Right, I think that the project I'm thinking of is further enough along in production to be certain enough of publication to be worth announcing.
To further my market, broaden my horizons and hopefully produce something that people like enough to buy and simply because it was a good idea that caught my imagination and I wanted to run with it I have started writing an RPG setting.
For those of you who are not in the know, RPG means Role-Play Game i.e. those nerdy, dorky games where groups of people actually met up together at a games shop, sit round a table, talk to one another face to face, then have fun popping made up characters into an imaginary world and seeing just how well they cope when the powers that be (the Games Master and sometimes the other players) sling them a curved ball so curved that it looks more like a pretzel.
For those that like using their imaginations, social interaction and just sheer wacky fun, these games are a great investment of an evening out. You can also let your id out of the box for a while so that when you go to work the following morning you do not struggle so much to not thump the manager in the face. Just to show what I mean I once played a game with a lass who is normally as kind and compassionate as you could want at your side when you are having trouble. However, her character in the game was a crazy inventor come mad scientist who we only keep in our team because having him work for the other side was a truly terrifying prospect. Then to make matters absolutely worse he managed to father a kid who not only had accelerated growth (still not sure how that happened) but a mind that put Artemis Fowl to shame. My character did her best to take the child in hand and only succeeded in teaching him the tools he needed to become a first rate little monster that started building his business the moment he meet the first desperado who was that hard up they didn't care that they were taking coin from a child. By the time we finished playing that 'campaign' the little monster was rapidly racing for a fortune in business and property (I can't remember how the conversation about stocks and shares came up pre-game but the player immediately decided that it was exactly the sort of system her little monster would introduce to the world). Personally I reckon the player was channelling all the things that annoyed her, angered her and simply horrified her about the current set of governments we've had and dealt with them by creating a character who could have bent governments to their knees if he'd decided to snap his fingers.
As a writer I have found these games are brilliant at practising the skills needed for character creation, situation control and they also help prevent writers block because in the game, when you have the rest of the group there, you can't over think the situation, otherwise someone else will jump in with an idea and sometimes those ideas are really, really bad. You have to have the ability to see the situation, weigh up options and put forward your ideas, without insulting anyone else, and you only have a few moments to do so in.
Post school mental break down, when I had no self confidence to speak of, RPG gaming helped me re-find the belief that my opinions might actually have worth, that I could be accepted by a bunch of my peers and gave me a safe structure in which I could experiment with social interaction. I swear I learnt more social skills at my RPG group than in eleven years at school. And I had fun while I did it, even if some days it was the sort of fun of someone who is riding the dragon and is wondering when the dragon is going to realise that it has an unwelcome passenger. I also meet my now husband through said group so I must have done something right. I guess our soon to arrive baby has no chance of not being a geek.
Any way, 'Gloomlight' is at the stage where editing has started so I putting down a hopeful release date of 'late next year', in the hopes that it helps nail down some of the production timetable. Here's hoping.
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