I took off a few vacation days last week and hung out at the coffee shop to write. This actually worked really well. there were few distractions and decent food. The only two sad things were: I gave up Caffeine in May and my favorite radio station CFUO, Classic 99.1 in St Louis went off the air. If I had been drinking caffeine and listening to glorious classical music the Role Playing game Stars of Empire would be finished, as well as several of the supplements (well maybe not)

I usually don’t need pure silence to write, some background noise is OK. Its hard to write at home though. Between the phone, the cats, the DVD player and everything else it can cause overload and at that point it is hard to stay focused.

When I go to the Coffee shop I bring just the references I think I’ll need, so I don’t look for one fact and end up walking down twisting lanes of knowledge for three hours (it happens all too often)

I should be well on the path to completion by my deadline for release in the first weekend in October.

I’ll try and keep folks posted more often

Terry

I have known for a while that I’ve been neglecting this blog. I have been up to other things though! Firstly the Yahoo group has been insanely busy. The cultures and biology of Venus are shaping nicely and should provide challenges for people interested in killing big animals or in unravelling mysteries, or both!

More importantly, to the good folks at Black Pigeon Press, I’ve been working hard on drafting Stars of Empire, which will be the Role Playing version of everything that has been talked about for Hive, Queen and Country. It will paint a broad picture, but one with intense detail, about the altered Victorian era that I’ve imagined. It will use the Hacktastic Game engine from BPP. This is a very versatile engine, and so far the play-tests have done pretty well.

I haven’t had an RPG session against the Bugs yet, I’m trying to get characters down and the setting stabilized before I start feding humans to arthropods.

Again if anyone is interested in being part of all this check the links section and register for the Yahoo! group.

More soon, I hope

Terry

I have a friend who is both an amazing person and an amazing artist; Rachael Mayo. She has done the cover for the soon to be released The Hive and the Flame, as well as concept art for most of the bugs of the Hive. In addition to stuff for my wacky world she has produced a wide range of imaginative and stunning works from her own imagination.

http://rachaelm5.deviantart.com/

http://rachaelm.elfwood.com/

More than that she is one of the most trust worthy and honest people it has been my honor to know.  She’d impress the heck outa me, even if she couldn’t draw a straight line

For folks interested in the interview it is posted here

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/jonklement/blog/2010/03/06/dragontalk-radio-interview-with-terry-sofian-of-the-hive-queen-country-project

Thank you Jon for having me onboard!