It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here. I thought I’d post a little update.

So How Has 2019 Been?

Pretty rough, with a few good bits. I had some work issues and health issues, both of which affected each other in some non-fun ways. They also helped persistently remind me of my own mortality and how little I’ve done as I crawl slowly towards 40. We’re still in Hellworld, as I’m sure you all noticed with December’s election and the world being literally on fire in places. I managed to get a good secondment at my work which has only just started. I like the company I work for and the sense of helping people out, superhero-idolising nerd that I am. My house things are still in the process of being resolved, but are at least closer than they were. I had inherited my late mother’s house, but it’s got issues and there were problems with the solicitors sorting out the deed transfer and the building society. Those are over, but there are still mortgage things to sort out.

Pity party over, what did I actually accomplish in 2019?

Cadavers: World Gone to Hell was released and received well everywhere it’s been reviewed. Specifically, Blob Detective has been name-checked on every place I’ve heard or read a review on. My dad asked me when I’m next writing Blob Detective as I should capitalise on it. So that’s all kind of cool. I’m still a nobody, but I’ve got something out there. I pitched half a dozen other projects to Mad Robot and have a couple of things I’ve been developing.

I took part in National Novel Writing Month again, running the Brighton & Hove community. I wrote a new version of Mistbirch Mythos, a kind of cosy murder mystery mixed with Lovecraftian horror. I lent much more on the cosy murder mystery side and feel a lot happier with what I’ve written so far.

I continued to write for Who Dares Rolls and to take part in our currently sporadic podcasts. This included our third ever live show at UK Games Expo. I’m hoping for things to get a bit more organised and regular there in the next year. I’ve liked covering independent RPGs there and hope to shine a light on more games soon, as well as diving into a few board games.

The biggest new thing has been running RPG community nights at the Dice Saloon. I run my weekly sessions there and drew enough positive attention from passers by and the staff to be asked if I wanted to run a regular RPG night. It started small in January, with mainly the volunteer GMs I’d gathered and a single player. Then two players and no one else. It grew over the weeks to the point where it now needs 3-5 tables. We’ve featured a ton of different RPGs, including some of my favourites like Dungeon World, Zombie World and Monsterhearts 2. I’ve tried out games for the first time like The King is Dead, and we have of course had some D&D as well. It’s been an amazing success and hopefully will keep going through 2020.

Photo by @arthurli on Instagram

What’s Next?

I listened to a great League Presents podcast about the RPG business and it made me think a lot about what I’m doing. I keep trying to do everything all at once, which Mad Robot’s Matt Hardy has often rightfully pointed out means I never finish anything. I’ve limited myself to the following list:

• I want to write prose
• I want to write comics
• I want to talk about tabletop games
• I want to talk about comics

If I can get the Blob Detective RPG quickly polished and published on Itch.io, then that’s cool, but I won’t be trying to make any other RPGs until I get other things published. I like the idea of making RPGs, but it’s not a big priority. That benches Murderboi Society (a few small Assassin’s Creed style games), Orphan Harvest (a board game), A Walk in the Dark and Inventory Quest.

A day after Matt helped narrow my comic pitches down from seven to two, I dreamed a great page layout for Lightning as a comic, got up, couldn’t find a pen and scribbled it down on a screen capture I took of my phone. I will be working on a tentative comic script. I also want to finish the rewrites on episode two of the prose version and to work out revising the already published episode one. There are a couple of things I want to change there; not much, mainly some Lena Parker things to avoid the ‘not like other girls’-ing of her. It’s pretty tedious and I owe her (and the audience) better than that.

This has since changed, but it was a good instigator.

My comic projects are the big, main ones. I have two issues of Amnesiac City scripted and need to find an artist. This isn’t something I’ve done before and I’ve been too exhausted to try, so I’m going to change that early this year. Hopefully I can get assistance from Matt, who has found some amazing artists for his work. I’ve got Explosion High!, which I’ve not formalised a plot layout for and does have one artist (it may end up having more). It’s undergone some big changes going from a webcomic format to a proper comic.

I’ve got a physical copy of Mistbirch Mythos to proofread and cut apart with red pen. My goal at the moment is to get it in a state where it’s ready to publish or burn & rebuild by the end of 2020.

Who Dares Rolls went through some quieter times between work patterns, kids and such. I want a more regular recording schedule for the podcast and my brother was pressuring me about pivoting to video at some point. We’ll see if I can work out how to edit podcasts first and then where I can go. As my Hostage Negotiator Actual Play series felt a bit too small to post on WDR I’ll continue posting them here, although with the Career expansion coming out soon, I might just power through all of the packs, continuing on to the next one even if I don’t succeed at the mission.

Faked Tales still exists and I still pay my renewal fees for it. I want to be more prolific here, even if it only consists of little pieces of writing. I enjoyed writing about comics at first here and then on Google Plus (RIP) so I want to write a few things here about them. I have a short story that’s kicked my arse for ages and want to get out. I’ve also been thinking about collecting, adding to and revising my post apocalyptic Brighton short stories as my horror work from here have been doing okay on Kindle.

We’ll see how far I get with all of these plans. As long as my next post isn’t me doing the same thing for 2021, then I’ll have succeeded at something.