Writing
Designing The Mechanical Crown’s new cover
There’s a brand new cover for The Mechanical Crown which I unveiled last night. It looks like this: (more…)
Games
Applying some game design to Quasar
I’ve now been twice to Quasar, the laser tag venue in Norwich, and both times have felt like I’m missing something. While running around in the dark with lasers guarantees at least a minimum level of fun, there’s a handful of changes they could implement to make it much more satisfying as a game. Essentially, approaching it like you might design a computer game offers up some obvious areas for improvement.
I’ve no idea whether any of this applies to other laser tag places, or whether the Norwich version is the only one to be needing some of this refreshing, but here goes… (more…)
Writing
A Murder in Four Dimensions – my next short story
There’s another Wattpad Block Party approaching, which means I’ve penned a new chapter to contribute to the month-long celebration of online literature. Previously I’ve written behind-the-scenes articles, partly because I was right in the middle of working on A Day of Faces and also because I didn’t feel confident about exposing […]
Politics
Simon Sinek and the digital addiction
Simon Sinek has a made a career out of cutting to the chase and distilling otherwise complex concepts into simpler, more manageable ideas which can be acted upon. He’s influenced my approach to marketing at work and how I appraised what was important in my life. Anyone who works with me will know that I bang on about his Start With Why concept all the damned time.
He’s back in a new video which seems to have immediately reached a massively larger audience than his previous stuff. Here it is, in case you haven’t stumbled across it yet:
Writing
The Mechanical Crown: renaming a decade-old story
I’ve renamed Evinden to The Mechanical Crown. The new name is better in just about every way, not least because it’s no longer a made-up fantasy nonsense word. In the story, Evinden is the name of the continent. That’s fine – made-up names inside a fantasy novel are perfectly acceptable. Naming the […]
Games
Titanfall 2 – new First 5 Minutes video
It’s been a while but I’ve finally put together another First 5 Minutes video. Here it is: Titanfall 2 is an incredible game and arguably my favourite shooter since Half Life 2. That’s a big statement.
Writing
NaNoWriMo, audiobooks and tons of writing
This month I’m attempting NaNoWrimo which is proving very difficult. I’m dangerously behind schedule. That means this blog is going to be short and sweet. I have been super busy, though, so here’s a sampler: Evinden is now up to chapter 3! The story is already pretty exciting and super mysterious, so […]
Politics
The Labour, Tory & LibDem Twitter profiles tell us everything we need to know
I took a look at the Twitter profiles of the top three political parties in the UK recently, examining them purely from a communications/marketing perspective. The bios and profile pictures say a lot about each party, not always to their benefit. (more…)
Writing
The A Day of Faces audiobook is here!
Chapter 1 of the A Day of Faces audiobook can now be listened to, entirely for free! Yay! This is super exciting, being the first time I’ve done anything like this. I’m really pleased with how the audiobook is coming out – it sounds about as professional as I’m going […]
Professional
Here’s what the International Literature Showcase is
Yesterday something called the International Literature Showcase was launched, over at litshowcase.org. There have been International Literature Showcases before, but this one isn’t like those. Not this time.
The previous events have taken place over a handful of days, bringing literature professionals to Norwich from around the world to talk about Exciting Things To Do Together. This time round, it’s a predominantly online concept which runs for about 10 months. We’ve scaled it up a tad. Here’s a video I made about it: