The dissertation, that dreaded, beloved, nightmare of a brainchild I spent nine months working on has been submitted. With that submission, at least for the time being my university education is finished. It’s unusual to look forward to the next couple of months without thinking about the next assignment or reading and re-reading course texts in search of inspiration. But enough about that, with the lack of University projects to work on I’ve now got more free time on my hands, so what have I been up to.
First thing I’ve done is adjust to being back home (I was dog-sitting for two weeks while I finished the dissertation) and fight off a pretty nasty bug that’s sapped energy levels and will power.
Now that this illness has dissipated I’ve begun work on a couple of projects that are testing my creative limits. The easiest to talk about is that I haven’t just chucked the creative project i just submitted into a draw, I am in the early stages of mapping out the rest of that story so that I can continue to write it. I am hoping to have a first draft done by Christmas, leaving 60-70k words for me to write.
I’m planning on writing some short stories in different genres based on ideas I jotted down during my degree but never had the time to work on. Some of these for practice, others if I like them with an eye for publication. I personally feel that working on smaller projects alongside the bigger one will help me avoid burnout but we’ll see whether or not that holds true.
The third and final writing-based thing I am working on is a board game campaign for my partner and I to play. Thanks, must go to the folks at MiniWarGaming who gave me the idea and inspiration to try this. It will be an Age of Sigmar based campaign focusing on a small group of heroes (similar to Deathwatch) as they uncover secrets and battle enemies in the mortal realms. I’ve never tried to build a campaign for a game before and I’m finding the experience immensely enjoyable, including painting and assembling miniatures. I haven’t tried to be hugely original for the first few maps as I find my footing and ground myself in the lore of AoS but plan on introducing a multitude of new factions and challenges as the campaign progresses.
Lastly I am beginning to plan out and structure content for this blog, so keep an eye out for that!
So that’s that on the writing front guys. I’m hoping to take a number of photographs of the campaign as it progresses and maybe even do some dramatic write ups for people to follow along with in the near future.
Have a great day folks
Hugh
Hugh Mccormick 