Desert of Zin

When I was working my way out of my depression, way back over a year ago, Ruth had me on her Task Centred Therapy, which (and I’m simplifying things here) involved picking a task and dedicating all your mind to it.  Didn’t matter if you finished it or not, purely working on the task was enough.

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I have his other website, Cold Head Press (Don’t check it out, there’s no content there at the moment).  When I first bought the domain and set up the site it was in the pre-Aurora haze of ‘I have the time to do anything!’  The problem with having all that time is the tendency not to spend it wisely.

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yWriter has long been my weapon of choice.  It’s lightweight, straightforward and has a host of additional features.  It’s one of the better author tools out there.  But on Linux and running on Mono it’s buggy as hell.

So, for one story, i’ll be giving LyX a go. Read the rest of this entry »

Yeah, as the SVQ is out of the road, and after a week off from things I would really had to do, I cracked on with my writing yesterday.

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Despite the whole “I have college work still to finish” thing, I have a new story bubbling up through the old noggin.

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Could be, could be…

I HAVE been writing as a matter of fact. I have a project I’m working on (i always do) and it’s one that I have a deadline for.

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Heh, it’s Ruthy’s old laptop.  She got a new one for Christmas and I now have my mitts on her old Compaq Presario V5000.  Which now has Ubuntu 10.10 powering it… 

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I’ve got two weeks off work.  I’m not going anywhere nice, this was one of those ‘use your holiday time or lose it’ moments, but I have every intention of getting the best out on my time.

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It’s Not National Novel Writing Month.  I have officially decreed it so. 

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Hmm, bit of a problem.  I’ve written next to nothing for the last three days.

For the life of me, I just can’t find the inspiration or the words.

Maybe It’ll be different tomorrow.

- Alistair

In less than perfect circumstances my WriMo has officially started!

Aurora has been up since 1.30, upset and unwell, and there’s little chance of me getting sleep any time soon.  Best make use of the time awake.  Certainly I’ll be knackered once I get in from work tonight so any waking time is potential writing time!

-Alistair

(Inspired by this post.)

I’ve been capturing notes dilligently today, while I’ve had downtime at work, and with days to go before the start I’m happy with what I have.

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I know it’s only the 25th (only the 25th?  It starts a week today!) but I’m already dead keen to get cracking at this year’s NaNo.  I spent some of the day today working on ideas.  I’m still going to do the same story I rattled on about before but i’m working on some of the side plots at the moment.  Something to pad it out and make it less one-dimensional.

I’m not sure if they’ll work but if I can get away with the main story (which I’m still playing close to my chest) then I can really justify anything.  Some of these sub-plots should be toffee…

(If you’re interested in what I’m doing, the project is called NaNoWriMo.  Head over and check it out.)

-Alistair

Less than a month to go until NaNoWriMo and I’m getting that familiar itch.  (no, not THAT familiar itch…)

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I logged on FaceBook this morning to see a friend had posted about the rapidly approaching NaNoWriMo.  Apparently we have six weeks until it begins.

Aww, hell.

I’m of a thinking that I might be body-swerving the nano this year.  But then in six weeks a perfect idea might fall into my lap which just demands attention.  Or not.

Too much to do and never enough time.

- Alistair

I realised today that I get hits on my site to this post, and I realised I don’t use yWriter in the same way any more.  Currently I’m running it within a Virtualbox session running an old copy of Windows XP I had kicking around, gathering dust.

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So, despite my lack of sleep I had a relatively good day of writing today.  It was Towers Over The Clyde, the sequel to Living On Reputation.

It was good to get back into it (it always is) and a rough first chapter has finally been finished!

I have some really crazy ideas for the rest of the story, I’m really letting my imagination run riot with this one.

- Alistair

I haven’t written anything in ages.  Absolutely ages.  Which is a shame ‘cos I was really getting into it.  Then, as always happens, real life comes hurtling into view.

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I had a deadline for Duality 2, a book produced locally, that was today.  The story I was working on didn’t quite work and while I had a good beginning and ending, the middle just didn’t work out.  So no submissions for Duality 2 for this boy.  I’ll wait until Duality 3 and see if I have anything in mind that would work.

Now that’s out of the way I’ve been thinking of working on something a bit longer.  Recently my story lengths have been getting shorter and shorter and after a comment by mrBen I thought that something with a bit more story to tell was on the cards.

So now I’m working on a sequel of sorts to Living on Reputation, something that was submitted recently for Mythaxis.  And, hopefully, it should be a bit more weighty than I’ve been producing.  It has the working title of Towers Over The Clyde.

To give you a hint, think of Glasgow cop-show Taggart but with wizards and a hint of H.P. Lovecraft.  Lovely.

- Alistair

I have until the end of the week to get a story finished.  Talk about leaving it to the last minute.

The added challenge is Ruth had to head up north for family reasons and I have the little Aurora goblin all to myself until she gets back.  Not exactly conducive to a peaceful writing environment but maybe I should get aurora to help me finish it?

Perhaps her critical eye is exactly what is needed…

- Alistair

It’s been a while so I thought I’d post a quick update where I am writing-wise.

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They’re looking for a novel, at least 80,000 words in length, to be submitted by 31th December 2010.

The theme is Anywhere but here, Anywhere but now.  More details are on the Terry Pratchett website.  I’ll have to put the thinking cap on.

- Alistair

Living On Reputation is a wee story of mine that’s been published by Mythaxis Magazine.

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Things a picking up, as they often do when my confidence returns.  Bit of a no-brainer there. Read the rest of this entry »

(Or ups and downs and the inevitable return of the Crisis of Confidence.)

I have a habit of becoming hermit-like every so often, even more than normal, and recently has been one of those periods.  It’s annoying (a bloody pain to be honest) but it’s just something that has happened for years, easily since I hit my 20′s.

Now, I know this recent one is not a relapse of the poor mental health that plagued me last year.  Generally I’ve been quite chipper.  Work trundles on, they throw me some shifts if they’re feeling benevolent (joke, joke), Aurora is blossoming and Ruthy is as lovely as ever.  A good and erstwhile chum is back from down south, it’s always good to have him around, and I have no reason to feel like this.

Yet I do.

Of course, the usual reason my mood suffers is due to the pressure I put myself under with my writing.  Same old, same old.  Perhaps I’m just going through the same mood I hit when I had my last whinge.

Ah, bugger.  Prog beckons, I think.  That should break me out of it.

- Alistair

Bizarrely, I’m still working on this.  Haven’t completed a full story since Day 1 but I’ve written anything up to 1000 words for each of them.  I keep telling myself I’ll head back and fill in the gaps once I’ve finished the story for that day, and I might still do that, but I’m a busy boy with new job and baby.  Only so many hours in the day to do any of this…

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Still working on these guys.

Day 2 had wizards in a tower being assailed by an ancient foe.

Day 3 had a man falling uncontrollably between dying realities.

Day 4 has a real world tale of a man stepping up and putting himself in harms way to protect others.

They’ve all been started and none are finished yet…

- Alistair

Well, I gave it a try, despite my split shift and my incredible desire for sleep and have produced a very silly little story, 951 words of very silly story, and I’m very pleased with it.

It was a joy to write.  It’s about a carer called Thor.

I’ve let Ruth read it, in a pre and untouched first edit I’ll have you know, and I hope she thinks it’s a fun and silly as I do.

It feels odd writing something and finishing it (for the most part) in a single day.

With no real plan what each day will bring, I’m interested what I’ll write tomorrow.

(For more info about what I’m doing, go here.)

- Alistair

Despite the “spitting the dummy out” moment I had recently, I have taken the mindbogglingly foolish step of signing up for the StoryADay.org website.

The plan, according to the mentalists over there, is to write (finish) a story every day in May.  The word count of these can be from 50 to 5000 words.

I’m promising nothing. 

- Alistair

I’ve been having a bit of a struggle recently.

With everything I’ve written so far, even the stuff I think is half reasonable, I always get the feeling that it’s a bit flat.  There’s always that voice at the back of my head telling me that it could have been richer in the detail and, well, just better. And I just don’t know how.  The added concern is that my writing is never going to be more than mediocre.

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A while ago mrBen became aware that a number of sites on the shared hosting we had were hacked due to a bad plugin on one of the sites.  Nothing major but annoying enough to be a pest.  The site maybe down or have theme / plugin issues for the next while as I sort it out.

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Hi guys,

Your normally scheduled episode of Railman has been delayed.

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Finally!  The book launch was on Friday just there and muggins here picked up two copies.  I had already received my personal copy but my mother was over last week and my first ever copy of a book with a story of my very own found it’s way into her hands.

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Yet another episode.  Hope you like.

- Alistair

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Righty, here’s part seven.  I hope it meets with your approval.

- Alistair

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Railman won’t be ready for Monday.  Ruthy hasn’t been well and has been in quarantine for most of the day and Aurora isn’t all that well at the moment either.

If it’s tidy enough for early in the week I’ll release it then.

Sorry for the delay.

- Alistair

Words About Whiteinch is getting very real now.  It’s odd, but as the first story of mine that’ll actually be in ACTUAL PRINT, I’m getting really really excited…

But the anthology is here on Amazon Uk.

Mwah ha ha ahahahahahahahaha…

*ahem*

Sorry about that. 

Now I have to get the next few scenes of Railman out the way and work on other short stories, see if I can get them closer to publish standard.  (of course, it’ll keep me away from the outstanding housework…)

- Alistair

Here’s a belated part five of The Railman.  It’s been a hectic week or two with much that has got in the way of regular updates.  But I’m back on track now.

As usual all comments, criticisms and suggestions are welcome and if you know anyone who might like the story, don’t hesitate to spread the word!

-Alistair

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Part Five here guys.  Still some scene setting going on.  Things are moving in a direction I didn’t expect.  let’s hope it pans out.  As usual all comments, criticisms and suggestions are welcome.

- Alistair

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The first of February’s Railman posts.  I’m aware there should have been one on Friday and this should have been it.  Oh well.

Feel free to leave a comment, criticism or suggestion.

- Alistair

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Two days late?  Ahem, no comment.

Oh, and don’t hesitate to share your thoughts about how/where it’s going.

- Alistair

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A day late but if you don’t tell, I won’t.  And part three will be on time.  Honest.

- Alistair

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In an effort to balance my last doom and gloom post, here’s a list of things I’d like to spend my time on as baby and wife allow.

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Here’s a little something I have been working on.  There are a few parts of it.  I’ll drop them in to the blog over a couple of days.  Let me know what you think.

- Alistair

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So, happy new year!

It’s been a ‘interesting’ year, full of ups and downs.

It started well, with me riding high off the relative success of last year’s NaNoWriMo.  It was an important milestone with my writing, the first time I ever got around to actually finishing something in a short time that I even remotely liked.  So, that was Planet Of Snakes (a sequel to the unfinished Desert Of Zin) and very happy I was with it too.

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Well, I have had my official notification of the inclusion of Whiteinch In Flight for the Words About Whiteinch anthology!

I knew it (in a strictly unofficial sense) but it’s good to have a look at something official.  It is meant to be released in late January 2010 and I have the final edit on my desktop for my confirmation.

I have a few reversions to ask for but it seems to be all systems go!

- Alistair

Wow.  It’s been over a month since my last post, and life has been hectic.

Let’s see.  What has been going on in the life of Al?

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I’ve been away for the last few weeks.  On a wee holiday up east of Elgin at my in-laws.  The in-laws weren’t there leaving myself, Ruthy, her sister and the dog to deal with the bloomin’ awful weather.  Oh well, at least I wasn’t at work.  Small mercies and all that.

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Back from Summer’s End.  (the title may have given that away…)

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Working steadily away here, but time for a wee break… 

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Well, it’s been a busy week with work and home stuff.  Loads to do in the office with the audited accounts coming in and at home I’ve been doing more prep for the arrival of baby.  All very excited for that.

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Loads to do this evening: a tasty dinner, finishing Necroscope II: Wamphyr! by Brian Lumley, starting Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, working on a bit more of Desert of Zin and the Vampire Story, looking up Space 1889 info (thanks for that The Other Big Al), thinking of old RPG projects and watching Cigarette Burns (the John Carpenter Masters of Horror episode).

A busy time indeed…

- Alistair

That’s todays project:  a vampire story.

I watched the first part of Salem’s Lot last night and it was classic horror, beautifully done.  And later Ruthy and I talked vampires and horror, what makes them work and what really pisses us off.

And an idea for a story popped into the ol’ noggin.

So, I’ve been working away on this.  Hopefully I should have some thing by the end of the day!

- Alistair

I’ve a story I’m going to submit somewhere in a day or two and it has to be between 500 and 800 words.

And it’s currently sitting at 960.

And I have edited it to an inch of it’s life.  I like it, I really do, and I don’t want to hack anything else off it.

Perhaps the guy will accept something that’s a bit longer?  Let’s hope so…

- Alistair

Remote Push sent an e-mail round the writing buddies the other day letting us know about Telling of Tales, a website set up by a guy who is getting in some experience as a vocal performer and as a way to get unknown authors a different audience  (or at least that’s what it says on his about page).

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Although this shouldn’t come as any great surprise…

Well, what’s new (since the last post way back on the 13th of June)?

To be true, there’s good and bad.

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I’ve been working on a story for the Words About Whiteinch competition, which I mentioned here, and the first full draft of Whiteinch In Flight is here!

And for a first draft I’m over the moon about it!

Ruthy has already given it her seal of approval so I need to edit it a bit and take it down by about 500 words.  But I’m really chuffed.  Especially after having a really bad last few days, where I’ve been questioning my usefulness at anything.

But once it’s finished I might shave an excerpt off it and post it here.

-Alistair

I’ve been working on part three of The Bandstand for over a week and a half now and it’s odd, at least it is to me, that the bulk of the story is progressing in a different way to how I initially imagined it.

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Right!

I’ve finally finished the final version of the long awaited (heh, yeah) part two of The Bandstand!

You can find it over at Cold Head Press.

- Alistair

Part two of The Bandstand is getting there.

Just so you know I’m not spending ALL my time watching Battlestar Galactica…

- Alistair

The guys in the Whiteinch Community Centre are running a writing competition.

Guess what I’m hard at work on just now? 

More details are here on the Whiteinch Centre website.

- Alistair

…Voices return!

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Not my voice certainly.  As usual, given half a chance, I could witter on for Blighty.

No, it’s the all important second chapter of The Bandstand.

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Em, did I say that part one of The Bandstand would be out by the end of last weekend?  Ah, so I did.

Well, the first draft was passed by Ruthy and the layout is complete but while I work on the second part I’ve sent part one out to my Writng Buddies.  There’s nothing like a bit of a peer review before the actual release.

If, and when, they give it the thumbs up it’ll go live on the site.

I passed the final edit of The Bandstand, part one over to Ruth this evening.  She worked on the layout for the chapter and although there is one change still to make and a cover to do she has done a job that’s just blown me away.

There’s a point when you see your own work in a format done to a professional (or incredibly talented amateur) standard and it looks (to my eye at least) like something you would get from a ‘proper’ book that you get a wee bit emotional.

I certainly did.

Ahh.  You know, it feels like a weight has lifted off my chest just seeing it.

But no time to rest on laurels, on to chapter two!

Hiya, it’s been a while…

Sine the last post, way back on the 6th of March, I bounced abound saying how great it was that I passed the 50k mark with Desert Of Zin.

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Totally forgot to mention that I finally passed the 50k barrier on Desert Of Zin (book one)!

Quality!

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I had a relatively successful writing day today.

I met the writing guys in iCafe in Gibson street this afternoon for a few hours and, although not a great deal of writing was achieved, it was good to see the others and catch up.

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I thought I’d check in as my last post was way back on the 26th of January…

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Yep, I’ve started again.

I have a vague plan of 50 – 60k words in the month of January working on the first Desert Of Zin book.  I have 20k already in the bank and an additional 50 – 60k would take me close to the end.

I was planning to start this on the 1st but Thursday and Friday were very much a write-off.

I’m 1000 words in already and I’m planning a gentle day of writing what I can.  No rush, no panic, no pressure, I”m just writing what I need to.  And after managing november’s crazy writing event I feel confident that it’ll pass no problem at all.

I’ve begun the editing process and as it has given me a chance to read what I wrote for NaNoWriMo this year I’m more than quite happily surprised at how good it is initially.

Well, that is until I get to the desperate days after the first week when I was just typing any old crap to get the word count up…

Still, the process continues interrupted only by the festive season where I will be too busy eating and drinking more than I know better to…

Oh, dear…

Oh yeah, totally forgot to post my final count for NaNoWriMo 2008.

I had 53950 words!  Not bad, eh?

Nope, not bad at all.

I would talk more but i’m enjoying a cool beer (first Leffe and now Hoegaarden) after a crappy week.

(And my confession is that i have not touched any writing since the end of NaNo, but rest assured I’ll get back to you with The Plan.  Oh yes.)

So, here we are.

My word count is currently 53109 which means I have beaten NaNo for this year.  Result!

But the story is not finished yet.  And that’s my plan for today once I get back from church.  The aim for today is 7k or the end of the story, whatever happens first!

And then it’s time to down the tools and take a few days before returning to finish DoZ book 1.

Ah, the joys.

Day 27 Expected target : 45009 (rounded up)

Day 27 Actual wordcount : 50077! (50030 as read by the NaNoWriMo site counter!)

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Day 24 Expected target : 40008 (rounded up)

Day  Actual wordcount : 45144!

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It’s back!

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Day 15 Expected target : 25005 (rounded up)

Day 15 Actual wordcount : 27183

So, what stopped me from getting to 30k tonight?

That would be chinese food.  Ah, lovely.

But 27k is a fine number to finish the day with.  And there will be more tomorrow.

Day 15 Expected target : 25005 (rounded up)

Day 15 Actual wordcount :26685 (so far)

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Day 10 Expected target : 16670 (rounded up)

Day 10 Actual wordcount : 16490

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Day 5 Expected target : 8335 (rounded up)

Day 5 Actual wordcount : 12141

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Day 3 Expected target : 5001 (rounded up)

Day 3 Actual wordcount : 8010GuildWars

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Expected target : 1667

Actual wordcount : 3929

Whoo!  I’ve done well.  Very well in fact.

I can’t say much for the quality of the work but that’s not important, the wordcount is high.

And the meet ups are cool, writing with other like minded folk works really well.  And they’re a cool bunch.

More writing fun tomorrow.

It’s not long after 4pm and I’m currently sitting in the 13th Note in Glasgow hard at work on this years project.  There are about ten of us left and it’s been  quite the communal writing experience.

So far i’m on 3162 words and going strong.

Actually that’s a big fib.  I’m starting to flag.  but 3162 is a fine first day count.

Anyway, back to the grind.

AAARRGH!!!

Didn’t get the Deathwing Terminators finished. 

Did get housework done, some work on The Fracture and a few key upgrades to the site. 

So an overall success.

Got a meeting with fellow NaNoers tonight.  A pre-NaNo meet.  I’m quite excited.

And I bought the wife flowers today because of a top class image she’s done for the site (which isn’t up yet).

Six days left until NaNoWriMo.

I’ll share a bit of info on what this years NaNo will be.

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Everything stop!

There are seven days until NaNoWriMo 2008.  And am I excited?

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Desert Of Zin has been progressing at pace and I’ve taken the opportunity to begin the next part, this time focussing on the bad guys.

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Yesterday got another 1000 odd words done but today barely 500 words.

But it’s more words in total, and that’s what’s important.

Hopefully I’ll get more written before I get to bed, but I have two laptops to tinker with before tomorrow and I’m hoping they won’t take too long…

Richard Wright, keyboardist of Pink Floyd, has passed away.

And as I settle down to a few hours of writing it’s only fitting that Dark Side Of The Moon gets played.

Well, maybe not exactly but it has been a good evening.

Actually a quick update for the day last week I had time for some writing, only 500 or so words were produced.  Meh, not really very good.

But tonight I’ve produced over 1000 words in the last hour or two.  Whoo!!!

So in reality I’m not really the Wordmeister, but I’m feeling it in my bones, I will be soon.

I’ve been busy a lot recently.  Odd day at work interspersed with odd jobs for peeps, website tinkering, a bit of hardware tech and no time for Guild Wars…  What, NO Guild Wars?  Yep, that’s just how little time I have at the moment.

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