The American Game will be available for free on Kindle this weekend as part of a KDP Select promotion. It will be available for free on the Kindle from Friday, September 26, until Tuesday, September 30. It can be found at:
It may seem counter-intuitive to give away one's books for free, but each download counts as a sale, and if there are enough, it can get onto the best sellers list, at least in its category. This helps with exposure, which leads to even more sales. I will try to remember to post download results this weekend.
I have finally finished and released my book The American Game after 18 years of working on it. I first began this journey back in 1996 pitching the concept to a production company that made TV movies. At first I only wanted to pitch the concept and move on to other things, but I slowly got sucked into it until I found myself the writer and producer of it championing it in draft after draft after draft; bouncing between studios and production companies. There were hundreds of actors, (many of them well-known actors,) who saw it, many of whom said they wanted to be part of it. But I couldn't get it funded. It was at one point even listed as one of the best movies never made, a list in Hollywood of scripts that are really good, but can't find their funding.
A few years ago, I finally gave up when the production company who made Crash basically scammed me into spending a bunch of money and time to put together a proposal that they didn't intend to consider. I was so devastated from that blow that I dropped out of the game, and finally decided to do it as a movie.
It was odd the way this story affected people in Hollywood. It was very much like the ring in Lord of the Rings. They got obsessed with it and their evil sides came out. I, too, am not proud of everything I did when trying to get this movie made. Yet, despite everyone's efforts, it never got made.
The story is about a series of base ball games that take place between enemy soldiers during the American Civil War. I often pitched this story along with several others, and everyone always picked this one, even if it didn't fit what they did, or were capable of doing. They always told me it was perfect as it was, then had me rewrite the script to their desires over and over and over. Most of the time these changes were based on egos and power trips, making alterations that didn't improve it, but worked out some issue they were dealing with. In the end, I wrote 119 drafts.
In the book, I shed everything everyone else said and wrote the story I wanted to write. What has emerged is what I hope is a powerful and moving story, but that will be for the readers to judge. It is, at times, a bit hard to get through, I'll admit, as I did not want to hold back on some of the realities of the time.
In particular, racism and slavery is approached in a very blunt fashion, as is the culture of the South. I'm concerned that people may interpret the narrative as being harsh, or even racist, when, in fact, it's meant to just not gloss over what existed at the time. I make an attempt to be clear, particularly in the end, that slavery and the racism it was a part of, (and still is,) are some of the greatest evils of this nation's history; but I didn't want to do it from a 21st century politically correct point of view. I wanted the culture to be played realistically for its time, and that might read very tough in today's world.
On the flip side of that coin, I hope people don't see this as a reprimand on the South either. My own personal view is that, while there is very clearly a culture gap between the north and south even to this day, (and I feel the country should split,) the way they rebelled at the time was, in my view, a mistake. But I try to show this through the eyes of the soldiers who were there and believed in the cause, not of slavery, as they don't own any,but of having their own country. However, because the story takes place near the end of the war, when the South was clearly beaten, I have a tendency of portraying it as a truly lost cause, so desperate they'll send their troops out at gunpoint. This did happen, actually, but it doesn't represent the whole war, as many southerners fought fiercely and willingly for what they believed in.
I almost wrote essays at the end of the book explaining these two points at the end of the book, but I was afraid it might look too apologetic. It may look that way here, but there aren't many people reading these blogs, so I guess it's okay. In short, I hope people understand the intention of the book, which is not intended to be either racist nor a slam on the South, but a realistic portrayal of an ugly time that was brightened a bit by base ball. (And yes, I'm saying it correctly. Back then, baseball was separated into two words.)
Because
it’s the beginning of women’s history month, I’m actually going to write a
little about my documentary, The Forgotten Grave. It’s not a book, but I do sell it along with
my nonfiction books, and I did write the narration and edited the journals,
diaries, and letters of soldiers and other witnesses the same way I’d write a
book, so I’m including it in this blog.
More
than 600 women disguised themselves as men so they could fight in the American
Civil War. Some even fought out of
disguise, with men knowing they were women the entire time.
One
example of this last was Vivandieres, women who dressed in a long skirt and kepi. This was a style begun in France where some
women would march with the men, sometimes wielding flags, to inspire the
men. In the Civil War, these Vivandiers
also served as nurses, and occasionally picked up muskets from fallen comrades
and fought alongside others.
Most
women who took part in the war did so as nurses and spies, either healing the
men or working behind enemy lines to learn what they could about their numbers
and strength.
Those
who disguised themselves as men to fight risked not only their lives, but their
reputations. When they were discovered,
they were often labeled as “camp followers,” also known as prostitutes. Rather than being appreciated for their
bravery, they were mocked. This was
particularly heinous considering the fact that women did not need to go through
the hardships of campaigning and risks of fighting. They were usually better fighters than the
men because they needed to have a stronger fervor to be there in the first
place.
One
example of a woman who fought with the men was Sarah Emma Edmonds. She had left her home in Canada to escape an
arranged marriage. When the war broke
out, she enlisted under her pseudonym, Frank Thompson. Sarah saw action in both the eastern and
western theaters before at last becoming ill, and she had to desert secretly to
avoid detection as a woman.
Another
woman who fought disguised as a man was Jennie Hodgers, an immigrant from
Ireland who enlisted in 1862. She fought
in campaigns across the country throughout the entire war. She remained disguised as a man afterward so
she could keep getting work and have more options in life. She was at last discovered to be a man when
she was hit by a car in 1912.
Loreta
Janeta Velazquez immigrated from Cuba to be with her husband. When the Civil War broke out, she decided she
wanted to be the next Joan of Arc, so she disguised herself as Harry T. Buford
and raised her own regiment. Her husband
disapproved and sent her home, but after he was killed in an accident, she went
in disguised again, fighting with, and sometimes commanding other soldiers.
Sarah
Rosetta Wakeman joined the Union army in 1862 in order to do something exciting
with her life. For two years, she wrote
home about her experiences in camp at Alexandria, Virginia. In 1864 she was transferred to the Red River
Campaign, where she got sick and died.
Others
include Lizzie Compton, who
served in seven different regiments during the war, having served in the
battles of Fredericksburg, Green River, at Rochester, and was thrown from a
horse. She skipped from regiment to regiment every time she was
caught. At the end of the war she was barely 18 years old. Lucy Matilda Thompson, who signed up when she
was 49 years old, was present at First Manassas, Second Manassas, and all the
Seven Days battles. Wounded in the head twice, part of her skull was torn
away. She went on to have a family, giving birth to her first child at
the age of 51. She went on to have five more children, take part in the
first world war, and die at the age of 112.
An unnamed female soldier who shot herself after being discovered in the
14th Iowa Infantry. Another
unnamed female soldier who was discovered when she tried to put her pants on
over her head. Annie Lillybridge, who
was wounded at Pea Ridge, and swapped her discharge with another soldier to
re-enlist.
There are many more
stories that are known, and many more that are not, as women died in action
with their secrets never revealed, and others who never revealed what they had
done after the war because of the fear of social retribution.
Unfortunately, much of
that stigma remains. When the History
Channel did a documentary called Full Metal Corset, they made fun of the women
who did this, portraying them as crazy.
When I had pitched my documentary to them, the head of development, (who
was a woman,) said, “If it doesn’t play to the guy with a pickup and a gun
rack, we don’t want it.” When I pitched
it to Lifetime, the head of development there, (also a woman,) she said they
only want movies that depict women as the victim. PBS turned me down, then went and made a
documentary just about Loreta Velazquez.
But even then they lied about her allegiance. Apparently afraid of what audiences would
think of a Confederate female soldier, they claimed that her real allegiance
was to the North. (Even though she made
it clear in her memoirs that she was pro-Confederacy even after the war.)
Craig Robertson is premiering Command Combat: Colonials at Celesticon this
weekend, and it should be fantastic. In it, we go into the colonial wars
as Britain expanded into various continents. Here is the information on
the flyers:
We are proud to announce a new
addition to the Command Combat series. Command Combat: Colonial Wars will
expand the Command Combat miniature rules system to include the multitude of
small wars and punitive expeditions that European colonial powers engaged in from
1815 to 1914. From China to Afghanistan, from the Sudan to South Africa, from
Paraguay to Montana, Command Combat: Colonial Wars will allow you to play your
favorite battles and armies from this incredibly rich period of history.
Command Combat: Colonial Wars
will add the following features to the Command Combat system:
·Detailed historical
scenarios.
·Full point-build army lists
for a wide variety of colonial conflicts.
·Nationality-specific special
rules for units and commanders.
·A new campaign system to
simulate an expedition from start to finish.
The first wave of Command
Combat: Colonial Wars will cover the years 1873 through 1885. The British were
incredibly busy during these years, with campaigns against the Ashantis, Zulus,
Afghan tribes, Mahdists, Egyptian Army, and the Boers. Meanwhile, there was a
certain blond-haired U.S. Army officer who got himself into a bit of trouble in
Montana. Watch for The
Transvaal War Campaign Pack early next year, and keep an eye out for
playtest sessions at your local game stores and conventions until then.
