Desert of Zin

I have words!

Alistair — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 19:59:12 +0000

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

Early morning woes

Alistair — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 19:43:29 +0000

Bloomin’ hell, I’m shattered after being up since 3.30 this morning. Woke with the worst case of trapped wind ever and had to head out for a long, long walk to shift it. Got back in and it was 4.30am. Still no sleep. Got through my early shift and it’s been a long day.

Aurora is asleep, dinner is soon and an early night is calling methinks…

- Alistair

Deathwatch RPG (and fancy collectors edition!)

Alistair — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 09:41:20 +0000

Fantasy Flight Games, makers of many fine games (including the Call of Cthulhu Card Game and the Arkham Horror boardgame), have been milking their Games Workshop licence in the years since they got it. And all power to them, their standard of quality across all the games they produce seems to be consistantly high.

Well, they’ve been churning out a number of role-playing games on the licence (Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader) and the next one to join the collection is Deathwatch, where you play a member of the secretive Space Marine chapter of the same name.

I haven’t played any of the other games in the series, although I have been seriously tempted, but the release of this particular game might be the push I need to get a copy and fire up a game. I’ve been itching to get back into role-playing, time permitting, and I think that this might make a good evenings entertainment.

Bell of Lost Souls have a quick review and a video overview of the book.

And there’s a fancy collectors edition… Not that I’ll buy it, but just head over to the FFG site to check it out. It sure is pretty…

- Alistair

You have words. Use them!

Alistair — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:56:06 +0000

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.

Whenever I have time (and haven’t I already said I have free evenings next week?) I should knuckle down and dedicate this precious time to the stack of unfinished work which continues to grow.

In saying that, while looking through the archive, I found the first story I attempted for the story-a-day project way back. It had the working title of ‘Thor’. It’s only a few hundred words, no more than two scenes, but it was fun to write and given a spruce up it might be worth throwing up on the site.

I’ve been thinking of doing something similar with a few of the shorter standalone pieces. (but it won’t become another ‘Railman’ or ‘The Bandstand’. These are on the to-do list to be finished, hopefully, at some point before I shuffle from this mortal coil.)

But as with so many things, we’ll see.

- Alistair

On the painting queue – 27th August ’10

Alistair — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:28:30 +0000

The five man squad of Grey Knights, mentioned here, have been finished only to be replaced with another five. The Inquisitor and the Chimera have been joined by a Space Marine Sergeant (possibly painted in White Scars colours), a Grey Knight Terminator with Incinerator and a single Plaguebearer of Nurgle.

Oh, and 33 night goblins…

Still on a look out for a camera that’s decent enough to capture detail.

- Alistair

Who cares?

Alistair — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:50:31 +0000

It’s been a busy wee week for the Bainster. One of the carers I work with has moved on to another job so I’m in the fortunate position of working with full time hours. Don’t really know how long that’ll last and I’ve forgotten how tiring a full-time week can be.

A hard life, eh?

As a result, time to do anything other than work and sleep is at a real premium. (and it doesn’t really help that last weekend I was rather worse for wear. Bad Al, bad.)

And just getting my shifts for next week in, it looks like another full week, but with the added bonus of only having one evening to do mid-week. Small mercies at that.

On another point, I’m still enjoying working in care. It’s different every week and the feeling of freedom is incredible. And it also helps that the staff and management aren’t a shower of… well, just a shower.

- Alistair

…the screaming chaos…

Alistair — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 07:33:02 +0000

Ruthy and I were discussing this morning the anti-Christ-like ways of the ever watch-able Jeremy Kyle, and the celebrity scandal episode with the wonderfully crazy Brigitte Nielsen. We thought that she’s a good match for the prince of darkness but another name was invoked who we thought would be a perfect match.

Grace Jones.

According to Ruthy, Grace Jones is “the screaming chaos that awaits us all at the end of time”.

Perfect. Couldn’t have said it better myself.

- Alistair

Sometimes size matters

Alistair — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 18:07:37 +0000

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

Get yer RPGs out for the lads!

Alistair — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 22:12:58 +0000

Next week is Read An RPG Book In Public Week. Make it so. Dust your favourite role-playing edition off your bookshelf and peruse it proudly in public.

I happen to be off work next week to look after Aurora so I might be doing Read An RPG Book To Your Daughter In Public Week.

All the info is at The Escapist.

- Alistair

On the painting queue – 18th July ’10

Alistair — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 17:26:04 +0000

Currently I have a five man squad of Grey Knight Space Marines, a Daemonhunter Inquisitor and an Imperial Guard Chimera. Although it’s slow progress I’m painting faster now than at any time since my teens. I’ll try and get some pics up but i’ll have to borrow someones digital camera.

Anybody have a decent one I can borrow for a while?

Thing is, as far as gaming is concerned, I have an odd selection of miniatures to choose from. I’ve only ever bought those I fancied painting at the time with no regard to whether or not it made a coherent army. Oh, well.

- Alistair