February 2024
Between Christmas and new year, my daughter and I both turned our thoughts to the coming year and made plans. She is very organised. I try to be more like her. This time, something dawned on me that I’d not realised before: the question is how you visualise the year. Maybe you don’t, but in my head, I have a plan of the year. My wife is a teacher, so I’ve always thought of the school summer holidays as halfway marker. Schools start back at the beginning of September, and things generally start to wind down mid-December, so that final ‘half’ of the year is really only three and a half months. It’s odd the things that sometimes feel like a revelation to me.
Zephaniah
Towards the end of 2023, the poet Benjamin Zephaniah died. I saw him a couple of times in the 80s. One time was on a day out with my art course in Manchester, I think Benjamin was doing some official function opening a community centre or something (I don’t recall the details) and I got to meet him. Another time, I saw him reading his poetry at a club in Leeds. I remember it being a fun evening—his presentation was energetic.
I have a cassette tape of him reading his poems. I managed to assemble the right combination of leads and audio equipment to transfer my old cassettes to digital. I have an oddball collection, starting with an audio diary of a family holiday in North Wales. I was 10 and sound like my mum. Amongst the various recordings of Radio 4 shows (The Man in Black, a series about cult books, bits of The Archers, etc.), there’s also a home recording of myself and my friend Phill interviewing each other in 1992, in the style of Desert Island Discs, picking our favourite tracks. Anyhow, there’s this gem from the 80s:
Benjamin Zephaniah, A Prayer
Present Projects
I have a couple of books I’m working on for Call of Cthulhu right now. They are in-house with Chaosium, so not things I can say much about—but what I can say is that I’m excited about both of them.
Something I can talk about is the 20th anniversary edition of Gatsby and the Great Race that will finally be out later this year. This is a one-shot Call of Cthulhu game, but it’s one with a difference, that being that it can be run at multiple tables and accommodate 24 players. It was the first scenario that I had published, and oh boy, what a complicated place to start. I’ve met and heard from numerous people who have run Gatsby over the years, and I take my hat off to them—it’s no mean feat. The new edition updates the scenario to 7th edition and includes all new character backgrounds, house plans and completely revised text.
I also have a pet project I’ve been working on for the past 4 years. A notebook that I started in January 2020 (in the ‘before-times’) records every step of the project. I was looking through the notes last night and thinking that the entries were a little like blog posts, and whether they would be worth reworking to post here (a game-design / evolution-of-ideas kinda thing). Let me know if that sounds interesting. The only spoiler I’ll give is it’s not Call of Cthulhu!—I know right!
Convention Calendar 2024
Conventions are the highlights of my calendar. I love the experience of going to different places, and meeting friends old and new. Plus, I always come back feeling inspired.
I’ll be at Chaosium Con in April, in Ann Arbor, MI (USA).
Opening Paid Subscriptions
A kind reader offered to pledge money to this blog, and as writing is how I make a living, I’m turning on payments. Please don’t feel any obligation to pledge (but many thanks if you do of course).
To date, my posting here has been pretty erratic. I have a number of unfinished draft posts on a variety of topics and could easily post more. The topics range from pure gaming to a review of my past year’s project: listening to the complete Frank Zappa catalogue on Spotify (140 albums, some of which were 16 hours long). I say that not because I think it will persuade to you to subscribe, but rather as a caution not to subscribe thinking you’ll be interested in every post! I write about what interests me—but I do find it immensely gratifying if other people are interested and enjoy what I write! Thanks everyone!
Incredibly excited for Gatsby and the Great Race! I have been dying to convert my friends into keepers and run it! Patiently waiting
Great to see another post from you Paul and thanks for sharing your thoughts! A shame to hear of Zephaniah's passing, and that was a nice and interesting prayer in his poem that covers many concerns of the British people, not just back in the 80's when this was somewhat directed around Margaret Thatcher's changes I suppose. It's definitely good to be organised and planning the year ahead is helpful. I often break down the year into the short term over a few weeks to initial months of the year, medium (three to six months), and longer term (six months to a year). You can of course also split the year into quarters like many folk also do which can reflect the seasons as well, or follow the school terms like your wife will follow. If you're not already familiar with S.M.A.R.T. goal planning, look it up as it's a helpful system to use and I use it with my clients when I'm Life Coaching them.
Exciting to hear about the Gatsby and the Great Race anniversary re-release! I never got to see your original adventure but having read the Great Gatsby at school and seen the Robert Redford film too Im very curious lol.... but wow 24 players! Also interested to hear more about your non-Cthulhu project when the time (or stars are) is right