I was in Alabama when I got the email from Brian White inviting me to participate in Fireside Magazine Issue #1. It was a total surprise–I hadn’t encountered Brian before, but he dropped the right name (I was suggested by someone else who had to decline). I looked him up, thought about it for a couple of hours, and replied. Yes, I said, I would love to participate. Thank you.

It’s a quirky project in a couple of ways–the writers were contracted without having written a word, for starters. And while it is Brian’s magazine, and the writers are just contributors the same way we would be were this any other sale, because it was a Kickstarter campaign that we helped to promote, I think we all feel more invested than we would otherwise.

Yesterday the project was fully funded on Kickstarter. There was a round of jubilant emails, and then we all got to work. When we turn our stories in a month from now, Fireside #1 will become a reality, and I think it will feel like a real group victory. Then it’ll be time to pass the torch to the next group of contributors for Fireside #2.

Thank you all for your support. I confess to feeling some pressure on this one. Because of the inside-out way the magazine came to be, this isn’t a story that he can easily reject, so it has to be strong, and worthy–and it has to be done in four weeks.

Right.

::dies::