Not 30,000

The word count on my book now sits at a little over 27,000 words. a little more than it did just before Christmas. I had a really productive spurt for the two weeks leading up to Christmmas. I had hoped to get it up to 30,000 by New Year's Eve, but it wasn't to be - too many family commitments and a healthy dose of relationship maintnenance. No regrets.

Now I'm settling back into work routines and will be writing like some writing fiend in the evenings in no time.  But tonight it's Trafalgar.

10,000

Passed the ten thousand word mark last night on my super-secret, hush-hush writing project.  All I'm saying is it isn't a novel (though I may have a stab at writing one at a later date - I have a plot I hallucinated a couple of years ago when I was quite ill and I'd like to take it out again sometime and see where it might go), and it won't interest most people. But who cares.  Less than half a dozen people have read my honour thesis (a fact for which I cm grateful). Basically, I'm writing it for me.  If I can sell it a make a few bucks, all the better.

Yes, Johnson famously said that "No man but a blockhead writes, except for money." so, well, it would be more than just a little bit cool if I could make some money from it, and with money comes validation, I guess.
Yeah, sure - I want to sell it.  Happy?

At least I'm enjoying the process.

Some perspective - 15 November 2010

http://thisisindexed.com/2010/11/poor-things-2/

  

Adventures in blogging

I'm the first to admit, I'm an inconsistent blogger. I know I should be more regular in my blogging habits, and everyone who has an opinion on the subject says you need to be posting at least two or three times a day if you want peoplke to come badk regularly (and thereby make any kind of cash from your margin ads).

I was really slack for a couple of months while my wife was in hospital, and I don't apologise for that - I understand that for some people with sick loved-ones, getting all that anxiety and pain and heartache out to their online audience is cathartic and may even help them to get though the rough patch, but Jess is a pretty private person, and anything I wrote about that time would be mostly about her, so I had to respect that.

SInce than, I've still been slack.  There's some upheaval at work at the moment due to an ongoing restructure and "right-sizing" (I'll save my disdain for the newspeak of the corporate world for another post) and I think that it would be inappropriate (and a red-flag for potential future employers) if I wrote about that. But to be honest, that's not what's keeping me from posting either. I'm even making headway with the RPG setting I'm writing (which, for anyone with an interest, I'm going to start blogging about here).

The fact is, I just don't think I'm that interesting.  So instead of beating myself up over not constantly updating The Scoop with all the latest from my world, I'll be concentrating on the other blogs I'm trying to get up and running, and the other sideline projects that insist on my time, like work, and marriage.  This doesn't mean I won't post on The Scoop ever again.  It simply means that when I don get to it, or if I just don't have anything to say, I'll feel a lot less guilty about it.

So, until I've got something interesting to announce, that's me out.

Of new rules and grognards

I am just at the moment familiarising myself with Triple Ace Games/Cubicle 7's All for One: Régime Diabolique RPG, with a view to running a game for my gaming group.  All for One uses Exile Game Studio's Ubiquity system, which looks good on paper, but I've never played Hollow Earth Expedition (though I've heard a lot of great things about it, and I promise I'll get around to it sometime), and every plan fails on contact with the players.  

In the last couple of years Savage Worlds has become a default system for the group, and a few of the guys can be a bit hidebound when it comes to trying new rules-sets (I've run RTT, RuneQuest, True 20, Summerland and Trail of Cthulhu games over the last three years with varying degrees of failure).

So I'm looking for two things; I'd like to hear anyone's thoughts on the Ubiquity system - how it plays, what tweaks or house rules they introduced, stuff like that.  I'm also keen to hear any advice on offer for getting grognards to try new things (games written in the last fifteen years, for example).  Post your thoughts here and maybe wwe'll get a discussion happening.

Oh Happy Day

Jess returns home tomorrow.  The world begins to right itself, centering once more on its axis.  The lion lies to the lamb, then has roast lamb and invites all his lion friends - everybody wins.  Except the lamb.
  

Insert NO KIDS logo here

Before we got married (actually, years before marriage seriously came up), my wife and I confided in each other that neither of us wanted to have children.  Eleven-and-a-half years of wedded (mostly) bliss later, and neither of us has shifted one iota in this conviction.

That's why this isn't an argument so much as an affirmation.

I'd just like to say here that Tempus makes a finer and much more patient parent than I ever would have.