Just finished my writing for the current Cassandra Release.

If you told me two years ago I'll only be writing that now, I'd have punched you in the nose and then bought you a drink to thank you for saving my time.

But still. What's being released in the nearish future is done as a body of work - with polishing and proofing all that remains. And some functionality, but that's just DXEd all over.

Dunno how many words there are. 25,000 in dialogue. Plus the other assorted stuff, which really is not inconsiderable. I'd guess somewhere around the 30K mark.

I have no idea whether it's any good or not anymore. However, I do know that I squeezed in one cheap gag a few minutes ago and one equally cheap piece of social comment.

And that's gotta be a good sign.

*****

On other notes, I put up an advert for my next webcomic project in a couple of places. I'm approaching it in a different way to HIT, just to experiment.

For those following such things, I repeat it here:

"Hi

Regular readers of me searching for peeps to work with will notice a little thing difference about this advert: Mainly, it's not an Advert. I'm keeping things a little more fluid and low-key just to see what happens.

I finished the last HIT - though you can never really tell with that particular project - a while back, and the artists are busying themselves away. I've done a few other things since, including a couple of ludricous things I'm not showing anyone. However, I'm getting to a place where I want to start on something more expansive than the HIT shorts - or at least more ambitious.

The form is a series of shorts, all set in the same constructed world. Each one will be four to six pages, exploring an aspect of the concept just to see what emotional buttons that can be pressed. Ideally, get ahead of ourselves a little and run one strip a month, regularly.

I could do this like HIT - have an artist for each different short. While that's fun, I think the project would work better from having a single artist brought in at the start of the whole world building process and continue the work into drawing the script. It's the sort of thing that gains something from the coherence.

As you may have already guessed, this will be a non-money gig, for exposure. I haven't talked to anyone about where to push the idea - but with what I'm thinking of, it'll be beyond perfect for Opi8.

HIT was me trying to learn a few rules of comics, play around with its structure and learn what to do and not to do. This is a real attempt at creating something with a bit more weight - while still keeping to a short, tight structure. There will be links between the parts, thematically and even in terms of certain characters reappearing, but each stands alone.

So - I'm looking for a dedicated collaborator who has an urge to get stuck into something at an early stage, play around with some grotesque ideas and make people pig sick at how great we can be.

Is that you? Give us a shout. missadalovelace@hotmail.com

Oh yes: The all important "What Is It?"

I've left it to the end, as wanted to say what the project will consist of before saying actually *what* the project is. I've also deliberately not written any of this down, as I wanted the possibility of fludity with a collaborator.

The world: Speculative fiction based on a quirk of evolution theory, bent specifically for dark-edged satirical purposes and emotional resonance. Watchwords: Orwell. Copeman. Will Self. Vonnegut. Banks. The direct opposite of Brave New World.

Prime idea: People were right when they said this is the End Of History. Modern Western Capitalism is the apex of humanity, and a few decades into the 21st century, social evolution grinds to a halt. Everyone works in White Collar jobs in grotesque aircraft hangers. They earn money to spend money to try and forget what they have to do to earn money in the first place. Depression - already the prime killer of men in the traditional breeding age - rockets, cross-gender.

And history has really stopped, in a slightly extended version of the current day. Leave this situation to sit and boil for a few hundred million years.

Evolution selects against anything that stops people from passing their genes. Death by diseases. Death by predators. Except that's no longer a problem. Death by your own hand? Givem time, it'll work on that too.

The obvious evolutionary solution - that people evolve to not be able to be depressed - doesn't happen, for a variety of reasons. The alternative solution?

It's the year 237,002,003 AD. Humanity has physiologically evolved to protect themselves from their own suicide attempts.

Homo Sapiens is dead. Despite its best efforts, Homo Depressus lives on.

Sounds interesting, then give me a shout.

KG"

Though it looks far better in its natural habitat of the Speech Balloon.