I'm Still Waiting

To see a copy of Children of the Horned Rat, that is. From his posts on RPGnet, Steve Darlington is just as bereft of his comp copies as I am of mine.

The sad truth about freelance writing and complimentary copies of the products you produce is that you rarely (if ever) get to see them before they are released to the general public. On one hand, this is hardly an issue; technically, I am able to see these books, albeit in a somewhat raw and fragmentary format, months before the average gamer will be able to slap down his money to purchase a copy.

On the other hand, it's almost like fathering a child, yet having to wait until the rest of the family gets to see it before you do. You'd love to be handing out cigars, but you don't know if the baby is a boy or a girl yet. You hear a lot of things from the folks who've seen the kid: "Oh, it's just adorable!" or "It's got its father's eyes!" but you've no way to make your own judgements on the baby's appearance. For all you know, it was born with six eyes, buck teeth, and an extra nipple.

I very much doubt that Children is a book I'll be ashamed of. From what I've seen (of the final drafts, way back when), it's going to be on par with the incredible standards of quality and excellence that is practically synonymous with both Green Ronin and Black Industries. That fact makes the waiting even more miserable than it would be if I didn't give a toot one way or the other.

And so I whine, on and on.

This weekend, I start (and finish) work on another non-RPG project before going back to the figurative trenches of Ye Olde Uber-Secret Booke. It was tough to get rolling, but now that I've made some progress I'm feeling a bit more confident about the whole thing.

Break is over. Back to work. See you on the flip side.