29 September 2010

You turn your back for...

...well, roundabout two and a half years, but still.

Re reading some of my really old blogs from '06 and thereabouts made me misty eyed for the days of impotent rage directed at the bad boys of publishing and the inert populace who sheep-like bought from them leaving hearty POD fare to be picked over by carrion crows. Well I decided to swiftly Google the state of play. What search term? There could be none other than "slush pile".

Within one page of results and minimal ferreting about I discover not one but three writing communities that offer an ostensibly fairer method of separating the pearls from the swine. So I'm going to stop mixing or indeed mangling metaphors and head off to ponder this new state of affairs.

23 September 2010

Back In The Saddle

So yes.

Been a while. A good while. Those of you who have been following the continuing saga of No Dice will know that I've been putting all my effort into what I shall now dub "No Dice Phase I". No Dice Phase I consists of: The Core Book, Random Encounters, Levercastle, Shadow Cities and PULP RP and represents a full cycle of work.

If No Dice has any BIG IDEAS trust me most of them are in this Phase I. Sure there are plenty more ideas in Dreamtime Stories and Marauders and so on. But these are all derived from the BIG IDEAS in Phase I.

No ideas are bigger in this phase than the ideas behind PULP RP, the last publication in the series which is what I am getting down to now.

So that's what I've been up to. The other main piece of news is that I have acquired an eBook, which has swiftly become a great boon. I have been able to catch up on my reading as I prefer PDFs to regular published books. It's been great. I shall soon be returning to my duties as a POD book reviewer as I've chewed through so many books in the last fortnight that I shall no longer feel horrendously guilty for not reviewing things people send me in a reasonable amount of time.

Currently submissions are closed. But when they are open, be assured, you will know.

I think that's all for now. I'd better go and see if Sue's Sim 3 is now working as it was having memory issues.