Sorry about that, but I had Insomnia again last night. It always happens when I’ve been working late into the night on this newsletter. Once I start thinking, it’s really hard for me to stop, and I take hours to stop doing so. It’s only then that I can get any sleep whatsoever.

It’s my own daft fault really. I should have got to work on this issue of Battlecry as soon as the last one was released, but NO...I just sat around feeling pleased with myself for all the work I had done. At the time of writing this, it’s now the halfway point between the two issues, and now I only have couple of weeks to get 4 weeks worth of work done.

I haven’t got any submissions to the newsletter yet, which only heightens the tension in the BC offices, and it looks like the bulk of the content is going to be on my shoulders. I haven’t wrote enough of my mini-novel “Old Friends” to realistically put into the newsletter yet, I haven’t got any Interviews lined up with anyone, I’m going to have to wait until the last moment to write up the Think Tank article to make it as up-to-date as possible, I’ve only got one entry to the writing competition so far (although the flying competitions went pretty well), and the Battlecry projects that I have started haven’t quite started yet. (May I add that ‘Daphne and Celeste’ have started on the Radio with the God awful tune ‘You U.G.L.Y.’…ARGHH!!!)

The only hope that I have is…the stuff that missed the deadline last month. I know some people who couldn’t quite get the last part of there story complete in time so I’ll hassle them for a while. Also, there are a few articles that I was working on that didn’t come about because of people changing their positions, people having a bit too much work to do last month and so on. Hopefully, the pattern will stay the same so I always have something to put into the next issue!

Anyway, to fill in space, you get this column by me. Sorry!!!

I’m sure you all know what I mean. As well as real-life, we also have an Internet alter ego, and you find yourself trying to do a balancing act with them. Most people can do that competently, and be successful in both. Most people…

The balance has screwed up a bit for me recently. I’ve just got some exam results back from college and they weren’t good. Far from good. They weren’t bad enough to get me kicked off my courses, and I know that I have a chance to repeat them easily to make up the points, but it has given me a good kick up the backside.

I have just had to do a complete overhaul of my life (all of them), to bring the balance back. I will be studying a hell of a lot more for a start, that much is obvious. It’s the EH life that I am having the most problems with and I’m going to have to be damn clever at how I do this.

I’m very pleased with my EH life. I’m a reasonably active member, who edits a newsletter and has made a lot of friends over the Internet. I’ll be damned if I’m going to loose everything that I have built up over the past year and a half.

What should I do? Slowly deteriorate until I become AWOL? Screw my real life up by getting kicked out of college? Scrap the EH altogether? I mean, how to people keep this balance?

For now, I have made a decision that I should do college work all day, so on the evenings I can do what I want to do. I don’t know if this is going to work yet, as it would mean alternating nights to my friends in the EH and my friends in the real world.

So I’m making a plea. What should I do? How do the rest of you cope? Does anyone else have similar problems? Please send in anything that you can which would help me remain an active EH member.

Also, if you do, please note if you want your advice and stories published in this newsletter. Not only will you be helping me, but I’m sure that you will be helping many other members of the EH too.

I am usually quite shocked by the chat rooms that the Emperor's Hammer uses. There are usually loads of people in the main channels, yet there are only a fraction of those people actually saying anything (if anyone). The thought that they may be chatting in other rooms had crossed my mind, but I'm in a lot of subgroups so I have quite a few rooms open, and I don't see much chatting in them either.

I beg of you, try and talk in at least one of the channels you go in!!!

People seem to have a strange fear of saying the wrong thing, butting into someone else's conversation, or that no one will talk back to them. DON'T BE!!! I remember that I had them fears when I started, and now you'll usually find me making witty one liners (i.e. bad jokes) and occasionally singing.  I understand why you would be more careful other channels, but not in EH ones. We're all a friendly bunch (well almost), and will probably talk back to you, or laugh at the bad joke you have just typed in.

So this goes to all the people in the chat rooms who watch and wonder if they should say anything. If you see me (Werdna_LB) in a chat room that you are in, then say hello. You can be sure that I will say Hi back, and probably try and find out who you are if I have never chatted to you before.

If you want to say something, say it! Especially if I'm around! If someone is a bit nasty to anyone, then I don't usually like that and speak out (although it rarely happens).

Just be more confident on IRC, and before you know it you'll be wondering what you were worrying about.