Carpe Blogiem: Author, Patreon, and Blog Highlights – December 2017 to April 2018

What can I say, it’s been a while – almost six months. Where have I been for half a year? Honestly, I’d rather not discuss it. Let’s just say that Life(TM) intruded in an extremely ugly way and there was simply no time for blogging. I barely had the time to write or keep up with Patreon and almost had to quit gaming. It sucked. I think I’m through the worst of it and now I’m back. So here are the things that happened while I was gone that you may not have been aware of.

 

Authorial Highlights

  • I submitted a number of articles from December 2017 to April 2018. I submitted a article to Hot Spots and Locations with my oft co-author J. Edward Tremlett. We work pretty well together. We’ll see how that goes. This leaves only Alternate GURPS and After the End on the wishlist.  I’ve written two articles for Alternate GURPS (I’ll have to pick which I like, but may submit both as they are short-ish). After the End still remains in the idea stage and I’m not sure what I want to do yet.
  • My official designer’s notes for Dungeon Fantasy Traps came out having been published in Pyramid #3/113: Dungeon Fantasies.
  • I managed to keep getting published in Pyramid throughout the last six months, but at least two of my articles were just grueling in the revision section. That’s 1/3 of what I published in that time frame. I’m not happy with that and I’m taking measures so it does not happen again – or at least doesn’t happen to the degree that it did.
  • I finished up revisions on my solo GURPS Monster Hunters project. Playtesting soon (I hope).
  • I submitted a proposal for another GURPS book about a topic I find most exciting (though it might not be the one you think).
  • I wrote another Pyramid article without a home with material I was given permission to use; more on that when its done.
  • I began laying the ground for another Pyramid article in the vein of my “It’s a [X]!” series. I rather liked how the previous ones turned out and this one is no different. Highly excited about it.
  • I started a bit of fiction that may turn into something more.
  • I started using Toggl as a way to tracker hours spent on projects (which I did by hand previously) and a way to better contain my workload than excel. It’s working decently so far.

Blog Highlights

  • The blog revamp is done. No, it wasn’t the dev’s fault – it was mine – having to migrate all my links from Blogger to WordPress was its own special kind of hell. If you ever think you are going to use WordPress in the future instead of Blogger, just start with WordPress. Total time for link migration was almost 120 hours. That’s right. I spent what amounted to five work-weeks getting everything shipshape. While I was doing it I also resorted some things (mostly putting magic-themed topics into Boil and Bubble or moving others to Carpe Blogiem).
  • I removed Product Reviews and Assembly Required from my featured columns. Neither of those got much in the way of traction and I think I may revamp both in the future when I have more time. We’ll see.
  • I split up the menu section for my various credits; I think it looks much better.
  • I did a lot of taxonomic normalization – hopefully things will be easier to search in the future.
  • I changed the color scheme of the blog: black on white now instead of the reverse. I hope folks like that.
  • I still need to get new headers that work for WordPress, but that’s going to have to wait for now.

 

Patreon Highlights

  • Patreon went back on their proposed fee schedule and things are back to normal. I didn’t hemorrhage a single patron because of it. THANK YOU! Your support lets me survive in a world that’s not always friendly to creatives.
  • I released a slew of Patreon specials – many of them from my Hurt Locker column. People seemed to like them. We’ll see how May goes. I still need to put the finishing touches on those.
  • I managed to keep up with my Patreon Special promise, but fell behind in other areas. In short, I need to go back and look at Patreon and make sure I keep up with my promised goals. I have no excuse for this, only reasons and for that I’m sorry.
  • I lost patrons, gained some, had others modify their pledges over the last six months, but I still garnered $14 in pledges and four new patrons. we’ll put that in the win column. Thanks to those who stuck by me.

Miscellaneous Related News

  • My mother’s rehab is going smoothly. Overall, things are very positive there and it’s a lot off my mind.
  • My Ceteri campaign ended abruptly due to some problems I was having; it was mirroring real things too much and making me depressed because of it. I started a Dungeon Fantasy campaign instead. The world is an ugly place right now and I’ve fully retreated into a fantasy world to stay sane. I’ll be posting a page of session recaps on that soonish.
  • The kitten I adopted (Aurora Skye) is a joyful little thing. Sweet as can be, but she yell. She YELL, y’all. She yell a lot. Nimbus is fiercely protective of her and she utterly adores him. They’re quite a pair and they’ve both settled in with one another to the point that the mutual hissing is a rare sound these days.
  • I’ve gotten most the domestic chores I needed to do done. I have shelves now and a fully finished closet. Only a few things remain. I’ll feel so much better when they are all done.
  • Lot of of other things I’m probably missing.
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2 Comments

  1. Welcome back man, sorry to hear you’ve had such a rough time. Makes the hell I was going through last few months look like a joke in compression.

    Can’t wait to see what you got in store for us. If you’re anything like me, I bet it feels good to be back to producing content heh.

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