You might have noticed a few changes around the site over this last week or so, not least of which is the shiny new banner. That’s the work of artist Mat Andre. Not only is he incredibly talented and a pleasure to work with, his enthusiasm is truly inspiring. Those who know the Legacy of Torr stories (just my small army of critiquers and alpha readers for now) should recognise some of the places in the background. And Sneak, of course.

There’s some movement on the project front. While feedback on the Mysticarium project has been very positive, it became obvious that the scope is far beyond short story parameters. I’ll aim for novella length on this one.

Talking of longer works, the Forshai Ascended bar has been creeping up slowly. I let this one slip into the background for a few weeks so I can take an objective view of the second half. This helped so expect that progress bar to move. A quick note on those bars: they’re based on expected word counts. The Legacy of Torr novels, for example, are expected around the 100k mark. In the meantime, I drafted a prequel short story which gives insight on Dane, how he became a Warden and why he’s so grumpy about the whole thing.

So there’s your update about where current projects stand. I hope you enjoyed the little story from last week. I tried to stick as close to the original legend as possible, giving a subtle nod to the Alton Towers version. Feel free to leave a comment if you liked it or want to see more of that sort of thing in future posts.

On to new stuff. I added the full version of The Adventurer’s Guide to Dungeoneering to the Short Stories section. If you’re familiar with gaming, particularly RPGs, you should relate to it. I’ll look into making PDF or eReader versions available.

This month also sees the beginning of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) which sets brave writers the lofty task of writing 50k words in a month. You might want to keep an eye on coffee share prices. While I’m not participating (most of my time is filled by writing anyway so I doubt it would make much difference), my best wishes go to my fellow Scribes and Renegades who are.