Writing, writing, writing.

I began writing the submission in earnest, with my goal being 25,000 words by the end this month. I am at 10,871 as of this writing. The plan is to hit the 75,000 word goal by mid / late October and spend the rest of the month editing. At this 1/8th point, I am still entering 1220-esque facts and history, with notations for the supernatural elements. This week, I plan on expanding upon reference elements from the other ArM5 texts.

Good gods, bad gods, and purgatory...

Great week for gaming! I got a chance to (finally) see the film Thor. Only a guy like Branagh could balance out those two worlds. Great fun, strong acting, and finally a little 'magic' in the Marvel movies.

We had a meetup 4e D&D one-shot game this week. More big fun! This was an adventure based upon 'fourthcore' rules; which is 'hardcore gaming set in the 4e game system'. It is the good old-fashioned Gygazian killer-puzzle-room-where-its-OK-to-metagame style of game. The game concept was based upon a generational challenge where the gods of the world allowed a single group of heroes to prove humanities worth. We failed, and the world was submerged in seawater. Sorry everybody.

Finally, my wife plugged in Wristcutters: A Love Story. Good film. Worth the couple of hours to watch. Yes, there is suicide. Yes, there is purgatory. Yes, there is a love story (a number of them, actually). Watch it for the textures and the humor; there's some classic stuff in there.

Methodology

When writing about a given region or group, I find that I can't do it justice until I've researched it beyond necessity. In the case of the current ArM5 submission work, this requires two unique, initial 'historic digs'.

   First; I start at the period of pre-history and work my way into 1220 AD (or a little beyond). This allows two major aspects into the writing: lost beliefs / supernatural elements, and a greater sense of depth to the writing of 1220.
   Second; I begin a dig into each of the ArM5 texts, looking for cookies about the region. It's a little nerve-wracking, but keeping to the canon of the game is important to me. It also helps out in getting my mind into the mindset of the previous authors, so that the same textures may be used when I expand upon those ideas.

So here I am today. I've got three maps of the region printed off. The first is dedicated to the Supernatural, the second to Real History, and the third is for Story Elements (set in 1220 AD). From these three maps, the hundreds of scribbles all over them, and the various notes jammed into an OpenOffice file; I should be able to begin sorting out the mess this week and hopefully begin writing in earnest next week.
More to come...

Feels like the New Year

Wow.  What a weekend!  It was the last day of the Bristol Faire... and boy was it packed.  My daughter got to play with the fey, we got to eat our fish and chips out of the newspaper, and the raptors were flying well (even in the dust-filled wind gusts).
A new writing proposal came down the ArM5 pipes by Mr David Chart.  This is for a regional book that shall remain unnamed at this time.  Looking at the projects I have listed on the dry-erase mounted next to the screen; I think the best I can do is to submit various 'filler' pieces (hooks, legends, regios, and all of that).  Rather than delve into the vast and rich history of the area in question, I am going at it from a natural landmass and local architectural POV.  We'll see how it all flies.  I have until mid-November to submit, but my goal is to have everything locked down by the end of September.
The Obsidian Portal stuff has been structured: 1) Mythen Saga and 2) 2012 Con games lit package.  Now to fill it out.  This is 'rubber hits the road' time.  No more 'new' projects, just note new ideas for later work....