So Close and Yet So Far...

In case people are wondering what the hell I've been up to lately...

Working.

Working on the B/X Companion.

Yeah, I thought it was done. Written. Completed. After all, I finished writing the entire text December 31st, 2009. I had all the art, sans cover by, mmm...February? March? I had the cover complete and finished (thanks, Brian!) by the 2nd week of July or so. So what gives?

Welp, first I went back and proofread the whole thing. Went over it line-by-line. Corrected a whole passel of issues, generally odd mis-spellings not caught by the spell check and spacing issues for paragraphs.

This is, of course, in addition to sussing out printers and costs and PayPal and such. But editing was most of the last week.

Today, the proofing and editing was done (well, it was by 2am this morning...). Went to a commercial printer that was open on Sunday just to get ONE friggin' copy. Got the PDFs lined up and some pages printed...and the formatting was off. Not the fonts or the text, just the gosh-damn headers...again.

So I went through the headers (again), page by f'ing page. The wife, bless her heart (and her knowledge of layout and ad copy) gave me a couple invaluable tips that allowed me to get everything squared away, finally.

And what do ya' know. I ended up with blank space.

Not anywhere useful, of course. Not in Chapter 4, for example, where I could have really used the extra space to compile the Specialist tables of all three books. No, in the "goodies" sections: Monsters and Treasure. Great.

So, I'm having to add some more goodies. A couple more magic items were no sweat, but the monsters are giving me a bitch of a time. How to add monsters that are "common domain" (from myth and legend and fiction), that are suitable for high level campaigns? I mean, I already added all the ones I could think of! Sheesh!

Fortunately, while brainstorming with Steve-O and my wife, with the Doc on the phone (and while barbecuing...yes, I am one multi-tasker extraordinaire), I think I may have come up with a couple-three critters to throw into the Companion. No, not the Harry Potter "dementors" my wife suggested (might as well call those wraiths or specters), and probably not the crazy-ass psi guys Steve-O wanted to use, but something.

I'll be working on statting 'em out tomorrow. Right now, it's bedtime for Bonzo. Adios.

Zzzz...