Check in, Check out, No Promises

I’ve been in my head a lot recently. It started shortly after I got what I thought was a standard cold. I’ll just point out up front that it was a cold and not something drastically worse. But it led to a couple of different infections. First, an ear one, which took 90% of the hearing in my left ear for about a week, then two different throat infections that were rather painful and worrying.

Needless to say, I haven’t felt much like writing about the things I love and usually talk about on here. But I’m feeling a lot better now. I’ve even been working on a couple of things that have been in the works for what seems like forever. Progress is being made. The fact that we’re finally starting to see the sun again is also helping me be more positive. I know that at least some of the people reading this blog will understand that.

Anyway, I’m not going to list a bunch of things I hope to post up over the next few weeks because, well, every time I do that it ends up not happening. In fact, if I say I’m going to put something on here, it’s pretty much a guarantee you’ll never see it. So I’m saying nothing. Not a thing.

But – Hi! It’s good to be talking again.

TableTop Day!

It’s TableTop Day!

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, ->CLICK THIS LINK HERE<- to be transported to the official webpage.

For those of you who are clickingly challenged, TTD was conceived by the wonderful people over at Geek & Sundry and is all about gathering together with your friends, family, local gaming group and/or other geeks to have a fun day playing any, and all, types of Tabletop games. It doesn’t matter if they’re games that have been featured on the program, or classics that have been stored in that dusty cupboard under your stairs. The emphasis is on having  FUN with similarly minded (i.e. AWESOME) people.

Have a Great Day!

Of Dark Heresies & Comics

After a very productive beginning to last week, documented here, time rather ran away from me. As well as work I’ve been GMing a Dark Heresy campaign for the past few weeks. For those of you unfamiliar with it, Dark Heresy is an RPG set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Your group play the part of acolytes of the Inquisition and much mayhem ensues as you charge around the galaxy (more specifically, the Calixis Sector) purging Heretics, Xenos and Daemons. It’s just a little bit awesome. I love playing my Battle Sister in my friend’s campaign because she kicks a lot of heretical butt.

However, we are currently transitioning from that campaign, which is on hiatus for a few months, back to another campaign with different characters. But before we start back down that road of blood and fire I’ve been filling in with a series of short, sharp, one-off campaigns whilst one of our number has been on holiday. It’s been a blast, although rushing to put everything together week by week (I’m one of those GMs that does handouts) hasn’t left a lot of time for much in between. Still, this week was the last of my campaign so I should be back to updating at least a couple of times a week.

On the subject of Comics:

I strongly suggest you catch up on X-Men Legacy. The first arc concluded with two endings(!), which included an unexpected twist and a lot of foreshadowing, whilst somehow staying very open ended. I will be going back to look through it issue by issue with as few spoilers as humanly possible. If you haven’t taken a look at this series yet, you definitely should.

Similarly, I will be going back to look through The Massive & Mara, which are two very different stories written by Brian Wood. I will also be taking a look at Saga, which is heartwrenching & brilliant. Seriously, it’s not often I find myself turning to the final page of a comic and swearing profoundly whilst choking back tears. But Brian K Vaughan seems to have perfected the ability to elicit this sort of reaction from his readers. The fact that everything is arted (real word, honest) so beautifully by Fiona Staples seems to double the emotional impact. Reading Saga is rather like reading George R.R. Martin. And if you don’t get the implication behind that after my previous sentence… well, just read Saga. You’ll catch on quickly.

And finally, on another tangent…

Happy Starcraft II Heart of the Swarm Release Week!

Prepare to be Zerged!

On writing and non-guilty pleasures.

Today I have been at home, writing. I finally booked a day off from the office job to actually get on and make some headway on at least one of the projects scrawled across my hoards of notepads. Roughly two thousand new words later I’m starting to get somewhere. It’s not as far as I hoped, but I spent the first couple of hours editing and re-writing bits I already had. [See Fig. 1 for more details] I also ended up with a lot of background/historical material that will be useful in keeping a coherent timeline going forward.

Fig. 1

At the current count I’ve written roughly 2500 words today and edited out approximately 600 more. I will also be going back to writing once I’ve posted this and I have a whole slew of new notes for the next few chapters, which is nice.

Buoying my mood today, I also got a few things in the post that I’ve been waiting for for the past week or two, as evidenced below!

I’ve also been catching up on a lot of pod-casts over the past few weeks. One thing in particular that’s stuck with me, and resonated with me, is something that was said in the Dave Grohl Nerdist pod-cast 315. It’s incredibly obvious, and it’s an attitude I used to have, and I’m not quite sure when I lost it. But now it’s back with a vengeance. I think it was Jonah that said it (sorry if I’m wrong!), but the key phrase was,

“You shouldn’t feel guilty for something you like.”

Incredibly simple advice, I know. But it made me realise that there an awful lot of things that I like, love, and get enthusiastic about, that I just don’t talk about. Usually because people I don’t know particularly well, if at all, might think they’re stupid, childish, dumb, lame, etcetera, and so forth. But the main thing that bothered me about this was that there are people that I do know, people I count as my friends, that I actively won’t discuss these things, that mean something to me, with. Because I know they won’t see whatever it is I see, and they won’t care, and they’ll probably laugh and make fun of it. Which sucks to realise.

But I’ve decided that they’re just going to have to put up with the unedited version of me from now on. If they stop talking to me, they weren’t really my friends in the first place. It’s like being re-born as a fourteen year old me.

Now that’s a disturbing image.

So, for now I’m throwing myself into getting this book, which is a different book to the one I was writing at the start of the year, done. I’ll go back to the other one in between when I need a change of pace, but this one’s got me psyched. All the pieces are slowly falling into place, and that’s a pretty damned cool place to be.

Quick Update & A Book Recommendation

Hello amazing internet denizens!

I haven’t disappeared completely, honest.

The last month and a half has flown by for a whole array of conflicting reasons, and I realise I haven’t been updating even semi-regularly. But that will change soon as there are a lot of things that I,

a) Want to write about, and,

b) Have already committed to an obscene amount of notepad entries currently littering my desktop.

These will all start to materialise soon.

In the meantime I have been using my twitter feed to stay in contact with the wider world whilst I’ve been getting myself organised.

Now, before I disappear again, I would just like to recommend that you go and take a gander at *this story right here* by Lee ‘Budgie’ Barnett. Here’s the synopsis for You’ll Never Believe A Man Can Fly, ripped right off the man’s very own blog:

“What’s the story about?

The world outside your window has never known super-powered beings until now. The first is a man named Ian Davies, an ordinary man who’s about to face some extra-ordinary events in his life. But what if, instead of giving an interview to The Daily Planet, he gives an interview to The Guardian, a newspaper with a reputation for typos?

He wanted to be known as The Public Defender. But someone at the Grauniad forgot the word Public has an ‘L’ in it…“

Mr Barnett posted the whole thing up over the course of four or five weeks so you can read it all, gratis. However, I strongly suggest that if you like it, you buy it. This can be achieved by clicking on the pay link at the bottom of any of the chapter entries. The story is consistently funny and brilliantly written; it certainly helped to brighten up my lunch breaks at work. (Yes, I bought the e-pub and then still read it as it was posted).

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a whole lot of writing to organise and catch up on whilst you get acquainted with Mr Davies and his new found headache/gift.

No Epitaph

Shattering black glass
Crushed beneath our weary feet
Etches history

-

Politicians shrug
Whilst missiles illuminate
Killing skies above

-

No epitaph here
No final rallying cry
We are forgotten

What will be, was.

I still see you falling.
It was no accident I caught you there.
Unambiguous lovers,
we were nothing to each other except in that moment when gravity called
and your eyes, so wild with fear,
so quick to change to anger as you saw me, knew -
I came to stop you.
You dreamt someone would save you
but you doubted,
fell without assurances.
And for a moment you felt something real.
The promise of oblivion closing in, head first.
Bitter idiot.
I dragged you back screaming,
and once the tears passed
you loved me for a while, until you hated me.
And the cycle again.
Together we failed you.
Together, we will mourn.
What will be, was.
No one won.

lyrics without song

We were 14 and in love
but we didn’t say a thing
because we didn’t know that love was a thing that mattered.
The music remains, heady memories of stages we passed through without a word,
and we are no more together than we were before,
but now it aches.
and I am ashamed of our loss, mine and yours,
and I am not proud of malaise and nostalgia,
but this is who I am
(who we are)
and I cannot change,
at least not today.
I say forgive me,
but I don’t need your forgiveness.
We were 14
We are no longer

San Diego Derby Dolls – Indiegogo Campaign, last 22 hours!

Do you like Roller Derby?

Yes?

Then pay attention.

The San Diego Derby Doll’s indiegogo campaign to raise funds for a new, permanent training facility and venue is in its last twenty-two hours. If you enjoy the sport, even a small contribution would be a great way to show your support. The league is heavily involved in its local community and setting up a permanent base would give them the opportunity to do even more, as well as giving them an established  league venue.

But don’t take my word for it, go and look for yourself over on their homepage.

Some of you may wonder what my reason for supporting this particular project is when I don’t even live in San Diego. Fair question. Well, it just so happens that a very dear friend of mine likes roller derby, and her local community have helped her quite a bit over the past few years. When I first met her, around nine years ago, she looked like Tank Girl and had all the associated attitude along with a wicked sense of humour. Over the years she has settled down and had a family, but she’s never lost her edge. She just couldn’t express it as openly as she used to due to the responsibilities of parenthood. Being as outspoken as she is blending in has never really suited her. But she is an Awesome mum – and her kids are just as wickedly creative and hilarious as she is – so she did it.

Then, a few years ago, she started going to her local roller derby league’s events over here in the UK. It’s given her a place to focus all of that pent up attitude,whilst also providing a fantastic network of friends and support within her local community. The kids love it, her ‘normal’ friends think it’s fantastic, and she has a place to cut loose and enjoy herself with her family as they cheer the girls on together. She’s even had the chance to do some skating and roller derby at their community events!

Supporting this project makes sense to me because of the positive impact the sport and local league’s fan community has had on my friend’s social life. Hopefully, some of you will be able to relate.

If you’ve read this far, please, go and watch their project video. This league deserves your support, not just for the teams, but for their community as a whole. As this project is set-up under indiegogo’s flexible-funding campaign banner, even if they don’t reach their overall target, your contribution will still go toward the setting-up of the new facility. So, no matter what, you’ll be helping to make a difference.