On the one hand, I had hoped that this day would never come round; on the other hand, I have been waiting for this opportunity since I first managed to fill a sheet of pristine white paper with bic biro scribble. And on the third, somewhat squamous hand (which I keep concealed during office hours to avoid frightening the horses) my decision has been made much easier by the trailblazing of the Dark Lord of Bat Country, s0b, who has stiffened my resolve by demonstrating his own. On this particular occasion, I have no problem with being a dedicated follower of fashion, as it is an excellent trailblaze to follow.

So.

As some of you will already know, between the fourth and fifth games in the NWO sequence, in 2005, I took time out to write a novel. I have always fancied myself an author, and I was determined to see just how hard this full-length fiction lark really was.

The answer, as I suspect you already know, my constant and gentle reader, is that it's much bloody harder than you think, and the writing bit is just the first hurdle. Those who have read it in its various incarnations have pronounced it "very me"; I will take this back-handed compliment in good spirit and concede that it contains all of my favourite things, like a box of especially chosen chocolate liqueurs. And if you don't like the stuff I do, you probably won't much like it - and you'll have quite a lot in common with the literary agencies of this fair isle, who didn't like it much either. Even after long and detailed analysis of The Writers' and Artists' Yearbook I reaped nothing for my labours save a sufficient number of rejection slips that, should I have chosen to, I could have papered the walls of the toilet with them. And believe me, I considered it. I know I'm not a bad writer, and I know that the piece is a lot better than some of the half-polished turds that make it to the marketplace nowadays. I have jumped through all the hoops required of me by increasingly sadistic literary agents, had my hopes raised and then dashed more than once, and finally I have had enough.

The thing is, you see, the brain itch is back.

The writing itch. Not for games - I think NWO successfully burned out all of my desire to write freeform games leaving nothing behind but seared and fallow wastes where once were cheery brain cells; but the urge to tell stories, that's back with a vengeance. But until this one's done, I can't move on; can't build anything truly new. I went back, and after a gap of two years where I have largely left it to fester in a dusty corner of my hard drive, I opened the document and I edited it, brutally and fiercely.

And do you know what? I don't think it's half bad. In fact, I'm quite proud of it.

However - I refuse to pander any longer to the arcane procedures demanded by modern publishing houses and literary agents. This is the twenty-first century, and the information wants to be free. I can't wait the grinding weeks required for another round of dismissive form letters to roll back from the wastes of Bloomsbury - and so, I'm taking matters into my own hands. I need to clear the decks, need to get my headspace empty and ready for the next story. And that means that, finally, I have to stop fiddling, make one final edit, and let the judgement of strangers be the final arbiter.

Deep Breath. Stop waffling. Press send.

The Pearls That Were His Eyes: Softcover
The Pearls That Were His Eyes: Hardcover Limited Run

And now, it's done, once and for all, and it's time for something new.

Last chance to bid on pretty much the entirety of my Ars Magica collection.

I have just begun re-reading the entirety of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter corpus (fortunately available online via Project Gutenberg, or this particular whimsy would have cost a pretty penny). My head is full of complicated nonsense about atmosphere factories, hidden Antarctic seas and ancient decadent city-states at canal junctions.

This is partly prompted by a long-standing ongoing discussion with Matt Pennington (one of these days I'll be sober, and then he can look out) and partly by my recent discovery that there is a film due out imminently of the first novel - a topic that has defeated such titans of entertainment as Ray Harryhausen before now. Maybe that'll give me the opportunity to vent all that bile that got bottled up when V for Vendetta turned out to be actually okay.

I love fantastic world backgrounds like Barsoom - the more you probe into it, the more Burroughs delighted in making up ever-more-absurd-yet-fantastic ground beneath your feet, painting a Mars that was just as real and consistent as the Victorian world it stood in counterpoint of - or at least, as real and consistent as the steampunk utopia we all wish it really had been. Space: 1889 has a lot to answer for.

I feel like I'm groping around something here, the shape of which is as yet obscure to me. But I am beginning to see the possibilities inherent in such a world - and beginning to see how I can achieve my long-cherished desire to get a zeppelin into a LRP game as well.

*ahem*

Anyway. Here's the pointy bit. ( Of Interest Only To Grand Design Players )

Ladies and Gentlemen; if you have still not fully paid your final fees for the forthcoming NWO event, please remember the final deadline to do so is the end of this month - and for those who are already overdue in paying, please remember our deadlines are not arbitrary, and unless we receive our funds in good time it will jeopardise the event.

(Edited to add: Confirmations of the "have I paid?" variety will be available after I update my paperwork at the meeting on Sunday.)

( Film Reviews: Brokeback Mountain and Mirrormask (spoiler-lite for the latter, none for the former) )

In other news, my life has become very complicated and very busy, and LJ is going to have to take a back seat. Updates will be infrequent for a while, and this is no longer a reliable means of contacting me. If you need to get hold of me urgently, use e-mail or text.

I've just updated one of my links (see left assuming your journal style doesn't overwrite mine) to connect to xothique's new site. Helen was responsible, amongst other things, for the Masks of the Drakon's Council at the 2003 Transylvania game, and for many of the masks used at the Rome game - she's now offering such designs for sale. Take a look.

Anyone who's been in my study can tell you first hand the quality of the masks she makes; they are unique and compelling pieces.

Some surprising news that a lot of people thought I already knew but which I did not landed in my lap yesterday. It has fair taken the shine off this week, that's for sure. In the fashion of an unexpected wrecking ball intruding abruptly into your living room.

Sometimes, it's easy to forget amidst the trivialities of life that some people potter away and soldier on with woes and problems so profoundly significant and enormous that your own petty niggles and carpings pale not just into insignificane but into the microscopic by comparison. This evening, and for the next few days, I shall be thinking of distant friends who do not deserve to be in the bad places in which they find themselves, and hopefully willing them the necessary strength to get through it all.

It is at times like this that I curse my own emotional sterility, because the best I can summon up is a manly punch to the shoulder, some shuffled feet and a downcast gaze. I cannot help but feel that people deserve better in times of trial.

I am not by disposition a natural optimist, but I am breaking with tradition in this case, and hoping for the best. Let lightning strike elsewhere; let there be a mark on the door.

My friends are far away, but my thoughts are with them. It is strange how such an abstract thing can be of comfort, but it is.

Sorry to the non-game readers, there'll be the occasional dull post for you over the coming months. Just skim past.

For the rest of you, the next two days should see a flurry of query e-mail and booking forms coming out. Please route queries via the forums in the first instance rather than going straight to e-mail; that way all the team get a crack at answering them.

If you have not recieved anything by the end of the week and think you should have, e-mail me direct; it's possible our contact details are woefully out of date. Note also casting won't be complete at that stage, it'll just be about 85% firm. We'll still have several sapces at that point.

On that note:

Can someone in Norwich prod Rupert gently and ask him to read his mail...
Can anyone likely to talk to Mad Dave ask him to do likewise (assuming Galliard@ still works)
Anyone with real-world contact with Liza Shepard, Gareth Davies, Jimfer, Jonathan Gilbert & Karen Reed, could you ask them to check their mail and if they haven't got anything from me, to mail me on ian at nwogames dot co dot uk.
Katie Bacon, I need an e-mail address; can you pop a mail to me at the address above.
foul_temptress, same for you please.


Those who haven't recieved anything yet, don't worry, it's in the launch tube and we're working it out with a pencil as we speak.

For those as don't have Helen (who made the masks for the Drakon's Council and the Ikons for the Rome game) on their friends list, there's an eBay auction of one of her earliest pieces here. It may be familiar to people who've known me for a while.

Like many of my acquaitances, I'd been watching the trailers for the remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with a wary eye. In theory at least, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp do Roald Dahl couldn't go wrong. Could it?

( Unwrap it. There might be a golden ticket... )

Spoiler-free, or at worst -lite