TOM FRANCIS
REGRETS THIS ALREADY

Sorry

For a while there NaNoWriMo was consuming my spare writing time, starving this blog, but then I stopped doing that too, and now the less creative pass-times that I engage in to avoid Wri-ing my No-vel are replacing posting here. Shame, because I enjoy posting here, and I don’t enjoy writing my NaNoWriMo book. Curiosity: SATISFIED.

Meaning, I no longer have novelist ambitions. I fundamentally disagree with the format. I don’t read many books myself. The only thing that excites me about the form is that anyone can do it on their own, but now I realise I can’t. Most of all, I don’t like it. I feel like a fraud, covering for the fact I don’t have any real ideas, I don’t honestly care what this character looks like or how he phrases things, I’m just making stuff up to get the story over. I haven’t decided whether to give up entirely or just try truncating it dramatically – I still like the idea behind my novel, but it no longer seems novel-worthy. It could become a short story, though I’m too late for WriAShorStorWe.

Anyway, I am a bit late with this news, but I’m now officially a professional writer. The new disc ed, James commenter Graham, is settling in well, and I am making words from magical brain waves instead. It is very cool. More than the change in the type of work, what I’m looking forward to most is being able to pitch ideas for features and the like without the grim dread of involuntarily volunteering to write them, thereby neglecting the disc for just long enough to create a chronic crunch period out of thin air. One random idea I had this week – last weekend, actually, in preparation for my first day as a writer – just paid off dramatically today. I have fantastic new information on the next games of two of my favourite developers of all time that no-one else in the world has. I keep studying the screenshots of one of them, gleaning new joy out of tiny figures or details that hint at wonderful aspects of the game. The other, by N creators Metanet, is less specific and unillustrated, but will feature at its heart a mechanic I have loved since almost the start of my gaming life, and only ever seen attempted twice before – both with brilliant results. Metanet are more talented and intelligent than the developers of either of those games, so this is going to be something super-special.

I can say absolutely nothing revealing of either, so I apologise for teasing, but my excitement is desperately seeking an outlet here. The full skinny, also known as the straight dope, will be in our next-but-one issue (the next to hit the shelves has already gone to press).

Also in Awesome this month, I was visible on the BBC six o’clock news last night, in the background of an interview with the Deputy Editor of Edge magazine, for some reason conducted at a PC Gamer desk. Mr Walker theorises that this is because the story would otherwise be largely true, so some form of misleading element had to be manufactured. We propped up our latest issue and plastered stickers all over the desk beforehand, so we ‘pushed the brand’ appropriately. You can watch it here – I do have a link for a better quality video that doesn’t require the hateful RealPlayer, but it’s at work at the moment. If anyone has it, could they comment?

The BBC are bravely covering games more and more, but this report rather suggested that they should attempt to grasp the English language first. If Hugh Pym’s last few sentences made sense to anyone, could they draw me a diagram? And has anyone ever seen an ‘internet site’ that was made of cardboard bushes in a physical room? I know it’s easy to get your language in a twist when talking about the metaverse, but shouldn’t their reporters at least be told what a website is before they go on the air? Anyway, I’m not really complaining, except in the sense that I am. My forehead was on TV. Someone even recognised me and e-mailed us.