Well, hello there!

I'm kind of surprised - pleasantly, mind you - that my poll, and re-release of Beneath the Veil, was what caused a few of you to pop up in comments. So hello! How are you! Good to hear from you, don't go anywhere. We writers crave contact. It's so lonely here, just me and the keyboard... I'll just go weep in a corner.

Ahem. So just in case you're wondering I'll generally continue conversations that start in comments under those comments, so feel free to read there too. However, I wanted to address one from Anonymous (Hey Anonymous! Boy, you're ubiquitous!) which mentioned the ending to Beneath the Veil:

... I did feel that the final gift that the protagonist recieves from his organization did feel a touch forced.

Boy, have I heard that before. (You realise of course that writers (and artists generally) pretty much never, ever forget criticism? Imagine what Uwe Boll's life must be like.) I heard that complaint back when I first released BTV - in fact I seem to recall the great and powerful Kerry made similar comments.

Anyway, I did reply to that comment already, and said that when I look back on it, I don't know what I was thinking... but conversations with Andi over email made me think more on it. Truth is, I tend to look for 'easy outs' on the technical trickery behind mask making in stories. I don't necessarily want to tell you the 'why' and 'how' of a disguise; I want to get on with talking about what you can do with that disguise. So when I wrote BTV, I think I was looking for one easy, catch-all solution of 'how' the Veil was able to get all those cool masks. However, as the rest of the story was relatively 'down to earth' I think people reacted badly to the overly sci-fi feel of the 'final revelations'.

(By the way, you should count yourself lucky I never wrote a sequel. If I ever went into the backstory of The Veil as an organisation, my explanation for the mask masking tech was going to be that it was sent back to them through time from an advanced society of... errm... people who like to wear masks. God, I feel cheesy even writing that.)

Since then, I learnt (partially because of reader feedback) that the process of 'how' a mask is made can often be as much fun to read about as the usual maskings, unmaskings, etc. I'll tell you this though... it can be hellish to write. So to all of you out there who sometimes struggle with the idea of 'how' a mask can be made? Just remember, it can always happen offscreen (or between the lines, if you prefer).

What else was I going to say? Oh yeah - thanks a lot for voting on the poll, folks. Shows me that at least there's more than one or two of you out there. And that a lot of you are 'old school' - rock on! Boy, I'm sorry if you've been following me all this time waiting for a sequel to BTV. See above as to why that might not be such a great idea.

Keep voting, and in the meantime, I'll keep writing. Just not enough hours in the day right now.