Waiting: Dark and lively
All right, luvvies? Matt here with the Waiting edition of Ready & Waiting, a fortnightly newsletter from Foggy Outline. The Waiting edition is all about what we’re working on behind the scenes.
And welcome to the final newsletter of the year! December is at once a dark and lively month, and I always let myself off writing newsletters while it’s happening.
When you produce something like this regularly, it’s important to take a break from it now and then so you can look at it from a distance and see if it’s still doing what you want it to. So we’ll spend a bit of time over the break thinking about whether there’s anything about the newsletter we want to change.
If there’s anything you’d like to be different, hit reply and let us know! Is once a fortnight about right? Is each edition a good length? Are there bits you skip and bits you look forward to? Tell us so we can make it a brilliant read!
🖋 A Game of One’s Own: Maddy Searle usually plays single-player roleplaying/journalling games on their podcast, but we both stumbled across this great-looking game called Coiled Spæce by Æther Corp, which is mainly solo but has a multi-player option. So I’m joining Maddy to record an episode this month. Keep an eye on the Ready editions and I’ll let you know when the episode comes out.
🐉 Dragonmeet (30 November, 09:00GMT, London): I’m not there in any official capacity, but I’ll be around. Ping me on Bluesky or Instagram @merelymatt if you’re there and want to say hi.
I Need A Miracle
season 1 is over (tell me what you thought!), and my next priority is to finish the live show script I’ve been working on. I didn’t have anything ready in time for Audio Drama Hub Podfest 2024, but there’s always next year’s London Podcast Festival and (renamed) Audio Drama Hubfest, among other chances I don’t know about yet!
For events like those, you want something around 20-25 minutes – a bit longer than most episodes in I Need A Miracle season 1. I also think a live show wants at least a little bit of theatricality to it, even when it’s functionally a recording session with an audience.
So I’m giving myself licence to break the show’s format in this script by writing (gasp!) two parts instead of the usual one. Don’t worry, though – they don’t talk to each other, only to their silent god. (At least, at first.)
I’ve also been lining up some feed swaps with other podcasts: where an episode of I Need A Miracle appears on their podcast feed and vice versa, to let each other’s listeners know about each other’s shows. So listen out for an episode of Before The Tone on the I Need Miracle feed this week (and if you’re a Before The Tone listener, I Need A Miracle episode 1 will go out on that feed in early December).
Looking forward to any of these upcoming releases? Let us know on Linkedin or Tumblr, or if you’re feeling generous, buy us a cuppa to warm us while we work!
🧅 The Onion bought Infowars: American gammon Alex Jones went bankrupt from extremely deservedly losing some lawsuits, people on Bluesky said it’d be funny if The Onion bought his website in the bankruptcy sale, and the families he slandered put up money to let them do it. The whole internet seized on this story because we all just really needed a win and a belly laugh, all right?
🍂 Two new stone circles found on Dartmoor: And they seem to fit in with a pattern on the map formed by other stone circles we already knew about!! If a stone circle can be a gateway to Fairyland, where could a whole circle of stone circles transport you?
🐝 Til Death Do Us Heart (Rowan, Rook and Decard): Heart: The City Beneath is my favourite roleplaying game to run, and the cast of this actual play sound like they’re as into it as I am. Players include Grant Howitt (one of the designers of the game), Naomi Clarke (the Draugr Earldom in Merely Roleplayers Studio production The Queen’s Dead) and Nathan Blades (The Observer in I Need A Miracle: The meaning of Low Extremes).
Thanks for joining us behind the scenes – and for being with us through Foggy Outline’s first year in this form! See you next year.