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Interview with Paul Kidd.
10 years ago
How did you get started writing?
From high school days, i had always wanted to be a writer. Parents sneered - but to hell with that. I went to university to study the things i thought a writer should - Literature and History, Philosophy. History in particular had always been my first love. I fell in with a slap-happy group of creative people, and ended up doing a lot of comedy writing for the university newspaper and theater groups. University in Australia was free, so it was a place for ideas and cross pollination. Very energetic and creative. a great place to gather skills and stretch your wings.
I had been an enthusiastic war gamer ever since my first days in high school. When role playing games first came out back in the mid 70's, I plunged into playing them, and have been a gleeful and devoted gamer ever since. RPG's have always kicked off my story ideas.
Soon after graduating university, I began working on my own Role Playing Games and got them into publication. First came ALBEDO,and then LACE & STEEL. Meanwhile, i managed to get a job as pretty much the first full time games designer in the computer industry (as opposed to programmer - someone just there for dialogue and ideas). I Worked on the early Lord of the Rings Games and several text adventures, and then when home consoles were invented, I designed some of the first console games (such as 'Airwolf". Ugh!). But what i *wanted* to do was write novels.
I had been introduced to comic book artists and fandom by Steve Gallacci while working on the ALBEDO RPG. Furry fandom began to coalesce - and with it cam an invitation to join the APA "Rowrbrazzle". This gave me a chance to put some stories out in the 'non pro' universe and get some practice with skills. The first draft of "Mus" was actually serialized in Rowrbrazzle and handed about in furry parties.
I began writing in earnest, trying to get my first novel "Mus" written. Being too poor to own a computer, i would head into work many hours early, and put in 3 or 4 hours of writing before anyone else arrived. I would also carry the computer secretly off home with me of a weekend and work on material at home. Printing out drafts on a line printer could take 48 hours or more. It was a long, hard grind.
However - I was off and working on the dream.
Incidentally - I have always made sure that i do things in real life that will contribute to my ability to write. I have been a soldier in the army reserves, a volunteer fireman, and definitely a traveler. I have continually trained with the sword since i was in single digits,and have expanded that out to many decades of training with Japanese sword, spear, naginata - these days i also do bayonet fencing. My ongoing love for animals and insects shines through my work. I have flown aircraft and climbed through caves and ruins. Laughed hard and well,and watched and enjoyed all manner of my fellow humans. My advice to anyone who wants to write is - live!
you wrote 2 books for Forgotten Realms: Nobles and Greyhawk. How did you get into writing D&D books?
My first novel, "Mus" was published by TSR, the publishers of D&D. TSR suddenly decided that they were not going to publish any more novels that were not related to their games. My editor there decided t move to another company. But he phoned and asked me if i wanted to do a last book with TSR before he left. He would set up in his new company and publish my books - but he had a slot open for a D&D novel in the 'Forgotten Realms' setting (a setting i loathe due to its over dramatic pretensions). D&D novels were too serious, too heavy and held very little of the fun of the actual game. What he wanted me to give them was a comedy adventure - something fun and furious. I could create my own section of that game world and run with it.
So I wrote "The Council of Blades".
The books was bright and funny. The new owners at TSR hated it, but it was bought and published before they could do anything with it. Fans loved it.
My editor never did end up with a job at that other publisher. He just vanished into the wilderness, never to be seen again.
Some years later, Wizards of the Coast were under yet another change of management. They were planning on creating version 3 of Dungeons and Dragons, and wanted a series of books written to help with the launch. They wanted the books to bring old time players back into the fold - so they had to be funny, they had to be written by a gamer who knew and loved the anecdotes gamers loved to tell. They searched their fan mail, saw that "Council of Blades" had gotten the right sort of attention, and so they phoned to ask me if I would be interested in doing them a series to launch D&D 3.0.
I agreed!
So i wrote "White Plume Mountain", "Descent into the Depths of the Earth" and "Queen of the Demonweb Pits". These were a great hit - people seem to love them. Unfortunately, Robert Salvatore had been chosen as the company star. Their advertising efforts and subsequent book contracts were all channeled his way. so I heard nothing more from WotC for another 10 years.
Enter D&D 4.0. Another call came. They were releasing a version of "Gamma World", one of my all time favorite games - and once again they needed action and comedy. I was utterly broke and in shock, having had an appalling collapse of my entire life at the time. It was a life saver to be wanted.
I must say it was a very unfortunate deal for me. It paid virtually nothing (literally a quarter of their old prices). but it was a book, it came out on shelves,and hopefully it gave people a lot of joy.
TSR/WotC had always had extremely interfering editors. Working with them was always a fight - ofn a vicious fight. the new regime made an absolute botch of the Gammaworld novel, literally cutting it to pieces. Gags were cut out, scenes chopped, comedit footnotes and asides all removed without any real consultation. It was the final straw for me. I've had it with mainstream publishers. Since that time, i have been concentrating entirely upon self publication, getting stories out the way they should go out. Not writing for an editor, but doing what is right for the story is wonderfully pure and liberating.
"Mus of Kerbridge" was your first published novel, what was the inspiration for it?
I have always been fascinated by the English civil War period, and the European 30 years war: that entire early to mid 17th century period delighted me. One of my ongoing majors at University was English Civil War History. When travelling in England shortly after university, I haunted a great many battle sites, museums and library collections. I even came back to Australia with sets of armor. I love the costumes and the literature of the period.
- So when setting out to write my first real, proper book, i decided to create something with a 17th century flavor. I first published the Role Playing Game "Lace & Steel", which created the setting. "Mus of Kerbridge" then built on that setting to create a rather lovely novel.
Mus languished for years as I tried to find a publisher. I went on and wrote other books, trying to find publishers for THOSE, and ending up being bitterly disappointed as major publishers reneged on deals and cancelled arrangements to publish me. I finally cornered a TSR editor at a party at a world con and convinced him to read "Mus". TSR bought the novel, and so Mus became my first ever published novel.
It went on to do astoundingly well (60,000 copies sold and translated into German). However, the rest of the publishing world closed ranks against TSR, seeing them as interlopers into their very private pond. It was impossible to get other companies to look at my material, or accept that 60K sales with TSR meant my books could do similarly well for THEM. TSR underwent a buy out by Wizards of the coast, who decided they would no longer print any non D&D related novels, so I lost that avenue as well.
You wrote 2 short fiction story's Dragon Magazine
By The Job in Dragon Magazine, May 2000 - Issue #271
Keoland Blues in Dragon Magazine, December 2000 - Issue #278
Due to dragon magazine out of print can you summarize what the story's were about?
Land o' Goshen! (which was just near Gath!)
These were both "Jus and Escalla" stories, tied in with the "White Plume Mountain" trilogy. One was the tale of how my character "The Justicar" first met up with his pal, the sentient hellhound skin called "Cinders". The Justicar is brought in to investigate weird goings on in an area. A paladin is operating in the area, and tries to prevent the Justicar from intruding into his turf. While investigating a series of arson and murders, the Justicar encounters a hell hound and comes to a truce with it. It helps him out of trouble in return for his aid.
The paladin later slays the hellhound, preserving its intelligence inside the skinand head so that he can use it as a hellish trophy. Just discovers that the region's troubles are all due to the Paladin's reign of zealot madness. He slaysthe paladin and takes on the hell hounds skin as his companion from that time on.
The Keoland Blues story was another Jus an Escalla case. Damned if i can remember the details!
Discworld II: Missing Presumed... - The Official Strategy Guide (1996) this must have been a great thing to write, any inside info on how you write a Strategy guide?
I had been invited over to the UK to work with Terry Prachett on the "Discworld"computer games,and ended up taking over the entire dialogue for the game. due to the complexity of the thing, the company decided that they needed a strategy guide. I had written similar books for the "Lord of the Rings" text games years before. Since I had finished the game dialogue, i offered to do the strategy guide for them.
Strategy guides are not hard - just tedious! You have to have played every screen intimately - but also know the quirks of the game system. So it should really be written by someone who has been on hand to test the game as it is created.
I know you have some new novels and even a new board game coming out can you fill us in those?
These days, my efforts are closely focused on self publishing.
I spent literally 2 decades working diligently to bring my stories into film. This journey into weirdness took up a vast amount of time and effort. I am still working away at trying to find the millions in finance required.
- Which is hard when you live below the poverty level.
Life visited a number of horrors on me over the past set of years. My wife died. I lost my kids. I lost my home, my income and my film business, and all of my possessions - no car, no books no clothes. I've been on skid row ever since, living with friends. But somewhere in there, I managed to create "Kitsune Press".
"Kitsune Press" was set up back in 2008 as my own self-publishing venture. Years of battling against editors and the gate keepers of the publishing industry were making it more and more clear that there was no place for real writing out there in the mainstream companies.
... And it has been wonderful freedom. By doing what is right for the stories and what is artistically right - by not wrestling with the ill informed and often bizarrely wiggy demands of publishers and editors - I make books I can be truly proud of. I have also come full circle, and i'm putting out RPG games once again.
It's a particularly active time at the moment, with RPG games in page layout phase, and art coming in for board games - a new novel is being finished. The next couple of months will see me release:
A new "Spirit Hunters" novel. Samurai paranormal adventures!
A furry fantasy role playing game "Heroes of Morhost" - a wonderful game!
A furry post apocalypse RPG, "GeneStorm". There are already 2 GeneStorm novels.
A sendbox campaign for "GeneStorm"
A beer & pretzels dice game called "A Fistful of Quidloos".
A furry racing game based on GeneStorm
And finally a card game entitled "The Full Bronte"
My material is all available on lulu.com as print on demand,and amazon.com as kindle e-books. The role playing games will be available via drivethruRPG.com. Look for "Paul Kidd" and "Kitsune Press".
Thank you Mr. Paul Kidd for your time.
You can find Paul's FA page here
Patpahootie
dyno
From high school days, i had always wanted to be a writer. Parents sneered - but to hell with that. I went to university to study the things i thought a writer should - Literature and History, Philosophy. History in particular had always been my first love. I fell in with a slap-happy group of creative people, and ended up doing a lot of comedy writing for the university newspaper and theater groups. University in Australia was free, so it was a place for ideas and cross pollination. Very energetic and creative. a great place to gather skills and stretch your wings.
I had been an enthusiastic war gamer ever since my first days in high school. When role playing games first came out back in the mid 70's, I plunged into playing them, and have been a gleeful and devoted gamer ever since. RPG's have always kicked off my story ideas.
Soon after graduating university, I began working on my own Role Playing Games and got them into publication. First came ALBEDO,and then LACE & STEEL. Meanwhile, i managed to get a job as pretty much the first full time games designer in the computer industry (as opposed to programmer - someone just there for dialogue and ideas). I Worked on the early Lord of the Rings Games and several text adventures, and then when home consoles were invented, I designed some of the first console games (such as 'Airwolf". Ugh!). But what i *wanted* to do was write novels.
I had been introduced to comic book artists and fandom by Steve Gallacci while working on the ALBEDO RPG. Furry fandom began to coalesce - and with it cam an invitation to join the APA "Rowrbrazzle". This gave me a chance to put some stories out in the 'non pro' universe and get some practice with skills. The first draft of "Mus" was actually serialized in Rowrbrazzle and handed about in furry parties.
I began writing in earnest, trying to get my first novel "Mus" written. Being too poor to own a computer, i would head into work many hours early, and put in 3 or 4 hours of writing before anyone else arrived. I would also carry the computer secretly off home with me of a weekend and work on material at home. Printing out drafts on a line printer could take 48 hours or more. It was a long, hard grind.
However - I was off and working on the dream.
Incidentally - I have always made sure that i do things in real life that will contribute to my ability to write. I have been a soldier in the army reserves, a volunteer fireman, and definitely a traveler. I have continually trained with the sword since i was in single digits,and have expanded that out to many decades of training with Japanese sword, spear, naginata - these days i also do bayonet fencing. My ongoing love for animals and insects shines through my work. I have flown aircraft and climbed through caves and ruins. Laughed hard and well,and watched and enjoyed all manner of my fellow humans. My advice to anyone who wants to write is - live!
you wrote 2 books for Forgotten Realms: Nobles and Greyhawk. How did you get into writing D&D books?
My first novel, "Mus" was published by TSR, the publishers of D&D. TSR suddenly decided that they were not going to publish any more novels that were not related to their games. My editor there decided t move to another company. But he phoned and asked me if i wanted to do a last book with TSR before he left. He would set up in his new company and publish my books - but he had a slot open for a D&D novel in the 'Forgotten Realms' setting (a setting i loathe due to its over dramatic pretensions). D&D novels were too serious, too heavy and held very little of the fun of the actual game. What he wanted me to give them was a comedy adventure - something fun and furious. I could create my own section of that game world and run with it.
So I wrote "The Council of Blades".
The books was bright and funny. The new owners at TSR hated it, but it was bought and published before they could do anything with it. Fans loved it.
My editor never did end up with a job at that other publisher. He just vanished into the wilderness, never to be seen again.
Some years later, Wizards of the Coast were under yet another change of management. They were planning on creating version 3 of Dungeons and Dragons, and wanted a series of books written to help with the launch. They wanted the books to bring old time players back into the fold - so they had to be funny, they had to be written by a gamer who knew and loved the anecdotes gamers loved to tell. They searched their fan mail, saw that "Council of Blades" had gotten the right sort of attention, and so they phoned to ask me if I would be interested in doing them a series to launch D&D 3.0.
I agreed!
So i wrote "White Plume Mountain", "Descent into the Depths of the Earth" and "Queen of the Demonweb Pits". These were a great hit - people seem to love them. Unfortunately, Robert Salvatore had been chosen as the company star. Their advertising efforts and subsequent book contracts were all channeled his way. so I heard nothing more from WotC for another 10 years.
Enter D&D 4.0. Another call came. They were releasing a version of "Gamma World", one of my all time favorite games - and once again they needed action and comedy. I was utterly broke and in shock, having had an appalling collapse of my entire life at the time. It was a life saver to be wanted.
I must say it was a very unfortunate deal for me. It paid virtually nothing (literally a quarter of their old prices). but it was a book, it came out on shelves,and hopefully it gave people a lot of joy.
TSR/WotC had always had extremely interfering editors. Working with them was always a fight - ofn a vicious fight. the new regime made an absolute botch of the Gammaworld novel, literally cutting it to pieces. Gags were cut out, scenes chopped, comedit footnotes and asides all removed without any real consultation. It was the final straw for me. I've had it with mainstream publishers. Since that time, i have been concentrating entirely upon self publication, getting stories out the way they should go out. Not writing for an editor, but doing what is right for the story is wonderfully pure and liberating.
"Mus of Kerbridge" was your first published novel, what was the inspiration for it?
I have always been fascinated by the English civil War period, and the European 30 years war: that entire early to mid 17th century period delighted me. One of my ongoing majors at University was English Civil War History. When travelling in England shortly after university, I haunted a great many battle sites, museums and library collections. I even came back to Australia with sets of armor. I love the costumes and the literature of the period.
- So when setting out to write my first real, proper book, i decided to create something with a 17th century flavor. I first published the Role Playing Game "Lace & Steel", which created the setting. "Mus of Kerbridge" then built on that setting to create a rather lovely novel.
Mus languished for years as I tried to find a publisher. I went on and wrote other books, trying to find publishers for THOSE, and ending up being bitterly disappointed as major publishers reneged on deals and cancelled arrangements to publish me. I finally cornered a TSR editor at a party at a world con and convinced him to read "Mus". TSR bought the novel, and so Mus became my first ever published novel.
It went on to do astoundingly well (60,000 copies sold and translated into German). However, the rest of the publishing world closed ranks against TSR, seeing them as interlopers into their very private pond. It was impossible to get other companies to look at my material, or accept that 60K sales with TSR meant my books could do similarly well for THEM. TSR underwent a buy out by Wizards of the coast, who decided they would no longer print any non D&D related novels, so I lost that avenue as well.
You wrote 2 short fiction story's Dragon Magazine
By The Job in Dragon Magazine, May 2000 - Issue #271
Keoland Blues in Dragon Magazine, December 2000 - Issue #278
Due to dragon magazine out of print can you summarize what the story's were about?
Land o' Goshen! (which was just near Gath!)
These were both "Jus and Escalla" stories, tied in with the "White Plume Mountain" trilogy. One was the tale of how my character "The Justicar" first met up with his pal, the sentient hellhound skin called "Cinders". The Justicar is brought in to investigate weird goings on in an area. A paladin is operating in the area, and tries to prevent the Justicar from intruding into his turf. While investigating a series of arson and murders, the Justicar encounters a hell hound and comes to a truce with it. It helps him out of trouble in return for his aid.
The paladin later slays the hellhound, preserving its intelligence inside the skinand head so that he can use it as a hellish trophy. Just discovers that the region's troubles are all due to the Paladin's reign of zealot madness. He slaysthe paladin and takes on the hell hounds skin as his companion from that time on.
The Keoland Blues story was another Jus an Escalla case. Damned if i can remember the details!
Discworld II: Missing Presumed... - The Official Strategy Guide (1996) this must have been a great thing to write, any inside info on how you write a Strategy guide?
I had been invited over to the UK to work with Terry Prachett on the "Discworld"computer games,and ended up taking over the entire dialogue for the game. due to the complexity of the thing, the company decided that they needed a strategy guide. I had written similar books for the "Lord of the Rings" text games years before. Since I had finished the game dialogue, i offered to do the strategy guide for them.
Strategy guides are not hard - just tedious! You have to have played every screen intimately - but also know the quirks of the game system. So it should really be written by someone who has been on hand to test the game as it is created.
I know you have some new novels and even a new board game coming out can you fill us in those?
These days, my efforts are closely focused on self publishing.
I spent literally 2 decades working diligently to bring my stories into film. This journey into weirdness took up a vast amount of time and effort. I am still working away at trying to find the millions in finance required.
- Which is hard when you live below the poverty level.
Life visited a number of horrors on me over the past set of years. My wife died. I lost my kids. I lost my home, my income and my film business, and all of my possessions - no car, no books no clothes. I've been on skid row ever since, living with friends. But somewhere in there, I managed to create "Kitsune Press".
"Kitsune Press" was set up back in 2008 as my own self-publishing venture. Years of battling against editors and the gate keepers of the publishing industry were making it more and more clear that there was no place for real writing out there in the mainstream companies.
... And it has been wonderful freedom. By doing what is right for the stories and what is artistically right - by not wrestling with the ill informed and often bizarrely wiggy demands of publishers and editors - I make books I can be truly proud of. I have also come full circle, and i'm putting out RPG games once again.
It's a particularly active time at the moment, with RPG games in page layout phase, and art coming in for board games - a new novel is being finished. The next couple of months will see me release:
A new "Spirit Hunters" novel. Samurai paranormal adventures!
A furry fantasy role playing game "Heroes of Morhost" - a wonderful game!
A furry post apocalypse RPG, "GeneStorm". There are already 2 GeneStorm novels.
A sendbox campaign for "GeneStorm"
A beer & pretzels dice game called "A Fistful of Quidloos".
A furry racing game based on GeneStorm
And finally a card game entitled "The Full Bronte"
My material is all available on lulu.com as print on demand,and amazon.com as kindle e-books. The role playing games will be available via drivethruRPG.com. Look for "Paul Kidd" and "Kitsune Press".
Thank you Mr. Paul Kidd for your time.
You can find Paul's FA page here
Patpahootie
dyno
Thing is, one of them who does so had originally dismissed the events in the third book as non-canon. He is a huge fan of the drow you see. In any case, one evening he calls me and can barely talk. He had read the latest nove of the 'War of the Spider Queen' series were a group of drow search why their goddess doesn't answer anymore. They found her destroyed walking palace and wondered what great battle had been fiought there. The description was the same as yours after Jus and company leave. So much for it being non-canon and no, he wasn't disappointed because of it on the contrary.