Hoping for a better year

Gah! Thomas and I agree that we’re glad to see the backside of 2007. Probably icky stuff happened before April (oh yeah, like Rick and Jen’s disappointment after all that time and effort), but with his quadruple bypass surgery, things went downhill. I had my yearly major sickness (vomiting and diarrhea at the same time–NOT recommended), my grandmother fell and broke her pelvis and has been in a nursing home ever since. Scott’s dad being diagnosed with emphysema in addition to his pulmonary fibrosis had its good side, in that a doctor actually discovered this when his other doctor didn’t, but being put on the lung transplant list is mighty scary stuff. On the good side, I started in February as worship minister at Mayberry following the scary-but-could-have-been-worse financial crisis and Ben’s departure. So now I’ve been leading singing (and the entire service once at Thanksgiving when Scott was out of town) for nearly a year. I really love it, but need to get back to practicing my vocal exercises; I’m getting rusty.

For this coming year, mine and Scott’s Imperial Age: Faeries should be published by Adamant, as well as his Imperial Age: Grimoire (which really should come out first, as he wrote it first). I’m really afraid the advent of D&D 4e has killed (for a time?) our d20 publishing careers. I’m really excited about 4e. I’m also hoping, on the publishing front, that I actually get paid something by Dog Soul. It’s been a year and a half now since they paid me anything! I haven’t seen a dime for my Sahasra Religion: Hinduism book (or whatever it’s called). Sigh. Guess that’s the way of independent publishing. They seem to want to fund themselves first and then pay the writers.

Great news is that my redesigned Samford home page won a Special Merit Award for CASE (District III). It’s the same award I won for the redesign back in 2002. Coolest certificate ever (see image), so I hope the new one is as nice.

We should resume gaming this weekend, with the next installment of Scott’s Mosaic campaign. I’ve nearly finished transcribing the tapes from the last session. (Yes, I tape the sessions. Got  a new digital voice recorder for Christmas, too, to use!) I’m anxious to see if Giuliana the bard/beguiler will get to use her talents this session. Someone whose forte is charm and illusion isn’t much good against undead, which was our primary opponent last session.