Another week has come and gone and it’s time to work on the blog once again. As usual I will start with an update regarding my novel ‘Dark Inheritance’. This week saw me finally finish the first round edit. I know that I caught a lot small mistakes and did quite a few corrections. During the overall first edit I know I cut several thousand words, but also ended up re-writing even more.

And I finished the novel with one exception. I still have the epilogue to write. That is what I will be doing this week and hopefully by the time I compose next Sunday’s blog, I will have finished that.

Then it’s off to Michael Varhola. He’s busy with all the other projects that are currently on the go with Skirmisher, as well as his own Sword of Kos: Return to the Necropolis. But hopefully it won’t be too long before he can start to go over Dark Inheritance himself.

Even though the book is not yet published, I’ve already spent quite a bit of time plotting out the sequel, and that is what the whole epilogue is for… the setup for the sequel.

When will I start it? I don’t honestly know. Maybe around August of 2014, maybe sooner, maybe later.  After all, it did take me just about four months to write it, and I don’t count September as part of that period because I was in-between jobs at the time and I did not get to do any work at all on the book.

I would also like to thank Michael Varhola for the kind words in last week’s installment of the D-Infinity live podcast. It was nice to have the work I’ve been doing on the D-Infinity site recognized. It was true what he stated… I had been posting upwards of twice a day while I was getting the bonus content for my issues of Wisdom from the Wastelands uploaded and the re-posting of the creatures that I wrote up from various entertainment sources.

Speaking of which, I am still working on getting the last couple of mutants from Metro 2033 written up. This week has been quite busy for me and I did not get as many written up as I would have liked.  Only a handful of mutants to work on now and that little side-project will finally be finished.

On the topic of bonus content I am currently trying to get some material written up for Wisdom from the Wasteland issue 24: Weapon Modifications but the items I am trying to write up are causing me more than a little bit of trouble as I try to come up with something that is workable and not stupidly overpowered, which is what is happening!

I might have to put that aside for a bit while I work on other issues, mainly the Nanotechnology issues. I can produce a lot of material for those.

And if things work out the way I am hoping, I will have a nice little surprise in store for the followers of that particular E-zine. Trying to work out the details now and there is always a chance that it might not happen because everyone involved his quite busy with other projects.

Last week I mentioned the two issues that I wrote up regarding radiation sickness and alternate types of radiation. I’m pleased that they are finally in the hands of my editor Greg and we should start work on the edits very soon. Here is hoping that maybe we will see these come out in late January and February respectively. 

Going back to the reposts of mutants that I wrote up. I think that over the next week I will concentrate on posting all the mutants from Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas. I posted the stats for the Bloat Fly the other day and was supposed to post another one of the mutants from the game, but considering how easily I can be distracted I ended up posting something else entirely.

I’ll remedy that either tonight or tomorrow. Tonight, depending on when I get home (as I said, I am busy!) I might write up another Metro 2033 mutant. If I don’t have the time I will just repost one of the Fallout mutants from the old site.

One thing that did occur to me when I was trying to write up the bonus content for issue 24 was that it was very overpowered when it came to characters and mutant monsters, but how well it would work when it came to the vehicle rules that at least one person has been pining for now well over a year, probably closer to two years or more.

I do have a few basic ideas written down so after I have a few more issues of Wisdom from the Wastelands written up, maybe I should put some serious effort into that. It could be simple enough that I could cover it in a couple of issues of WftW, or maybe if I put some real effort into it I could turn it into something a little more impressive.

But I still have my Powered Armor, Robotic Units, Mutation, and Faction books that I want work on.

I have no idea how many of my current readers have followed my blogs but I will briefly touch on the books I mentioned. First are the mutation books. I have three that Derek Holland and I have been working on since January 2010. They are MASSIVE, each book dedicated to Physical, Mental and Plant mutations.

We had hoped to get these published a few years back but they have kept growing and growing. These are all books that I can hardly wait to see published, but due to the Kos campaign, we have had to put them on the back-burner. Hopefully once the sourcebook is complete we can see this project move forward.

The Robotic issues covers things like building and modifying robots, and a ‘hacking’ system which will be essentially mental combat for robots.

The Powered armor is just that, creating and modifying EMA or powered armor for the game and various systems that can be integrated into the armor.

The factions issue is exactly what it sounds like. Think of the old Gamma World cryptic alliances and that is what this will cover. Yes, some of the factions will be familiar, while I am hoping most will be new and interesting for the readers.

After all I do have quite the imagination and I do take inspiration from many different sources.

I do have to say that I am looking forward to getting back to design. Don’t get me wrong, the past few months have been a lot of fun!

The image accompanying this blog is for Chapter 3 of Dark Inheritance. As with all the previous work, it was provided by the very talented Giorgio Alfonso Maesa.

On that note – Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you have a great time with your family and friends.

Peace!