23.
Getting the last few pages in order
January 19th, 2012It’s funny- now that i’m getting towards the home stretch here (as far as getting the final pages laid out, anyway), the more difficult some of these pages become. I’m referring here to the front pages, specifically; the main splash page, credits, table of contents, and so on. I’ve been getting a lot of help from Kevin Ross and Dean Engelhardt to steer me in the right direction, but it’s still a bit of a struggle. Similarly, caption text is kicking my ass. Trying to come up with one line phrases that are appropriate to the image and don’t sound silly or forced…it’s trickier than you might think.
The ToC seems to be coming along nicely…gonna be a biggun’, that’s for sure.
So, that new category i made
January 12th, 2012Pay no attention to it. Nothing to see here. Move on. I promise you’ll never see it used again.
Maybe.
Happy New Year!
January 4th, 2012Sorry for the lack of updates, but the holidays kinda put a crimp in time. I can report that Horror for the Holidays has been released, and should be available at your local bookstore…or you can order it on Amazon.com, or directly from Miskatonic River Press, of course!
Cthulhu by Gaslight has been coming along nicely, and it’s getting close to being done…well, until it gets reviewed and sent back for corrections, of course. 
To whet your appetite for Gaslight, i’m presenting here, for the first time, some of the artwork done by the esteemed artists for the book; Adam Denton, David Grilla, and John T. Snyder. To wit:
A quick note about comments…
December 1st, 2011…because i just received a couple again (thanks, guys!). Due to the torrent of spam this site gets on a daily basis, each comment on a post here has to get approved (or not, as the case may be). Therefore, if you don’t see your comment appear right away, it’s because i need to manually allow for it to get published. Hope that clears up any confusion you may have on that. 
And here we go!
November 29th, 2011The final, corrected file for Horror for the Holidays has been sent!
(Altered) Resonance manuscript has been mailed off to Pagan Publishing!
Holy crap!
A new book in record time
November 28th, 2011No sooner had i finished off Dissecting Cthulhu for Miskatonic River Press when Tom Lynch contacted me and said, “hey, we’ve got this collection of short stories that we really want to get out on the shelves by Christmas…any chance you could crank this out? You’ve got about, uh, three days.” Lunatic that i am, i immediately jumped at the challenge, and managed to crank this thing faster than any book i’ve ever done. Granted, it’s just a fiction collection, so there weren’t a lot of moving parts, but still, it wasn’t easy.
There will be the usual round of corrections (which i’m currently waiting for), but barring any unexpected problems, you should be able to get your own copy of Horror for the Holidays some time in December! Oh, and check out the list of authors- it really is a damn good collection of stories. Anything with Scott David Aniolowski’s name on it is going to be full of win.
So…much….stuff!
November 7th, 2011Now that things are falling into place resource-wise, i’m really starting to get a handle on putting Cthulhu by Gaslight together…and realizing now how much STUFF i have to work with. Map stuff. Art stuff. Header stuff. Diagrams stuff. Period pictures stuff.
It’s at this point in the process that doing layout is rather like a giant puzzle, with all these various and sundry pieces that need to somehow a) fit onto pieces of 8.5 x 11″ paper, and b) maintain readability. And it’s rather a tricky balancing act- i’ve got all this STUFF i want to…well, stuff into the book, because it’s all cool and neat and can help the players and and and…and i need to rein myself in sometimes. And self-edit. What’s *really* necessary for the reader? How much is too much? Is your average audience member going to give a shit what a hansom cab looks like? Do they really need that detailed map of Hounslow? (probably not.)
So yeah, some stuff is just going to have to go. Even still, with things that i’ll have to leave on the cutting room floor, Cthulhu by Gaslight is going to be absolutely filled to the brim. I frankly wouldn’t be surprised if this book eventually hits the 200 page mark.
Spreading the tentacles out
October 31st, 2011Just a quick update that i’ve added a couple of new links to the “Friendlies” section. David Grilla is the new artist on the Gaslight project, complementing work already done by John Snyder and Adam Denton (two other people who’s web pages i need to get…). And Dean Engelhardt joins the list of sacrifices people who are lending a hand to Gaslight- Dean is doing some amazing work with the handouts, as well as his fabulous character sheet. Welcome, both!
Done, almost done, and, uh, not quite done.
October 20th, 2011It’s official- Lux In Tenebras has been released to the public! You can purchase a copy of this lovely .pdf release for Cthulhu Invictus at Miskatonic River Press’ website here.
Meanwhile, we’re getting very close with Dissecting Cthulhu, S.T. Joshi’s collection of essays on HP Lovecraft’s writings. I’d say we’re about 95% done; right now, i’m waiting on proofreading corrections, after had just finished putting the index in.
As for Cthulhu by Gaslight…it goes. Doing what work that i can on it. I’m taking a new approach to the layout, to hopefully speed up the process for when the artwork does indeed arrive.
I’ve slowly but steadily working on my revision for (Altered) Resonance, my World War II/Delta Green one shot scenario. It’s somehow ballooned to over 17,000 words. Not exactly sure how that happened. I’ve reworked the ending of it a bit, but not so drastically that it wouldn’t hold up under another playtest. It’s getting close to being done; the next step after this will be to submit it to Pagan and see what they think of it…