Work can be a pain in the ass when it comes to getting any writing done. At least that is what I have discovered this past week. I had fully intended on finishing the short story ‘Reunion’ in order to edit and then see about posting it on this site to help tie in and promote my upcoming novel ‘Sword of Kos: Dark Inheritance’.

Chris Van Deelen is the author of the Skirmisher Publishing LLC sourcebook Creatures of the Tropical Wastes sourcebook and co-author of its Wisdom from the Wastelands game supplement.

Work can be a pain in the ass when it comes to getting any writing done. At least that is what I have discovered this past week. I had fully intended on finishing the short story ‘Reunion’ in order to edit and then see about posting it on this site to help tie in and promote my upcoming novel ‘Sword of Kos: Dark Inheritance’.

But as fate would have it, several things happened between Wednesday and Friday to ensure that I would not have anytime at all to work on it. First my one co-worker was taken off the driver roster and put into the service bays, leaving me the only driver. Now mind you I have no problem with that! I love to drive and that is one of the reasons I took a lower paying job, so that I could get away from over 16 years of shipping and receiving.

So being the only driver means that I barely have enough time to eat my lunch, let alone take my coffee breaks.

Then my old faithful laptop, the one that I purchased after writing Outlanders: Mask of the Sphinx who my good friend and mentor Mark Ellis who vetted my novel and helped me publish it finally died. I had this laptop for a decade and I won’t deny that I am sad to see if fail on me. Maybe I could get it fixed but I don’t believe it would be worth the time and effort to do so.

Finally back in November the current shipper broke his hip and was off for six weeks. He came back and had been working steadily until Friday when he came in and announced that he was off work indefinitely due to the fact his hip was not healing properly.

So between deliveries and pickups I have to watch that side of things. The end result is that I just did not have the time to work on the story. Although it is over 4,000 words long, so that does leave me another 6,000 to play with.

Hopefully this week I will find the time.

And the other downside is that I have been feeling quite under the weather and as such when I have gotten off work, I came home to rest and try to recover. So no work on my armor book or additions to my mutation book were possible.

After all, since I picked up that new sourcebook, just skimming through it has given me a great deal of inspiration to work with and I will be using that to expand upon the Mutation books. They will be the greatest source of OSR mutations that the gaming industry has ever seen. If you think that I am exaggerating, I am not. Despite the plant book being by far the smallest of the three books, the physical and mental mutation books alone are over 127,000 words in TOTAL!

These books have been long in coming and just keep getting better as time progresses. I hope that the wait will be worth it for you once they are published.

When it comes to the free conversions that I have been posting, I still have another five from the Fallout series of games. After they are finished I will be adding a few new City Killers from Pacific Rim, one inspired from Game of Thrones (and believe me it’s not what anyone would expect) and zombies from the various games I have played.

Speaking of zombies – if you love the genre and enjoy the many games that are available, I suggest you try ‘State of Decay’. This is an open sandbox world where you have a small group of survivors that are trying to survive in the initial first few weeks of the rising. Available on the X-Box 360 for $20. This is yet another game that I have really enjoyed thus far.

And I have to plug it… coming in the next few weeks will be Wisdom from the Wasteland issue 37: Advanced Radiation Poisoning rules. I’m really eager to see the end result, believe me! That reminds me, I need to send Michael Varhola the images to use for that issue…

The whole concept behind the issue is to make Radiation far more terrifying than it is depicted in the Mutant Future game. In the actual game, you take damage and you have a chance of becoming mutated. The optional rules are as such that they will make the players think twice about playing around radiation, as the consequences are far more deadly and debilitating than they are used to.

This will of course then lead to Wisdom from the Wastelands issue 39: Alternate Radiation types. This will bring a whole mess of new types of radiation with varying effects, damage and the like to the game. I should have had both done last year but I got lazy and distracted.

Squirrel!

For those of you who love the post-apocalyptic genre, I have to recommend the series ‘Revolution’. First season is out on DVD and my lovely wife and I started to watch it last week. We’re currently five episodes into the series and I absolutely love it!  Basic premise is that the show takes place fifteen years after the lights go out all across the globe. No electricity works anywhere and hasn’t. Society has crumbled and governments have fallen. Billions have died as a result. The premise is very similar to S.M. Sterlings Emberverse series of novels, but there are enough differences that no one will be screaming about it.

Very good show thus far and I’m eager to see how it continues!

I still have not come up with anything that I deem worthy to post as free material for Wisdom from the Wastelands issue 35: Terror Weapons, although I did just pick up Fringe: September’s Notebook so I intend on getting plenty of inspiration from that source!

As of earlier this week I finally booked my flight for my wife and I to attend Comicpalooza on the May long weekend in Houston, Texas. Both my wife and I are very much looking forward to going there I am looking forward to meeting some of my readers and supporters while I help man the Skirmisher Publishing LLC booth.

So if you plan on attending, stop by and say howdy and let’s chat!

Ironically that will be the second Expo that I attend in a month’s time. I will be attending as I have every year for the past 9 the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo. This is one of the few events that I eagerly await each and every year as with the exception of the 2012 expo, I have had a really great time!

Hey, if any of you are on facebook and wish to add me, just search up my name, send a request as well as a little note and I’ll add you.

Lastly, the image with this blog is from Chapter 10 of my upcoming novel. It involves Ioannis and a hapless prisoner, who happened to get on his wrong side. Of course it is provided by the talented Giorgio Alfonso Maesa.

As always, have a great week and enjoy life to its fullest.

Peace!