Within spitting distance of 44K.

Which is not that great of an accomplishment, considering I stood but a cable away from 42,000 words weeks ago, with all guns loaded, primed, and ready to fire a withering volley of langrage (language?). But between this quarter's final project and other impedimentia, I feel pretty good about having gotten that far.

I read about how other people write – what wannabe writer doesn't? Gordon R. Dickson recommended you sit down and just write. Write anything, even if it's crap, even if you're writing your name over and over again, and sooner or later you'll get tired of writing crap and either a) write something good or b) quit writing. Gene Wolfe, that son-of-a-bitch*, sits down in the morning and writes for two hours, knocking out a Hugo or three. And that's all he does. Steven Brust apparently maintains a normal lifestyle (involving blogging, email, and computer games) and somehow mystically written works appear. My guess is while he's asleep a demon possesses him, cooks up a big meal, eats it with gusto, and then writes like... well, like a demon. His advice boils down to "Write a cool sentence. Then write a cool sentence connected to that one." Lather, rinse, repeat.

The method that works for me, which works for me insofar as it works at all, is probably most similar to the Brustian model: I get a vignette in my head, a scene where Milesos dispatches his mortally wounded father-in-law after some snarky dialogue. I write it. Then I get another scene, where Milesos and company get ambushed by a pack of Dire-folk. I write it. In the meantime, there's this huge chrono-literary gulf between the two events, and that's where my scattershot method feels like it's breaking down. The capturing and the father-in-law-killing are critical points in the book, sure: but there are doubtless other critical points in between. I just haven't thought of them yet.

They also say you should read, and read widely (Who are 'they'? You know, 'them.' 'Those people.' 'Those people with their name on books on shelves in my library.' 'Writers.'). Most recently I have been hip-deep in Anathem, which is a Neal Stephenson book that snuck up on me in the dark and hit me over the head with a Burmese whack-bonk. I won't bore you with a review, but I will say this: it was written by a man in love with language. I probably only catch 15% of the verbo-linguistic cleverness that goes on in Anathem, but that's enough to keep me smirkingly thoroughly engrossed.

Neal also says "Just keep writing." So I shall go do just that.

After I read a few more pages of Anathem. It's research! No, really...

– Dr. Madu

*Said with the deepest respect and appreciation for Mr. Wolfe's craftsmanship.

Fiddling while empires burn.

Apologies for the brief nature of today's commentary: I've been out and about in the real world, trading my goggles for a sledgehammer and giving free rein to my destructive nature in the service of good (or at least not-evil). I just want to say this:

Burning Empires blows my mind.

And frankly, that's impressive, because I have a lot of mind – and it does not, dear reader, blow easily. By all means, go over to their lab and poke around. Thor Olavsrud's series of articles detailing the evolution of Burning Empires from over-dinner hobnobbery to glossy, bricklike printed product is a real insight to those of us who aspire to someday publish similar efforts of our own. Faith Conquers and Sheva's War are on their way to me as I type — and I must say, I look forward to those comics as I have not looked forward to a comic since the halcyon days when I had an Appleseed subscription.

Eagerly awaiting –

Dr. Madu

PS "Karsan League Tequila: This Time, The Worm Eats You."

You're ugly, and your monster dresses you funny.

Not everything that goes on in the lab is a product of in-house gamescience – oh no. There are many fine things brewed up in the myriad bubbling vats of game-dom. And recently among them I've found this – Monsters and Other Childish Things. This is a roleplaying game about children and monsters, and for a change the slimy, barbed, razor-fanged 11-dimensional thing under the bed is not your enemy: it is your best friend.

Monsters and Other Childish Things (Or, if I may be forgiven the abbreviation, M&OCT: at this very moment technicians are testing whether this is better pronounced 'emminocked' or 'emmin-oh-see-tee'. As soon as verifiable results are in I shall report them here.) is based upon the One-Roll Engine (as promulgated by the incomparable Greg Stolze) and was penned (Generated? Synthesized? Cloned? Surely there's a better term out there) by the illimitable Benjamin Baugh. Here the players take the roles of children afflicted with befriended by monsters. Don't go running for the airlock, now – you won't make it past the laser-sharks. Yes, you play a kid. Yes, you're puny and ineffectual. Yes, your monster is a superpower-by-proxy. No, this is not a hard-edged real-world-sim tactical game: if you're looking for that, look elsewhere. This is a game about exploration of the self* in the following context: what you would do, were you a wee child, with the perfect bodyguard-slash-troublemaker-slash-comrade-in-arms ready at your beck and call, to get you into and out of trouble? (Sorry about the hyphens.) Much as Aberrant asked, "What would you do with KEWL, W0RLD-SHAKIN' POWERZ™?" Emminoct asks, "What would you do, if, like, when that jerkface Eric McJerky trips you again on the way to math class , like, you could totally call up a cacodemonical, maddening, eldritch titan-spawn of the Elder Days to kick his ass?"

If the answer is "Do that, and then skip along to class cheerfully whistling 'Tekeli-li, tekeli-li'" then you're on the right road. The trouble arises when Eric McJerky's best buddy, an aeon-striding tentacular cthonic god (and psychic powerhouse!), takes umbrage at poor Eric's mistreatment.

Emminohseetee – I really dig the setting. I enjoyed reading the 'example characters and NPCs' section on its own merits, so much so I was driven to depict a monster named Bugnutz (above, dining upon a perfectly ripe sack of trash). I have a habit playing flawed characters, as anyone who ever faced (or was a friend of) Brendan Jermflux in the Bad Old Days of the Bad oWoD ("Overconfidence" + twin 9mm pistols + a 7-die pool divided into seven one-die triggerpulls – w00t!) knows. And the kids of Emma-knocked are the perfect mix of utterly dependent kid-ness and utterly unstoppable monsterish asskickery to satisfy the both masochist and the sadist within. I am not the Muad'dib of the ORE: at least in its incarnation as Immen-otsi-tí, it's a little more more coarse-grained than I care for. But I don't own (yet) any of the other fascinating ORE games – REIGN, GODLIKE, Wild Talents – so I freely admit to some observer bias. Further testing is clearly necessary!

I will not belabor the mechanics of Monsters &c. here, except to say that I find the idea of emotional damage equaling physical damage in effects to be intriguing, and I wish to subscribe to Benjamin Baugh's newsletter. If something similar shows up in Crows, you are all permitted to point at me and shout THIEF! Hey, it was shiny and I've got more Eyes than Beak. Whaddaya-whaddaya? Don't make me drop The Dozenz on you.

In other news, Deathmagus tops 42K with no end in sight. More on this development later.

In the meantime, science calls –

Dr. Madu

*Scientific tests here at the lab have proven it.