In reality, of course, I'm getting ready for New Year's. I will be at several parties, but the most prominent is Darklady's, and you all can see it at http://www.darklady.com tonight (at least I think she'll be broadcasting), and perhaps catch a glimpse of me (the geek with long hair, goateee and glasses... unlike any other gamer/computer/internet geek in the world, I think you'll agree), and maybe even see Rie do her patented Dance of Seduction.

Lots of news. Had a good Christmas, even if I didn't have any money to speak of. I bought little "I'm thinking of you" gifts for as many folks as I could, but the biggee was a DVD of Princess Mononoke for Devon. It was the only present I could afford for her, but she was bouncing off the walls about it, so I think I did the right thing. She hadn't known it was out on video, so it was a total surprise. I can be a decent dad sometimes, I guess ;)

Right after Christmas I got the best present of all... the Portland Public Schools called and said that I got the job as help desk tech, at a substantial increase in pay and a vast improvement in working conditions. I was a good boy and gave notice to Stream -- my supervisor was genuinely happy for me (our team is being disbanded, and its members transferred to other support teams, so it was an opportune time to leave). I also confided my salary, and he said, "Hell! You're making more than ME!" which was gratifying. I start a week from tomorrow, and I sincerely hope that it will mean a major change in my financial and other areas. Don't worry, though, it won't slow Wulf down at all.

As if things couldn't be more interesting, I also received my galley proof of Relics and Rituals from Sword and Sorcery Studios, and it looks great. It's sure to become one of the standard "secondary" resources for D&D/d20 players, and my dear friend Rie has indeed been immortalized through the spell I wrote in her honor. There's even an illustration of a cute dancer casting the spell, but she ain't anywhere near as curvy and voluptuous as the real woman ;)

On sadder news, my good friend Peggy Kennedy, a fine writer, costumer and general bon vivant died a couple of weeks ago, her work (fine tales of contemporary shape-changing dragons) still unpublished. She had a particularly unpleasant form of brain cancer, and I simply have no words to describe the unhappiness that her departure has caused me and my fellow local writers. I take comfort in the fact that, unlike me, she was of a faith that believes in continued existence and greater sublmity after death, and I think that she was at peace because of it.

Cliff was back again last night, back in town trying to track down Colleen so that he could have it out with her. She was in town, I guess to see her mother for Christmas, but was studiously avoiding contact with him, for reasons that eventually became obvious. So I took Cliff out to meet Rie, who is another of Colleen's many ex-friends, and he found her as charming and cool as I do. We hung out and complained about her for a while, and had a splendid time of it -- the conversation eventually passed on to such topics as female ejaculation and how porn stars manage to keep it up for so long, so it was a decent evening. We probably scandalized the other people at the restaurant, but I'm beyond caring about such things anymore ;)

Cliff finally tracked Colleen down yesterday and had his confrontation, and it turns out that Colleen -- the big "always communcate with your partner/polyamory is great/trust is the most important thing in a relationship" has been cheating on him (i.e., sleeping with people without telling him), and in short doing all the things that she was afraid he would do to her. For the record, Cliff is true-blue and has NEVER done anything that I consider untrustworthy, and our recent estrangement (which, thank goodness is at an end) was largely because of Colleen's manipulativeness and poor faith. Cliff has, btw, told me to go ahead and tell the whole story, so I'm doing it... Feel free to skip this section if you're not into hearing Anthony get all bitchy and gossipy...

The fact is that in all the time Colleen spent with us in LA she never once paid rent, she spent much of her time criticizing my housekeeping and sanitary habits (claiming I "peed on the walls" in the bathroom... can't you just see me doing that?), talked about me behind my back and trashed me to the few friends that I made down there, got into at least two outside relationships that she backed out on and blamed the other people for screwing up, refused to do anything that didn't directly benefit her, and was generally exactly the opposite of the cute enlightened polyamorous waif-like child of nature that she wanted everyone to think she was. She is, instead, a seriously narcisstic individual who specialized in character assassination while treating her victims as sweet as pie. Eventually, she will have to stop skating by on her looks and having everyone tolerate her meanness because she's so cuuuuuuuuute...

As for my relationship with her, well, there was some minimal physical involvement before she (figuratively and literally) latched onto Cliff, and I didn't mind terribly, though I thought it was somewhat hypocritical of her given her professed belief in polyamory and open communications. Her rationale for breaking things off with me was (among others) that I was too old for her. Fair enough -- I got that excuse from at least one other person while I was in LA, and while I'm as down on "ageism" as I am on other "isms" I at least appreciate the rationale. Now, of course, I've come to the conclusion that she was right. I am Way too old for Colleen. Or rather, she's too young for me. Way too young. And I doubt she'll ever be otherwise.

I could go on, but I won't. I think I've said enough for you all to appreciate the crap that that woman put both Cliff and me through.

Now I guess she's going back to LA into the arms of her new sweeties, the poly couple she met down there whom she was cheating on Cliff with (apparently there are others, as well, but they're just the most prominent). She screwed up Cliff's life, she tried (and fortunately failed) to screw up mine, she screwed up at least three other people in the LA area (who shall remain nameless, though one of them took her side against me to such an extent that she totally rejected me as a friend... and she was a fan of this site, too... what a pity), she helped screw up the few friendships that I'd forged while in the LA area, and now she can go and screw up her new fuck-buddies. I estimate in less than a year she'll be telling everyone who will listen (a rapidly shrinking audience) how horrible they were to her and talking about them behind their backs.

The good thing is that I'm back on track with Cliff, and that I met Rie through Colleen, and I realized where my real priorities lie -- in Portland not LA -- all of which are good things. From bitter seeds to fragrant flowers bloom.

Frankly, I'm almost embarassed to put such petty sentiments up on my web page and journal, but then what's a personal web site for but to trash the reputations of those who have done you wrong? ;) And for all of you who said "Hell, I don't want to ready Anthony's rants about the women in his life, what a small-minded asshole..." -- well, just ignore everything between the bold lines and no one'll get hurt :P

So with most of my demons largely exorcised and the road ahead a little clearer, I think it's time to move on. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and will have a greater New Year. Things will get better -- hell, they already have, and that's a good thing. Keep in touch you all, and remember -- last year was the year "zero." Nothing you did and nothing that happened to you has to count unless you want it to. Now it's the year "One" and we're all starting afresh. Good luck and love to you all. Wulf shall return.
 
 

Well, I'm still broke, but MOST of my bills are paid off. I am working, albeit in a less-than-ideal job (interviewed for a new one, however... see below). I don't exactly have any new "capital R" relationships right now, though my friendship with Rie has grown by leaps and bounds, as has my closeness with her roommate Amianne. I've renewed ties with old friends and remembered how much fun it was to actually read, got to movies and play mindless roleplaying games. And most important, I'm writing again, both my own fiction and professional gaming material.

As for Clio, well I'm reluctant to say whether she was right or not. She says that she didn't love me the way a wife "should" love a husband. She says we had been estranged for a long time, and that she had tried to talk to me but never succeeded. While I agree that there were problems I did not then, nor will I ever, claim that they were insoluble. However, it takes two people to solve problems, and if one of them thinks that there's no hope left, then there's really no point. Clio's life hasn't exactly been a cakewalk since our separation -- her stepfather died last week after a long illness, and my heart goes out to her for the grief she's feeling. Things have been pretty positive between us since my return, and I hope it continues in that direction.

I had another visit out of the past last weekend as well. Someone knocked on the door, I saw a cream-colored Honda in the driveway, opened the door and beheld none other than ex-roomie Cliff. He was up from LA, the car packed with his possessions, and not 100% sure what he wanted to do. I guess he and Colleen are no longer an item; I've received further information from him which I don't feel comfortable disclosing, but suffice to say Colleen is off my Christmas list. I won't say anything more since I'd be breaking confidences. If Cliff approves I might put the whole sad saga onto a page so everyone knows what we had to put up with, but that’s for the future. And I assure you that I'm being far more discreet about our problems than Colleen ever was.

On happier notes -- and there are many, despite being broke and unsure whether I can even afford Christmas presents for my daughter -- I have another writing assignment, this one titled City of the Mithril Golem, for Sword and Sorcery Studios. My first work for them will be coming out in January, as entries in their new Relics and Rituals sourcebook, a collection of new spells and magic items for D&D (oops... I mean The d20 System). Keep an eye out for a spell called Rie's Dance of Seduction, a little tribute to my favorite exotic dancer...

(I'm also outraged about the layoffs at TSR/WotC, btw... I think that the people in charge of WotC bear some responsibility for what's happened. They had a lot of money waved under their noses and sold out with the assurance that WotC would be run exactly as it always had been, that Hasbro would be in effect an absetee landlord. Of course, that was all just corporate spin (read bullshit). The moment that the Pokemon franchise seemed to be losing its punch, the layoffs began. And despite Hasbro's assurance that D&D/d20 remains strong and won't be touched, I predict that within the next couple of years the brand will be scaled back to nothing or sold. Mark my words. Damn the corporate superstate, anyway...)

I’m also going to be starting work on some comics scripts for Edd Vick at Eon/Mu Press and I’m going to be trying to contact Steve Crompton to see if he’s interested in working with me on any more Demi the Demoness books. Edd wants to do a Nightrunners one-shot, and I’m quite enthusiastic. I’ve already got one or two scripts that can be adapted, so we’ll see what happens. I also want to talk to Diana Vick about doing some writing for her on her ongoing Cap’n Kate series. More on that as it develops.

I am also a judge in the Northwest Achievement Awards, a literary prize for local writers of SF and fantasy. I'm assigned a couple of military SF books, and am currently reading Batman: No Man's Land by Greg Rucka. Gotham City, long the armpit of the nation, has been "cast adrift" by the US Government, declared officially separate from the US. Its bridges are blown, its tunnels collapsed, and the entire city is now cut off and alone, without law enforcement, supplies, power or water. Sound familiar? Well, let's put it this way -- the concept resembles a certain John Carpenter movie starring Kurt Russel about a big US city that has been converted to a giant prison.

So, you take Escape from New York, add the Joker, Two-Face, Black Mask, the Penguin and Lex Luthor on one side, and Batman, Robin, Nightwing, Huntress, Batgirl and Commissioner Gordon on the other, and you've got a pretty kickass comic book story. And a half-way decent novel, too, strangely enough. I recommend the book -- it's a lot of fun.

Any thoughts on our little election tangle here? Especially from overseas? In our defense, I can only say that the last time this happened was in the 1880s, and that even with our difficulties, there was no revolution, no tanks in the streets and no one seized power and declared himself dictator for life. Except maybe Clinton. In the words of Winston Churchill, democracy is the worst possible form of government, except for all the others.

I admit to being a little irritated by all the guffaws from around the world, especially from such flawless democracies as China and (wait for it...) Singapore. I think that once they have democratic institutions in place and have had uninterrupted peaceful transfers of power every four years for two centuries (including one in the middle of a civil war), THEN they can make fun. Until then, put up or shut up ;)

Personally, I think George Bush is stupid and looks like a chimp, and he'll make a damned crummy president, especially with such a badly divided congress. And when it comes to social issues, well when someone asked him what he thought of Roe vs. Wade, he asked if that was how George Washington crossed the Delaware. And then he went to the drive-in to see "Closed for the Winter." Badum-bum... Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I'm here all week.

And yes, Wulf lives on... I'm probably 3/4 of the way through Elven Twilight and really truly hope to get it done next week. I'd better, as the Sword and Sorcery project will be looming on the horizon, putting everything on the back burner. I've also interviewed for a much cooler job than the one I've got, but I won't say anything more until I have more info; I don't want to jinx it.

And if I don't get a chance to say it before the 25th... Merry Christmas.
 

I'm beat cuz Dev came home with headlice -- the bane of modern elementary school students I'm afraid. I never got them when I was in school... Is this a recent phenomenon or something? Yes, I know they carried nit-combs back in the middle ages, but were the little bastards lying dormant while I was in school or something, only to emerge when my daughter is old enough, and when I'm old and tired and working too hard and don't have the time or energy to nitcomb my daughter's entire head, then haul all her clothes to the laundromat cuz my washing machine just broke? Oh, well, I whine too much...

I'm applying for a new job. Stream International has just about defeated me. I deserve better. My worst enemy deserves better. Not that I have enemies, just people I'm not speaking to ;)

I'm going to be running a brand spanking new 3rd Ed. D&D game in Thystra this weekend. One of the characters is a burned out, cynical and brooding male winged one. He's going to be joined by a ratling thief, a tandu sorcerer, and two Kaitian cousins, one a paladin (!) and the other a martial arts monk (!), along with their hulking protege, an n'doro acolyte. Oh, yes, and the minotaur druid. Gonna be fun. I'll let you know how it goes. And I think I found the solution to the Book of Thystra .pdf dilemma, but it involves basically redoing the entire book with a different word processor. I'll get to that once Twilight is finished. And Twilight looks to be a real human drama, btw, with lotsa soul searching and emotional epiphanies. Stay tuned.

That's all I can manage. Going to bed. Sleep. Sleep good... Hope to dream about women in corsets... :) One or two corseted women in particular ;)

Chivalry prevents me from going into too much detail about some matters. No, it's not because I got laid... I did not get laid, nor was I really trying all that hard (despite my previous comments about oral sex). One aspect of the weekend was of an intensely personal nature, and I can't really talk about it for fear of betraying confidences or making myself look foolish. The other things that I can mention include making some degree of peace with both of the people I wanted to make peace with... One was a smashing, unqualified success, the other (admittedly the harder of the two) seems like it's going to be okay, but I'm not 100% sure how it's going to turn out. In fact, I can talk about the one -- my old roommate, who served as the model for the Mia character in the Alex St. John story that you can see on the Extras page, was there, looking pretty damned spiff in her corset and heels, and I took it upon myself to go tell her that I was sorry that I'd cut myself off from her, that I'd always cared about her, and despite my angry words in the past, had always felt she had enormous potential. The fact that she's now apparently working as a freelance technical writer and pulling down about three times my pathetic salary is some proof that that potential has been realized. So we kissed and hugged and made up, and I promised that I'd come visit and that we'd be friends again. That's a really nice feeling, let me tell you...

The other cool thing was meeting my old friend Diana, who is a very talented comics artist, and who kept me up until about 3:30am on Saturday, dancing to the megahits of the 80s... I'll bet you don't know what Dancing with Myself and Turning Japanese have in common, do you? E-mail me your ideas and maybe I'll make a contest out of it ;) I'm hoping to get up to Seattle to hang with her, as well, and to talk to Edd Vick of MU Press, who wants to do an all Nightrunners issue of his Wild Kingdom furry erotica book. Keep it tuned here... I think something was said about Nightrunners t-shirts, so you may get to own a piece of me yet, or possibly help me put Devon through college.

My panels were fun, ranging from DMs: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly to Does Hollywood Think We're Idiots, and Are We Proving Them Right? I ditched my Neo-Paganism: Historical Fact or Just Wishful Thinking? to attend a panel on Polyamory, which of course is both the boon and the bane of my existence right now. I suppose that I should write some kind of essay on the subject one of these days, given that I keep striving for an ideal that other people seem capable of attaining, but that continues to elude me. Never was the contrast between what I strive for and what I accomplish in terms of my personal relationships more stark and obvious than it was this weekend, but I think I'll get off that topic right now, lest I start planting divots in my desk with my forehead. The highlight of the weekend was probably our own local homebrewed version of Whose Line is it Anyway, improv comedy by our little band of improvisational comedians, including yours truly. It was a huge hit, and all weekend I had people congratulating me about it, which really strokes the ego big-time.

There's an old Alan Parsons Project song that includes the lyrics "Don't want to live my life in the real world," and all I can say is that life in the world of Wulf and company seems far less complicated sometimes, and makes this real world seem a welter of contradictions and inanities. I think that I found some peace this weekend, or at the very least started off on the road to some peace -- only time will tell if I get there or not. But there was a lot of other stuff, too, things that may cause distress and pain in the future, or reopen wounds I thought healed. Again, only time will tell, and there's only a finite supply of that. Sometimes, however, I feel sufficiently sorry for myself to wonder why things so rarely seem to work out the way I want them to, or why I work so hard for a certain outcome, only to receive the exact opposite. I'm sure Wulf would sympathize. I'll keep you informed as situations develop.

Over 10,000 words complete on Elven Twilight. I finally made a decision that since this is the final episode and that I'm concluding a very huge tale, I would just plain forget about gratuitous sex, and concentrate on the boinking only when it's important. That means, hopefully, that Twilight will have fewer, but more intense and meaningful sex scenes. And that, I think, is how I want to play it from here on in, rather than receive the very understandable criticism that the sex is being diluted and seems forced. Wulf isn't all about sex, of course, but that's one of its big appeals, so I don't want to make it seem ordinary or routine. I'll publish a preview in a few days, I think, so keep an eye out.

Oh, yeah... My e-mail appears to be down, and keeps bouncing back to me, else I'd have replied to a lot of you regarding my birthday messages, etc. Please accept my apologies for the omission, and I'll fix it asap.

Life is funny sometimes. In every sense of the word.

November 17, 2000
My humble thanks for all the birthday wishes... You guys are the greatest ;)

I'm taking off soon for lunch with the ex, and an afternoon at Orycon. I've got a room with a couple of Rie's friends, so I'm going to get to stay onsite for the weekend, and it's relatively cheap. I'm not sure whether this weekend is going to be frustrating or exhilerating or, as at most cons, a combination of both. Like that weekend when Clio and I took our webcam-girl friend to Norwescon. But then, as I said, I'm discreet and I should just keep my mouth shut ;)

My birthday was uneventful, but was livened by the following incident. I am NOT making this up. I'm considering sending it to dilbert.com but they might not believe it either:

The company that I do tech support for provides DSL service. The customer can choose to us as an ISP or use a local company. A salesperson for our company called. Her client had wanted to change ISPs but maintain her DSL connection, but apparently the change had not been made. I wasn't sure who to send her to so I called a supervisor. She said, "Changing ISPs is an issue for the NOC [Network Operations Center]. The saleswoman needs to call them."

I said, "Okay, what's the NOC's number?" My supervisor said, "Oh, we can't give that out. They said that too many people were giving out the NOC number."

"Well what does she need to do? Do I say that her and her client are out of luck?"

"No, she needs to talk to her manager. He'll know what to do. At least he should. It's not our responsibility to train these people."

Okay, I thought. I told this to the saleswoman, and of course her manager had no clue as to what to do, and she asked to talk to my supervisor. I found my supervisor, who had no idea what she was talking about, and spent the next ten minutes running around like a chicken with his head cut off, trying to figure out who she should call.

Just then one of my cube-mates told me, "Hey, the official policy is that they need to talk to the MOC (the M______ Operations Center - censored for your protection). They're the only ones authorized to give out the NOC number."

Hmmm... We need to call the MOC to get the number for the NOC. Made perfect sense to me.

I told the saleswoman that only the MOC could help us get ahold of the NOC, but that since hold times to the MOC were very long (30-40 minutes), I would call the MOC for her, then call her back when I got her information.

Needless to say, I was on hold with the MOC for 35 minutes while they played Vampire: the Penny Arcade or something, until finally a MOC rep got on line. I explained the situation.

"So," I said, "you can call the sales rep and give her the number for the NOC, right?"

"Oh, no," said the MOC rep. "It's not that simple. I have to send a request to the SPOC."

The SPOC. I didn't reply, just sat there in shock.

"They thought too many people were calling the NOC," the MOC rep went on, "so they made one person responsible for all communications. He's the SPOC -- Single Point of Contact. He clears the request with the NOC, then tells me, and I call the sales rep back with the NOC number."

"You're making this up, right?"

"No, I wish I was."

"So to get to the NOC, I have to go to the MOC, and the MOC tells the SPOC. The SPOC calls the NOC, and the NOC tells the SPOC to tell the MOC?"

"That's about right."

"Then you call the customer, tell them that you've cleared the request through the SPOC, who called the NOC, who cleared the SPOC to call the MOC?"

"Yup."

"I see."

I called the sales rep back, told her the story and we both had a good laugh together.

"What's your manager's name and extension?" she asked. "I want to call him and give you a commendation."

"Oh, sorry," I told her, "I can't give his number out."

And so it goes...

Wish me luck at Orycon ;)

The job is okay -- not good, not bad, just okay. The car is awesome (first time I've ever owned a really sexy car, and I'm enjoying it). Devon is doing very well at school, and I'm very proud of her. I'm still working on the "good friends" thing with the women in my life, though I'm rapidly becoming convinced that despite my lack of practice (what with the bad marriage and several years of failed relationships) I remain an uneasy combination of hopeless romantic and cynical perv. I wish I could say more to you guys, but I like to think that discretion is one of my better qualities. Maybe I'll tell you all about it one day when I get permission.

Good news... Elven Twilight is about 7,000 words along. I've decided to scale back the massive multi-pov that I used in the last couple of installments; I think it's one of the things that bogged down delivery of Armada. Most of the story will be from Wulf's perspective, though Livia will have an important role to play and there's a great lesbian scene between Theanna and Daedora, with some help from Narisha (aw, c'mon, you knew you wanted to see it...). Liv will have the task of once more awakening Valaron and dealing with his female statues, but it may go differently than it did with Wulf. Livia's still in the throes of self-examination and doubt, and she won't be having as much sex in this one as before. The reunion with Wulf, however, is likely to be pretty hot stuff... And oh, yeah -- Wulf and Li will get back together as well...

Orycon is this weekend, and I'm a guest... yay... Our local SF con is in its 23rd year (Jesus... I've been to all of them... that's longer than a lot of you have been alive!). This may prove an interesting weekend, since I'm shooting for a reconciliation with a couple of people whom I've been estranged from. One is probably a dead loss, but I'm going to try, the other... well, I'll let you know. Unless there's oral sex involved, in which case I'll be discreet again ;)

Life goes on... I'll let y'all know how things are after the con's over. I'll also be over the magical number of 40... Officially an old fogey. Hopefully still enough to keep the 23-year-old women interested, but I'm making no promises...

Several items in the news... I got a new car yesterday (well, new-used, but it's okay), and it's a honey... A '92 Ford Probe in sea green, with more horsepower than I thought possible in a little 4-cylinder pony car... It looks so fuckin' cool, too. The nicest and sleekest-looking beast I've ever owned, and dammit, I'm happy... The payments are low, too ($110 a month including insurance... yay), and as long as the engine doesn't fall out or something, I think this will be my ride for the next several years. I'll post some pictures for you soon.

[NOTE: I've removed the links to the pictures, with the intention of setting them up again elsewhere in a better format... Rie says she doesn't like some od the pix I've posted of her, so I think I'll be working with her a little more closely in future.]

Speaking of pictures, Darklady's Halloween bash was another kick in the ass (I'm using that phrase a lot lately, aren't I?). My companion for the evening was primo gaming/writing/dancer babe Rie (aka Faith (1)), whose charms you can see here, along with a somewhat bemused-looking Anthony. Her roommate, Amianne, was also at the party in a really cute bat outfit, and you can see her here. Unfortunately, you can't see all the sexy stuff under the cape, but it was there, indeed. Anyway, Rie has been receiving a huge chunk of my attention lately, as might be obvious from these pictures, showing her entertaining partygoers in her inimitable fashion. Here's a couple more, hopefully demonstrating why I find her so appealing. If I'm overdoing it, btw, please let me know... And if you think that Rie and Amianne are unbelievable babes, let me know too so I can tell them ;)

We attended two parties, actually, and it was a very pleasant evening. I guess we left Darklady's before the orgy began, but oddly enough I wasn't disappointed.

Halloween consisted of staying home and watching Ed Wood while Devon and her brother (half-brother) Jordan went out trick-or-treating. Jordan's dad took them to a really prime candy-gathering site, out in the lush wilds of southeast Portland, and Devon came back with about five pounds of loot. She went as a butterfly fairy and her brother -- get this -- dressed up as one of the guys from the Blue Man Group... He looked way cool, btw -- he's just hitting adolescence and is tall and thin, so the costume worked beautifully. His dad despaired of getting all the blue off him that night, but I told him I thought it was worth it ;)

Work remains a pain in the neck, and I'm going to try one more time to get my schedule adjusted tomorrow. I'm hoping to have a little more time freed up for writing, so I can keep you guys happy and keep feeding my continuing need to legitimize myself by publishing professionally.

Keep in touch, y'all... There will be more stuff soon... I'm posting some new art and stuff today, as well... And oh, yeah, hope you all had a great Halloween too...

And one last PS... For all of those who have bene asking about my health, I'm fine, I'm better, I feel great, and I want to thank you all. On a very sentimental note, I was for a time convinced that no one in the world gave a damn whether I lived or died, but folks like you help dispel such self-pitying bullshit and make life far more worth living. New jobs, new cars, the ability to write and people like Rie, Amianne and Darklady help a lot, too, but you guys have are really special to me and I want to thank you again.

*sniff*

Anyway, the big delay in getting new Wulf tale going is my White Wolf project... No, I'm not editing Goth fiction, but I am working on a new D&D product that Sword and Sorcery Studios is jobbing out to WW. The new book is called Rituals and Relics, and will feature new D&D spells and magic items. I've created a good number (about 30 each), and if they meet with the editors' approval, they'll appear in the new book when it comes out (in the spring, I think). We're working to a VERY tight deadline (essentially, the whole thing has to be done by Monday!), so my free time is devoted to that... I've been frantically writing spells and treasures, checking the stats in the new books, and sending batches over to WW for their perusal. Now, I'm going to send a big monolithic file with everything in it on Sunday, and will be able to put the project to bed. My first professional gaming contract in about five years! Say "AMEN"!

And for those who have been waiting patiently, I've finally gotten started on Elven Twilight... Look for completion before the end of the year... I'm afraid that the damned plot has gotten so convoluted that the sex in this one will seem even more "tacked on" than it has in the past. I'm going to try to get around that and make it more plot-integral, but we'll see how well I do. And I haven't forgotten you, either Faith (2).

Some kind and supportive mail and contact from people has persuaded me to get the Alex St. John pages going again, and get back to my "interactive novel writing" idea. For those who don't know about this, keep an eye out. I hope to get things running in a couple of weeks once White Wolf is completed.

Work is easy, I must say, and there is time here and there to get in some scrawling -- I did several of the R&R items at work, and I'm slowly slogging through a couple of other projects as well. It can get very busy, but at least vetting routers is a relatively straightforward job. Either a) it's not installed right, b) it's broken or c) they have a line problem and I can send the issue up to the next tier of support. Simplicity itself, huh? Well, not when it takes 1-1/2 hours to reinstall a damned Cisco 605 for a cranky woman who keeps telling you you're wasting your time, but then that's all part of the process, and I guess I've no right to complain. I think that the A+ Networking classes begin in December, so I'll probably be gone a couple of nights a week doing that.

Big Halloween party at my friend Darklady's this weekend. I'm taking the young woman who persuaded me to play Vampire: the Lemonade a few weeks ago, and who also persuaded me to play the "GOD OF EVILLLLLL" in her live-action fantasy campaign this past weekend. For what it's worth, all I had to do was show up, put on a costume, yell and scream about how all my prisoners had escaped and all my artifacts were missing, smite an annoying character (banishing her to some dungeon somewhere), then have my wife (the Goddess of Sex; I kid you not) show up and tell me that I was going to behave or I wasn't gettin' any. The wife is the self-same woman who's coming to the party with me... I was convinced to do the God o' Evil thing since they told me she was my wife in the game. They didn't tell me that she had the God o' Evil Totally PW'd. I mean, I never imagined Sauron or the Emperor from Star Wars creeping around and saying "Yes, dear" all the time... Hell, this is not the kind of God of Evil I'm familiar with...

Oh, yeah, and there's more cool stuff on the page, art from Drool, story material from Kurt, and (when I finally get around to it) a link to that .html Book of Thystra that one of our ultra-cool buds did for us.

Right now, work is the big thing that's going on... I'm kind of broke but that will change soon. Looking forward to the fall... My favorite time of year and all that rot. Enjoy everyone... I'll be back with you soon.
 
 

My real intention in taking this job is to get as much knowledge as I can. My company, bless 'em, gives free training classes to prepare employees for various certifications -- A+ networking, MSCE, Cisco certification, etc. They don't pay for books or testing, but then neither do the technical colleges, and I am essentially being offered several thousand dollars worth of education for the simple price of working for these folks for another year or so. Given that the pay rate isn't bad (it isn't especially good, either, but I can live with it), I think that's a small enough price.

The other news is that I've sent an editor test back to White Wolf Publications, the folks who brought that fan fave roleplaying game, Vampire: the Retrograde. Yes, they're the ones that I said would surprise you... Given how much fun I have had at the expense of WW and their trendy/gothy fans, I never thought I'd end up begging them for work, but here I am. Hopefully they'll like my test enough to offer me work in future. Keep an eye out -- I may get to help all those little goth wanna-be novelists improve their writing style ;)

Of course, that doesn't alter the fact that I actually played that accursed game a couple of weeks ago (see previous entries), proving that all it takes for me to forsake my principals is a request by a very, very cute woman (more on her later, I hope). Our new D&D campaign is progressing nicely as well, and work on the next Thystra netbook is underway. The Vampire people also do a live-action fantasy campaign, which they all are demanding I play. It turns out that they need someone to play the perverse, violent and sadistic god of evil, and for some reason everyone agreed on me. It doesn't hurt that the god of evil is actually married to the goddess of love and sex, portrayed by the aforementioned very, very cute woman :) I'll have to let you all know how that goes.

Other stuff progresses slowly. I need to get a link up to the .html version of Book of Thystra, and also get Kurt's latest installment posted... I put up a boatload of new art recently, including some awesome work from Drool and Eric Soto, so be sure and check it all out.

More later. I'm still kinda sick and need some rest. Life remains interesting, however. And Wulf lives on... I'll be starting on Elven Twilight next week, and in response to popular demand, I might post a preview just to keep y'all interested... Stay cool.