December 2017 – Q&A (Part One)

This is a compilation of questions that have been emailed and messaged to me recently. December is a two-parter as I’ve had so many questions recently.

I’ve been posting Q&As for a while now, so if you’ve found this one interesting, you can look back at previous Q&As here.

If you want to ask anything, you can post a comment here or get in touch through the contact page (and newsletter subscribers can just reply to any of my emails).

Andrew asked this question on my ‘Brief History of the Deathwatch’ Blog: Which of the Deathwatch marines you outlined in your piece would be most likely to be the squad’s sergeant? Or rather, which one would take command if Artemis wasn’t around?

It would probably be Haryk as the next longest-serving member of the Deathwatch.

Michael replied to my newsletter commenting: I have to say as an aspiring author my dream is to write for Black Library one day, if not I will continue my work and at least try to write some good books… you and Graham are the best thanks for the motivation and the excellent stories…

Thanks for your message. My advice has always been to be a writer (or games designer) in the broader sense and then maybe hope to work with BL or GW. Limiting yourself to such a single narrow window of opportunity rarely works. I was just discussing this with Nick Kyme yesterday, in fact. Getting something published elsewhere – Uncanny Magazine, Grimdark Magazine, etc – lets you jump the queue a bit in terms of BL submissions, as the process is different for published authors. It’s also just good practise and experience of the editorial process for if you do get a shot with playing in the GW sandpit