Unsecluded/SCARF (Patreon)

ITEM! I will be at SCARF at Trafalgar Warehouse in Sheffield this Saturday (October 19th). Free event, details here. I'm not planning on booking in any events where I sit behind a table with my wares for 2027 or beyond, so if you're local, we're getting into "last chance to see" territory. It's a great line-up of artists at SCARF so if you can, come along.

ITEM! I have returned from my writer's retreat. There wasn't really a lot to do except write. My intention was to learn the simple game-making software Twine and write maybe 6000 words, 8000 tops. Unexpectedly, in 4.5 days I wrote more than 15000.

Put simply, I took one of my unused Solver plots and worked it up. It was one that would have made a very odd comic, full of big, wordy ideas that I'd doubted would translate well. It was on the last Bullpen Bulletins-stye page I made (this one).

I didn't want to get bogged down in learning how to use variables and set game states on my first project, so I made a simple branching novella, with a fairly linear structure, various side roads you could take, and a couple of outcomes. My main aim was to make it read well, as I haven't written prose fiction in any volume since I was maybe 19 or 20.

I've never typed as many words as I did last week. The only thing I can compare it to was when I did the 24-hour comic, except I did it day after day, 8.30am-4.30pm, with short breaks. It felt like a running a marathon. I did take a half day off go out for lunch and to look at antiques. By that point I looked older than most of them.

There was a lot of organisational work to do, which hurt my head. But due to the deep damage I have done to how my brain works over 28 years of comic-writing, the words just came out unprompted. I did have to stop and think which word I wanted once. But only once.

I'm not sure if I'll release the "game" or if it should stay locked away. It may not be what anyone wants from me. If I do release it, I want to do some quick B&W spot illustrations (always my intention). I did a few and had intended to do more, but by the evenings I was so tired that there was no way I'd manage more than a few even simple drawings. It will probably creep onto the Patreon at some point, after I've had a few people read it, proofed it, and made it look nice. But I am busy now until I go on jury duty at the very start of the new year, so it may not emerge soon.

ITEM! Thank you for the kind words about BLIGHT. I will be issuing a print edition at the end of November, alongside Solver volume 2.

ITEM! Another series from that check list of abandoned ideas has made it back onto the slate. ROUND & ROUND & ROUND will begin its 3-part run in the new year. I had a sudden breakthrough on it, ten minutes before I was due to sell it to the BBC to be used on Eastenders.

ITEM! No more items. Thank you for your attention.