As a fellow RPG enthusiast and miniature painter, I can relate to Tor author Michael Haspil. A few things stuck out and especially impressed me from Haspil’s responses, including:

  • Good discipline in regards to suppressing impulses to revise or fact-check while getting the first draft down (I need to work on this).
  • Redundant and systematic backup (I do this too).
  • The use of FATE dice, StoryForge cards, and Nordic runes for inspiration and brainstorming — great idea!

Please welcome Michael Haspil to Word Craft.

-JD

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tell us a little about yourself and what inspired you to become a writer.

I’ve been a storyteller all my life. A large part of what made me want to become a writer came from attending military school at New York Military Academy. There, my friends and I played a lot of role-playing games and even made up our own. The school had its own small literary magazine and I submitted some stories. People adored them and that really helped me. I continued writing short stories for my high school magazine “Slant of Light” and I even placed in a couple of writing competitions too. Then I joined the Air Force and, regrettably, I put my pen away for a while. Glad to have picked it back up, though.