A few things that I’d been kicking around recently in my mind… well, mostly. And a few clarifications too. ^_^

First off, I’d like to say that I’m feeling kinda good about a few things at the moment - noticeably the fact that a collection of poetry I wrote during the end of last year and the start of this year, has been put together into a printable form and is now available in a published book from the good people at Lulu.com! Gives me warm fuzzies, it really does. :-)

If you’d like to have a look, pop by here and have a peek - if you want a copy, feel free to order one, but I’d prefer that you wait a week or so, as I’m receiving a copy in the next week to do a proof, as it were, before I really start pushing myself. I’ve already found a font error in the manuscript at home, so I’m reserving judgment until I see it. Depends on how good it looks, too. ^_^

Now, the second thing, that mystified at least two people - as you know, I’ve been working, on and off, on a project named ‘Epitheisterra’ for the past two odd years. It began as a mutual collaboration story, then evolved into an RPG.

As some of you might remember, I’d mentioned that Epi was a collaborative work, and that I was trying to get in touch with my partner, Robert Anderson (celchu) in order to see what was happening. Well, we finally regained contact… and, for a few reasons, we’ve more or less agreed to halt the Epitheisterra RPG Project, probably permanently.

We both feel that what we originally conceived of has deviated too far into realms that we are not comfortable, nor skilled at working in. We’re not going to abandon Epitheisterra and it’s world, mythologies and characters all together. But we need to sit back, and cast a critical eye on what we have, and decide what we want to do with the material we have. The idea of a video game was something that, looking back, was rather an unnatural outgrowth of what we were doing. We don’t know what would have happened if we’d continued differently, and we don’t think we can regain our original perspectives on the work.

But we’ll probably try something. We’ve both poured a lot of effort into Epi, and neither of us wants to abandon it. And truth to tell, I’d still like to work on the idea of Epi as a video game, but I need to have a very hard think about my capabilities, because I don’t know if I’m skilled enough or dedicated enough to see such a huge project through. But I definitely want to do something with Epi - and hopefully, Robert will come along with me, on whatever journey I take.

And, now, thirdly, something that some of you may have heard of - in Year 12 at high school, I took the 4 Unit English extension course, and wrote a story called ‘The Fall of the Nervii’ as the centrepiece of my major project. I’ve been thinking (for a few years ~_^) of returning to it someday, and rewriting it with what I’ve learned along the way, expanding the story without the limitations imposed by the course restrictions, and giving my imagination (and my historical grip) a freer hand. So, I’ve begun to critically examine the manuscript, and am busy planning out a plan of attack for a rewritten Fall of the Nervii. The original is about 18000 words, and I’m looking at expanding it to quite possibly more than double that - an insane amount of writing, but something that I’m quite looking forward too.

Oh yeah. I’ve also got some final exams in like, two weeks, am relatively stressed (I’m at the “I haven’t learnt anything, I’m going to fail again!” mindset) and, in a happier note (kinda) have picked up some extra hours at work.

Life, eh?

-Andiyar