Re: Poor dim little me - custardial doilies

From: Stewart Stansfield <stu_stansfield_at_mwjd5hW-CqDHokrkOtPmpHwt6WET-_53Xy4GJCRPy-HhRs2UswPE5DYwe2--w>
Date: Fri, 11 May 2007 07:14:24 -0000

Sam:
> Early-to-mid-May of 2006, Stew suggested using this list as a route
into
> writing a Gloranthan book which captures that tone whose
> loss/reduction/whatever he regrets. A daft one, you know.

Thanks, Sam. The post in question is here:

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/ImmoderateGloranthaQuest/message/2 408

I didn't necessarily (or seriously) mean it quite as it might come across, but there are a lot of bright people on this list, and I was interested in using it as a platform for an all-too rare collaborative project.

Over the past couple of years, I've moved from a discipline wherein collaboration was a watchword (geology), to one wherein it is near anathema (history). My problem is, and remains, the fact that I get ideas, but often lack the motivation to push a large project to fruition. Sometimes, therefore, I really want to work with other people, and get inspired by their ideas (and get them to do a lot of the donkey work); at other times I don't.

I've often said I'm writing "some work" on Caladraland (it was the first place I ever read of in Glorantha, in Glorantha: Intro, and even the woeful editing job done on Peter's evocative description couldn't fail to enthuse me). But I've held off saying I'm writing a book for Moon Design (which I am) for the embarrassingly quaint notion that I didn't want to annoy some people.

Three or four years back, Peter, Philippe Sigaud and I were discussing writing a Caladraland book for the Unspoken Word. For various reasons nothing further happened. But we had a lot of very useful discussions. In the interim between then and firing off my proposal at Mark, I'd done a fair bit of my own work. That's the problem. You get to like it, and then it becomes very hard to collaborate fully, knowing that you'll have to give some of it up.

I would still to get Peter onboard, but have continuously held off chatting until I get more of my own ideas down in a more concrete form. Why've I mentioned this? Confession hour? That, given recent discussions, just being honest about your foibles isn't that bad? Er, no idea. It might link in with the next post, I suppose. On reading these last couple I seem to be getting far too ingenuous.

Cheerio,

Stew (who is an early modern historian, and varies the spelling of his name as is his wont)