• Writing Resources

    Slaying Dragons… Again

    Earlier this year my story ‘Slaying Dragons’ appeared in Plasma Frequency Magazine. It also garnered enough votes to be selected for Plasma Frequency’s first year anthology — reader and editor selected stories. That anthology is now available through Amazon in paperback and Kindle versions. If you’d like a sample of what Plasma has published in its first year, I strongly suggest you take a look a look at the anthology. Paperback Kindle And if you read ‘Slaying Dragons’, head back over here and let me know what you thought of it :) … Also, since I’m posting my writing update a day early to get the word out on this…

  • The Lazy Designer

    The Long Dark

    Instead of talking (just) about my prototype work, I’d like to mention a Kickstarter for a former coworker. Dave Chan was the sound guy for a significant portion of my time with BioWare and he’s joined Hinterland games to make THE LONG DARK: a first-person post-disaster survival simulation set in the Northern wilderness. How far will you go to survive? If this sounds interesting to you, please support it by kicking some funds to it, or sharing it. In regards to my own prototype work, this was a slower than average week as I’m undoing a bunch of code that was working before to make it work differently. I do…

  • Writing Resources

    127 750 Words

    Another hasty update, still hammering away at finishing the rough draft of the latest novel before I lose the bulk of my writing time for this school year. As the title probably suggests, I am sitting at about 127 750 with 8 chapters remaining to write. Doing the rough maths in my head, and considering that I always overwrite and hence draft 2 will be smaller than the rough draft, I think the final product will be about 140 000 words, which is significantly longer than the first novel in the series. I am tempted to chop the two novels into three, as there’s a fairly natural progression point where…

  • The Lazy Designer

    Update on the Prototype

    Well I suggested a couple days ago that I would stick to a schedule, for my blog postings and I don’t want to disappoint in the first week. That said, I’m quite far behind for today’s work, so a short update must suffice: I’m only spending a couple hours a week (at best) on the game prototype and primarily, for the last month or so, I’ve been researching various art solutions and doing some on-the-job training. Which basically means I’ve been creating ugly art for various prototyping ideas — primarily on the level design front. I’ve got some ideas to rapidly — and procedurally — generate some of what I…

  • Writing Resources

    Two Negative Sales

    Recently I learned that a publishing company that produces several magazines is likely going under. This means that two stories I had contracted with them will not be printed (as well as a third that I had revised significantly for an editor). Now I have to go and find a new home for them. So far there doesn’t seem to be anything appropriate, so they might sit in purgatory for a few months. This is the second time that one of these stories has actually been bought (with the magazine later folding)… it is earning a decent chunk of income without ever seeing print! I fear it might be some…