Authorial Highlights
- GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Thieves aka Marl Ankh-3 is in the hands of Steve Jackson Games. I think it is next up in the queue for editing.
- I finished NaNoWriMo 2022 a day early. It is done. It came out okay. It is a lot of ground work for an actual novel series as a prequel of sorts so I’m probably going to banish it to the Vault and write “book one” in the coming months. It feels like that’s what I should do so I’m going to do it.
- GURPS Whatchamacallit is remains at 95% done for the first draft. It’s edited. It’s finished. I was given the option to keep alpha-testing it though with monthly updates on my status and I took it. The editing-queue is pretty full at the moment and this is a book than can absolutely use more time to be even better than it is.
- The Fantasy Trip Quick Quest “The Gallery of Hands” is done and in the hands of Steve Jackson. He thought the set up was “very interesting!” so I’ll take that as a win. Given that Stefan E. Jones said the same thing (and provided me with some maps, thanks, Stef!) It was fun to write and the (eventual) pay for it should be pretty good.
- My article for the fanzine GATE for The Fantasy Trip is with the publisher. That should be due out by Christmas I’ve been told. Pay soon for that I hope.
- My article for Hexagram for The Fantasy Trip remains submitted.
- I didn’t spend a lot of time on “Short Circuit” this month and I want to get it done by Christmas if possible. At least getting a final of the first draft of the rules.
- A query I sent out for a GURPS supplement almost four months ago has been given a tentative thumbs up. I’ll have a co-author on this one (J. Edward Tremlett) if it gets approved. We’re rewriting the outline and will send that off this week. No name for it yet as I don’t do that till I have a contract.
- I currently have six outstanding contracts/jobs: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Thieves, my GATE entry, another Hexagram entry, a TFT Quick Quest, the Short Circuit dice game, and GURPS Whatchamacallit.
- I challenged myself this month to do something I didn’t know if I could. I wanted to write 5,000 words/day. I wanted those words to come from a combination of blog posts, Patreon specials, gaming work, and fiction work. That is not exactly what happened. I wanted to write 30 blog posts this month. I wrote 40. I wanted to write 15 Patreon specials this month. I wrote 21. I wanted to finish up 2 TFT projects, 1 GURPS project, and the Short Circuit dice game. I didn’t get to the dice game done. I wanted to write a novella for NaNoWriMo. I did that. One thing I did not expect was that the urge to write in my memoir would take a hold of me for four days of continuous writing (I was awake for about 88 hours). I’ve put it back in its hole and it can stay there. Those words will likely never been read except after I’m dead – if then.
- Total wordcount this last months was 174,530 new words – about 117% of what I’d expected. Even though I will happily acknowledge that 5,000 a day with no breaks was too much. It just was. Maybe once or twice a year and only at great need. My original goal was to do 20,000 per month or 667 words per day. I have found that not only is that low, that is absurdly low for me. I knew I could write, but the workflow I created has tightened my focus to such a degree that I’m no longer exactly sure of what my full output could be. Most of the time when I write it’s in great spurts and outpourings. This has shown me that I can do both. I can go balls to the wall when needed, but I can remain steady and workaday as well and I seem to be able to switch between modes with ease. My new goal is to 40,000 per month or about 1,334 words per day. I have a suspicion that I can do 50,000, but a lot of my time this last month was interrupted by random things and I want to have a cushion for that. So the goal for December 2022 is 40,000. We’ll see.
Blog Highlights
- Blog entries have been around 0 per week – I have been mostly writing so I can get back on a good schedule NEXT year. 3-4 per week or about 12-16 per month. If I can pull that off, I’ll be happy.
- Working on doing a facelift for the blog. Still not completely satisfied with it at the moment.
- Wrote many entries – 40 to be precise.
Patreon Highlights
- Patreon remained on track for the month. Still releasing them to schedule.
- I gained 1 patron and lost 2 patrons. 2 patrons modified their pledge.
- No fiction again. Probably going to hold off on this to wait for the new year.
- I am going to be changing around some stuff on Patreon for the new year. If you are one of my patrons, please keep an eye on your email for a post pertaining to this. I will probably message all my patrons as well just so I know everyone has seen the changes that will be coming in the new year.
Miscellaneous Related News
- Aeon has seen a combined 26 sessions now for for B- and C-Teams. I am going to start up a fourth team on Tuesday nights – should spool up this month. I hope at least. A-Team is on a hiatus at the moment but, I hope to start them up too. Games dropped off in November because it was CRAZY hectic for me and I was just working too much.
- I interviewed another player (Justina Revolution) for my games and her interview is making the rounds internally with my inner council. I have one more potential player I want to interview from the forums then I’m probably closing membership down for a while.
- I continue my learning in the Virginia Board of Workforce Development program. It’s been great so far. I did all coursework this month and should be done with phase 2 (of 3) by the end of December.
- The organizing I did using Evernote paid off in an exceptionally big way. Being able to mark things as done or have alarms for them was great and helped me just mow through projects. This is my workflow for the foreseeable future.
- Spent a lot of time with family this month either because they needed me for something or we were just enjoying each other’s company. Nephews were a bit needy, but that wasn’t a big problem. Not really.
- I got new glasses that actually work and I can see well for the first time in years. I didn’t realize how bad my other glasses were till I put on the new ones and could suddenly read the tiny script of prescription bottles. Sigh. They are bifocals, but I guess I needed them. I’m getting old, y’all.