Over the past few years, I’ve spread myself a little thin, and my projects suffered for it. When I started out as a Creative Guy Who Gets Paid, I had no other job or just part time work, and was a single guy with time to burn. Now I’m a husband and parent who balances this stuff with work for a nonprofit, but I kept scheduling things and working as if I was still a dude who could hole himself in a room and do nothing but the writing in front of me for weeks. That had to change.
This year I’ve decided to cut things back to the most promising, personally relevant stuff. In cause you’re interested:
I’m giving Aeternal Legends to Stew Wilson. I made my money back and the game has great potential, but I’m not really into marketing things any more. Now I never “owned” the game, as Stew retained the rights (minus my writing and design, and the art) but I’m looking into ways to make sure he can freely use all the writing and art assets to develop supplements and a new edition. He’ll be able to sell the current version himself, too (he was always able to do this, but this time I won’t get any of the money). I look forward to handing it over to get the attention it deserves.
I’m looking for help on Knights of the Hidden Sun. In order to get this monster ready in a timely fashion, I’m looking through my connections so I can find the right person to finish development. I have high standards and no budget, but I have faith I’ll find the right person to fine tune Chris Challice’s vision.
I have three projects in mind, minimum. I already have one big-ish contract coming this year. Beyond that, look for some saucy game-related fiction and at least one original game this year. The fiction is almost ready. The game is designed. The contract is presumably in the mail.
I’m letting go of most publishing projects — but not the creative end of things. Knights of the Hidden Sun may be my last commitment to the full process of bringing a game to market. I tossed out a bunch of stuff that wasn’t very good and a few things that were. In the end, I learned that I’m not interested in constantly trying to sell people things, build communities, start profitable conversations, or manage various business-oriented bells and whistles. I’ve done these things in and out of nerd-related trades (at one point I managed a couple of dozen blogs simultaneously) and feel good about my performance, but nowadays I’d rather devote my time to the words.
That said, I’m interested in working with people who want to do all that other stuff. I just want to write and design. Over time, this site will change to reflect that.