By now you are probably certain that I am insane, or at least overly-ambitious with my plans. But here are some more, as well as some progress. Site changes If you haven’t noticed I have really been playing with the gamer pages on this site. Pages? Yes, plural. I figured that I wanted to write my entire experience from the first computer game I played in a museum in Birmingham
Today’s topics are the man in desert scene that I said that I would commence, and feedback from the Monsters anthology publishers (perhaps my post title is a spoiler). Desert My plan went like this: Make a desert landscape in Bryce (because I already own it) and export that to the Unreal Engine. In the Unreal Engine create some totally awesome materials and paint them on the desert. Create a
Hi all, today I will submit a progress report on my writing and also my plans for my next work of art. My next art work I feel that I now have a very simplistic understanding of the Unreal Engine. So nothing is stopping me from having a go at my first work of art in it :) I envision a few scenes, but am not sure which I will
So I’ve told you that I intend to write a short story for an anthology and that this is set in a cemetery where the gravestones whisper to a sorcerer-like character called Verdant. Also that the cemetery is situated just before his home. You also know that the last story I wrote was done so in a Lovecraftian style. Well, I’ve spent the past few days trying to make some
First a big thanks to those people who liked and commented upon my last post about submitting my first story to an anthology. It’s all very exciting and nervous. I think that the best thing to come out of that experience was getting to know my villain better. But I have no intentions of sitting still for a month an a half awaiting news of success or failure. Time keeps
Well folks, today I submitted my story “Tears of a Blue Priestess” to Grey Matter Press in the hope that they will include it in their upcoming anthology “Monsters”. Judging from their Facebook page they have received a lot of submissions. I guess that you have to be in it to win it. So let’s see how it pans out. It’s funny how I feel – so very nervous. Fancy
Australia Day Happy Australia Day! For those of you not from a land down under, today is my country’s national day of celebrating who we are. For many of us (myself included), that means grateful citizens born overseas who have been given chances they may not otherwise have had. Like most countries we have flaws, but I am proud of this place and would not live anywhere else. Wicked
Hi all! Sorry, today’s post is not going to demonstrate anything. Nor is it going to be some deep and meaningful monologue upon some artistic philosophy. Nor a useful insight. Instead it is a bit of shared happiness regarding my day of writing. Well, not really a day of writing. Perhaps four or five hours of writing. After all I did go shopping with my wife and daughter (surprisingly painless and
Every day I spend about an hour watching YouTube videos on topics ranging from the history of particular genres to various art “how to” guides. Recently I stumbled across one by a professional artist who spoke about his picture reference library. At the time I thought “That’s cool” and forgot about it. But later that day I realised just how valuable an observation this was. (Unfortunately I cannot find the
A few days ago I introduced you to my villain Kerphulu with a picture. The thing is, I met him myself only hours beforehand despite knowing him for over a year. Sounds strange? Well let me explain. I have been writing about Kerphulu since September 2013. The novel-in-progress “Tempting in Shade” simply describes Kerphulu in physical terms as a short, sinewy, red-headed man with short-cropped hair and a sense of dramatic
As you know I am writing a short story about a key moment in the life of my chief villain: Kerphulu. I thought that I would create an image of him with one of his victims in this story. I hoped that this would give me a better sense for the man. It did. Here it is: I took the Hare psychopath scale into account as I designed him (see
This is a bit of a brain dump, so don’t expect cohesively structured thought. Me and computer gaming …or should it be computer gaming and I? Anyway, grammar aside, I was reading a blog called Musings of a Nerdy Girl, and I saw the article about computer gaming. (Please visit it – some interesting thoughts) It evoked something in me. You see, for about a decade I was an addict to
This is just a short post on something I recently stumbled across. In my research to create just the right villain I found myself watching the following fascinating documentary about psychopaths: Made by the BBC it discussed the characteristics of psychopathy. As a writer, one of the key things that came out of this for me was the checklist of characteristics common to psychopaths. This checklist of traits provides me
Truth be told, my compulsive pedantic nature is impacting my novel writing. I feel the need to fully explore and understand the backgrounds of my characters. Now I know that a lot of writing methodologies say that this is a good thing, but it so slows me down. As a result I ask myself “how can I turn this into a positive?” Enter magazines and anthologies. I stumbled across a call for submissions
Thanks Firstly a big thanks to everyone who follows or reads this blog. An even bigger thanks to those special few who have chosen to leave comments! To be honest, I really did not expect much interest. So imagine the surprise that I feel knowing that since establishing this blog in July I have had 1,214 views.  In December alone I have had 487 views and 254 visitors. My YouTube channel is also
Today’s post will be some self-indulgent stuff that I am learning from this experience of chronic pain in my right arm. I will try to write it up in an interesting manner so as to practice my writing skills. I will also preview my proof-of-concept about using MS Excel for making cityscapes. Me and my illness, my illness and me… In the scheme of things, having some sort of temporary
So here I am, lying on my back with a pinched nerve causing the right side of my body to throb. I cannot use my right hand and so am patiently tapping away on my phone with my left hand. I am experiencing my normal drowsy and not particularly lucid response to painkillers. I have a video almost ready to publish on YouTube but cannot finish it until my right
Today I am writing a bit of theory on quality in writing. Just my opinion mixed with some theory picked up over the years. Writing a novel can be viewed from a number of perspectives, but I like to believe that quality is intrinsic to the entire process. Whether writing for your own pleasure or writing for the pleasure of others, an author wants to achieve something that meets their goals.
I am still working on my map and will show the progress so far at the end of this post. But I also continue to write the novel and research ideas relating to it. Indeed, in respect to Tempting in Shade I have reached 411 pages and can perceive that it is likely to end up almost double that. Will my mid-2015 deadline fall? I would not be surprised if
I’ve composed a second image in DAZ Studio using the church window I scanned as a 3D object using Autodesk 123D as per previous posts. I’m pretty pleased with the outcome. I’ve only got one fairly diffuse spotlight shining on the scene and that is a light blue light to give a slightly creepy mood. IÂ looked at some reference material of faces that were surprised and shocked and parted the
