a tiny pin at her desk.

The working title so far is /Canada

So, yeah, I should probably write more about it on this blog. You know, before I get carried away and start working on something else because I’m suddenly struck by a crazy idea.

That random Canadian holiday we get in February

andydrew — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 04:00:36 +0000

What better way to celebrate Family Day than by spending it alone reading a free book.

Amazon.ca

First Draft

andydrew — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:29:26 +0000

(200 pages later I still don’t have a title)

Back in May I started writing another book. I described it as a techy-noir-mystery novel set in Canada. I worked on it through most of the summer and in the fall took a break as I did life-things like move into my house, decorate, and cook. I’m domesticated.

Anyway, picking up where I left off in the winter, I finished the first draft tonight! Just now! These are the first few words I’ve written since completing the last page. I still don’t have a title though. That part is kind of annoying. I want to call it /Canada but I feel like that doesn’t mean anything. And for an ebook it’s a bit of a URL nightmare.

Once I figure out the title I’ll let you know…

Now that the first draft is done I can edit, edit, edit. Any interest in reading it to let me know if it’s good?

I wrote a book…

andydrew — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 01:24:49 +0000

You should buy it.

(Bonus! The US version contains words with a significantly higher concentration of the letter U)

Or you can always read Chapter 1 and make up the end.

OH! And send some love to Ibrahim who did a fantastic job on the front cover!

The Query Letter is like a longer Synopsis I guess?

andydrew — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 02:38:17 +0000

So this is a thing I did just now: Harper Voyager Submissions

Harper Voyager is holding a two-week send-us-things-you-wrote open submission. Even though they said it was just for UK, Australia, and the US, this is one of the few times I’ll think of Canada-land as America-Junior and cross my fingers that my combination of words ending in “our” is UK enough and my location is US enough to be included in the process.

It took two hours to write the synopsis and the query letter. Never have I felt more like an amateur since I needed to look up both of them. And after spending HOURS on them, I am immediately paranoid that I put in an incorrect email address.

Send me a confirmation email damn it!

It always bothered me that I have so much trouble condensing The Village of Erb into a short synopsis. I’m never sure if that’s because it’s a story with too many ideas, or I just love it so much I can’t objectively look at the whole picture without feeling like I’m skipping page 3 in chapter 7.

I expect the open submission will get 9 billion submissions so I still plan to e-release once Ibrahim has a front cover for me (which I’ve been told will be soon-ish)

Waiting be the hardest part (yarr)

andydrew — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 17:06:13 +0000

Shiver me timbers indeed – why is it so cold today?

I haven’t done any writing since my holidays in August. Mainly because I’ve been so busy with house-stuff. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a nice couch? It’s almost impossible. Anyway, on Monday I signed the final papers for the purchase and now I’m just waiting by my phone for someone to call me to pick up the keys. I haven’t really slept since signing. I’m exhausted, cold (September, what’s your deal?), and anxious. How many times can I keep checking my phone to make sure I didn’t miss their call?

Current count is 34.

On top of all that, I don’t have anything to keep me busy. I have to wait to install iOS6 because I just know people will try to call me while I’m in the middle of an update. Everything I own is pretty much in a box. Including warm sweaters (Seriously, September, what the hell?). I feel like I should go look for a couch or kitchen utensils I probably don’t need just to keep myself busy.

Somewhat related side note: where can I get a reasonably priced lemon zestor?

Call my phone house-people!

I’ll have pictures to post when I have furniture inside. Although without a couch I think empty-concept is the new open-concept. Think about it. Furniture just gets in the way. You really want space? I’ll give you echo!

happy talk-like-a-pirate day!