... so how about 2 major changes in as many months? So life has turned a little, shall we say, upside down of late, but in a good way. A really, really, awesomely good way.

Those of you who know me well will know that since leaving uni and moving in with ms_haze I've worked part time at Chesterfield College, running their IT helpdesk, whilst at the same time coming home in the afternoons and slogging away either freelance editing and writing or doing the same thing for myself. It's been quite a prolific arrangement, and whilst I haven't made enough money to give up the day job, I have written games that I'm really proud of.

Anyway, all this changed back in September when I moved jobs, giving up the part time work in favour of full time work at the local NHS trust. I won't bore you with the details, but it revolved around chemistry and stats and not at all games design or editing. Why I made the switch revolved a lot around my increased commute following our move, the need to pay the mortgage and a general dissatisfaction with my previous day job and a growing realisation that freelancing and games design would only ever be a hobby, not a viable career.

But no sooner had I started at the hospital than I got another interview, this time with Games Workshop. This would be my 5th or 6th interview for an editorial post with them in about 4 years, so much so that I'd begun to not only lose count, but also joked with friends and interviewers alike about my annual interview with GW. Each time, of course, the interview was unsuccessful and I went back to my day job a little disappointed.

Of course this time was different. This time I was a week into a shiny new job that I could walk to, and was feeling pretty content with myself. So naturally I get offered the job.

I started today, as the new sub-editor of White Dwarf, the GW website and the games development team. It's gonna be helluva hard work, but it's going to be great fun! As my mum always says to me - I've been preparing for this job for the past 15 years of playing Warhammer!

This little animation is excellent!

In other news, I've got 17,000 more words to write for <cough cough cough> by the end of the month, but it's dragging a lot.

Also, we've just bought a house. Oh my. It hasn't sunk in yet, mainly because between now (offer being accepted) and then (moving in), there is a stupendous amount of paperwork, legalities and other shit to deal with, during which the whole thing might all fall down (like it did 2 years ago). Still, it'll be fun.

Finally, note my new icon. You either get it, or you don't :-)

That is all.

I'm going to follow ms_haze and jesshartley's lead by posting studio logs at the end of each week as a reminder of what I've been doing.

This week has been about one thing - finalising the layout for the Lemurian Candidate, our first officially licensed Etherscope adventure. The layout itself was finished last week, but I still needed to do things like maps.

With the profits from the Battlefield Handbook I bought Campaign Cartographer and all it's various add ons so I could make myself maps. Of course I was slack/busy and hadnt actually bothered to learn how to use it until now ... when I actually need to be able to make professional looking, high quality maps. So this week I've been giving myself a crash course in CC, with my test pieces ending up in a published product. I don't think they've come out badly tho, and I'm certainly not ashamed to have them in my book.

Yesterday the finished book went to Joseph (Goodman) for final approval, and now it's sitting ready for upload after I get home from work tomorrow.

This marks the end of 3 months hard work and although the book is 1 month later than originally announced, and 2 months later than originally planned (I know, I know ms_haze, you told me so), I'm still awfully proud of it. I hope it does well.

Today I had an admin day, responding to the many freelancers we now have, and touching base with the various projects we've got on the go. Then I found time to do a small bit of work on our next book, the Rocket Science campaign primer, entitled Rocket Science for Beginners. I didn't get much done but I'll try to finish it tomorrow.

Next week I have a few things to do: foremost amongst them is the campaign primer. Then I have the cover for War in the Information Age to design, and maybe lay it out too if Darren has finished it. I have some marketing strategies to write and to decide how to save Dead of Night from obscurity. I also have Arrowflight 2nd ed to read in preparation for an edit and my WFRP book to begin research for.

All in all, busy busy busy!

Hmm it seems I haven't posted anything substantial for a while now, but I guess that's a good sign because it means I'm busy! I've been mostly working on the Lemurian Candidate, Steampower's first Etherscope adventure. It's coming along nicely and is getting towards being done, but i still have a little way to go (sorry Jess! I know you're waiting for the manuscript!).

By little I mean another 10-15k words, which at my current pace is probably about a fortnight. God knows why but I'm so sloooow lately with writing. It's like getting blood from a stone, drop by drop. Not that I'm not enthusiastic for my writing right now, cos I so very am, but things are taking a little longer than they might normally.

So what else? Well, I've started my new Etherscope campaign that's taken over from our 5 year old dnd game that finally wrapped up ... or at least got to a stage where we can wrap up next time we all meet up in rl, which is a lot harder than it sounds nowadays. But the Etherscope game is going swimmingly well. We've barely started, but I took the time to run a prologue with each of the characters as the team was assembled (it's essentially Etherscope meets the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, or, as thoughtfulwolf nicknamed them, the League of Expendable Gentlemen).

At the weekend I was in Manchester at Fanboy3, ostensibly for an Etherscope demo day where I was meant to be showing off the Lemurian Candidate. Really it was an excuse to meet with Ben and Nigel, the creators of Etherscope and 2 of the nicest people I've met in the industry. We only had enough people turn up to run one game, so me and Nigel actually played whilst Ben GMd. Much fun ensued and I got to see the rules from the other side of the GM screen for a change.

After the demo we adjourned to Nandos where they were a little heavy on the chillis and I nearly burst into tears from all the spices! Owee! But we did a lot of talking about life, the universe and, of course, Etherscope. Ben and Nigel seem pleased with my work for it so far, and I think this could be a fruitful relationship.

It also further cemented my growing suspicions that the north of England is becoming some sort of hotspot for games design in the UK. We're up here, as are Malladin's Gate (Etherscope), UKG (Year of the Zombie) and Team 8 and the Independent Roleplay Magazine. After I return from Conception I'm going to look into organising some sort of convention/meet up for us games types. It could prove fruitful.

Finally we have Conception, which is my favourite games convention of the year. It's down in Bournemouth on the south coast in a beautiful part of the world, with the best accomodation (swiss style lodges scattered in the park land) I've stayed in at a con, and an excellent atmosphere. I'm going to run some games, as usual, but I won't stretch myself like I do at Gencon. Ruth is coming, which will be nice, although I hope she won't get bored as she won't do any rping.

So, all going well, I'll see you at the other side of the weekend!

Yup, the annual Games Workshop rejection letter. This time they wrote to me instead of phoning me, and I'm not sure which I prefer.

This time round I'm not entirely sure I care ... neither the application process or the rejection letter have made much of an impact on my life, and I suspect it's because I'm so busy and happy with my own company and my own writing.

Truth be told, getting the job would have caused more problems than not getting it. Sure, I'd have a full time job for a company I've loved since age 10, our money troubles would ease and we'd have the excuse to move closer to Nottingham.

But, this year is likely to be a big year for both Steampower and myself as a freelancer - Steampower have the whole Etherscope deal going on, not to mention the countless other projects brewing or the unannounced deal with Deep7, and I have a WFRP projects to work on. Had I got the job I'd have had to walk away from a lot of that.

Christmas 04 I was in a less happy place. I got a knockback from GW then and it sent me sprawling. I was having a major personality clash with a guy at work and was eager to get away. Ruth had been out of work for 2 months and our finances were in freefall. I pinned a helluva lot of my hopes and dreams on that job and got stung for it.

So I'm putting aside my slight disappointment at not getting the job and moving on with my year. Until next time, of course.

Yesterday was my bi-annual interview with Games Workshop for an editorial post. I never get them, of course, but I like to go and keep my name known and generally annoy them.

It's almost a year to the day since I didn't get the Black Flame assistant editor's post (so close too ... down to the last 2) and it seems like a lot has changed there. Black Library are horribly understaffed, so yesterday I was invited along to see about filling a post. Or two.

I went for the post of special project's editor - you know, managing those lovely art/background books they produce and generally getting to play around with 30 years of art. I got there and was told I was up for another post as well - Black Library assistant editor.

The interview was ... odd. I was being interviewed with Lindsey Priestley (Rick's wife, and a lady who reminded me VERY much of my good friend Jen, in looks and sound and demeanour. Odd, but kinda helped put me at ease) and Christian Dunn, both of whom I've met before and seem lovely. We started talking about my cv and Dead of Night (I pulled a copy out and Lindsey fell in love with it - I let her keep it, and I hope it won't be construed as a bribe) and I was waiting for the questions to kick in, but they never did. The conversational style kept up the whole way through which made it relaxing but also made it hard to gauge how it went. After all, with questions, you know whether you've answered well or made a balls up. Talking makes it trickier ...

So that's done and dusted and now leaves me with a Christmas season wondering whether or not I've got it. Inevitably there'll be a second round, and hopefully I'll be in it, but who knows. It really rather depends on whether they liked the look of me, and how hefty the competition was. Theoretically I should strike it lucky eventually, but we shall see.

Seems I missed the only bit of actual drama to happen at work since someone kicked my boss's door down and cleaned out his office (whilst we were all next door, amusingly). Yesterday a car came flying off the Chesterfield bypass (literally ) that runs parallel to the college, smashed through the fence dividing the two, bounced off the roofs of 4 cars in the car park and came skidding to a halt on its roof just outside the college gates.

Amazingly no one was killed, even though the driver probably should have been - police reckoned he was doing 90 down the 50 limit bypass in the pouring rain ... Had it been any week but the half term holidays the place he eventually landed is usually filled with students ...

Anyway ...

Been a bit busy with all sorts of things lately, but mainly wrangling with printers and getting products out the door in various forms. I'll post a proper (or at least a cheeky list) update later. Right now I'm meant to be writing something. Anything.