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Planning for December 2021

Planning for December 2021

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I think I may have diagnosed the long-period creative slump I was in for most of the fall.

About mid-November, I summarily ejected an unproductive activity that had been taking up some time every day since the height of the pandemic: playing one or another MMO online. Back when I was on extended medical leave, working from home if at all, spending an hour or two a day gaming wasn’t an issue. Once I was back in the office full-time, and especially given that my workload there has stepped up a bit since the summer, it was crowding out time and energy that could have been spent on creative work. One day I decided to shut the most recent game down cold turkey – gave away all my in-game assets, closed out my account – and almost the very next day I found myself getting unblocked. We often don’t realize what’s damming the creative flow until we find the problem and patch it.

So November was yet another month with no big milestones and no major releases, but December is already looking like a big improvement. I have a Human Destiny novelette that’s well on its way to completion in first draft, and I’m making good progress on a new section of the setting bible for that universe.

So, without further ado, here’s the outline for the month of December.

  • Top Priority (“this is how I’ll judge whether the month has been successful”)
    • Human Destiny: Finish the new novelette “Roanoke” for eventual collection and publication.
    • Human Destiny: Research and produce a timeline for the terraforming of Mars in this universe.
    • Human Destiny: Produce a high-level map of terraformed Mars for the Cortex Prime sourcebook and setting bible.
    • Human Destiny: Write a few thousand more words of the Cortex Prime sourcebook and setting bible.
  • Second Priority (“work on this as time permits”):
    • Krava’s Legend: Write a few new chapters of The Sunlit Lands.
    • Architect of Worlds: Start work on a section describing the structure of the galaxy and of interstellar space, and providing guidelines on how to make maps for interstellar settings.
    • Architect of Worlds: Start work on a section of special cases and additional worldbuilding material that doesn’t fit into the design sequence.
    • Scorpius Reach: Write a few new chapters of Second Dawn.
  • Back Burner (“work on this only if everything else gets blocked”):
    • Architect of Worlds: Return to improvement and polishing of the Introduction and Design Sequence document, leading to a new minor-version release. This work may involve updating all of the worked examples, and making mathematical notation more consistent.
    • Krava’s Legend: Write the second short story for the “reader magnet” collection.
    • Scorpius Reach: Start work on a third edition of the Game of Empire rules for Traveller.

Clearly the Human Destiny material is going to get the lion’s share of my attention this month. I should be able to finish “Roanoke” within another week or so, and that’s likely to be at least 10,000 words of new material all by itself. The setting bible is going to get a big chunk of new material as well.

Most likely, my patrons are going to get a final draft of “Roanoke” as a charged release this month, with the understanding that there’s also going to be a free update to the Human Destiny setting bible that incorporates a bunch of new material. We’ll see what else might make progress as well over the next few weeks.

Status Report (28 November 2021)

Status Report (28 November 2021)

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Well, we’re coming down to the end of the month of November, and I’m sorry to report that the honey and the biscuits are not coming out even. (Except at our Thanksgiving table, where we had a very fine feast.)

At the moment, new material adds up to about 9,000 words, most of it in the new Human Destiny story I’m working on. That’s looking as if it will come to novelette length before I’m finished with it. I also have one new chapter of The Sunlit Lands complete in first draft, and part of the next chapter. Nothing new on any other projects, alas.

In fact, that’s better than I managed in September or October, which tells me that I may have gotten the creative engine unstuck finally. It’s still not enough to reach my self-imposed threshold for a new release for my patrons. Therefore there will be no charged release for my patrons in November.

If I can keep up the current pace, however, a full release for my patrons seems very likely in December. More on that once I’ve got the decks cleared a bit and can plan for the coming month.

Status Report (20 November 2021)

Status Report (20 November 2021)

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The day job has been taking up a lot of my time and energy over the past few weeks – there’s a great stack of work I need to get knocked out at the office before it turns into a ghost town over the holidays. Still, this weekend and the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday are promising plenty of time to get creative work done.

At the moment, I’m working to get a new Human Destiny short story put together. As with “Guanahani,” this story is set on the day when the Khedai Hegemony launches its overt invasion of Earth. In this case, the story is set on Mars, where a small outpost has been struggling to survive in isolation, ever since everything went to pot back on the home world. When the aliens arrive, they give the Martian colonists a fateful choice to make . . .

I’ve also been working on new chapters of The Sunlit Lands. That’s moving too slowly for my taste, but I may have two or three new chapters finished by the end of November.

At the moment, my plan for my patrons is to release those new chapters of The Sunlit Lands and the new short story as a charged release by the end of November. That’s conditional on the new material adding up to at least 12,000-15,000 words. I may also finish polishing up a minor version update of the Human Destiny sourcebook – that will be a free patron reward if I can get to a good milestone with it.

I’ve also been reviewing yet another creative project, something I worked on several years ago and then dropped. Another fantasy novel, in this case, but more strictly historical fantasy. It’s an alternate-timeline setting, in which Classical Greece ends up developing along very different lines than in our history. I find I actually have quite a lot of notes, and a very healthy opening already written for a novel. More about that if I decide to bring it up off the back burner.

I also owe the world at least one book review before the end of the month. A few good candidates in my TBR stack, so that shouldn’t be a problem.

Planning for November 2021

Planning for November 2021

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I seem to be in a long-term slump when it comes to creative effort. For a couple of months now, progress has been slow and rather scattered on all of my outstanding projects – I’ve made some progress in several areas, but no one item has moved forward enough to generate a significant milestone. Neither have I generated any new content in a big enough block to justify issuing a charged release for my patrons. About the only real milestone I hit was to publish this month’s book review.

Hard to say what’s behind this. It’s probably some mix of needing to spend most of my creative spoons on my day job, getting distracted by day-to-day concerns, and some mild dysphoria that’s making it hard to focus. The upshot is that October, like September, was something of a wash.

Yet hope springs eternal, and part of my creative discipline involves at least taking stock and laying out a plan at the beginning of each month. So here’s the plan for November.

Not much change from last month, except that I think I’m going to move a new Human Destiny short story up on the priority list – I have a concept that seems to be pushing its way to the front of my mind. Also with respect to Human Destiny, I’ve been doing a lot of research and prep work to develop a timeline for the terraforming of Mars – I think several stories in that setting will eventually be tied to that piece of it. I might push that subproject forward this month.

  • Top Priority (“this is how I’ll judge whether the month has been successful”)
    • Krava’s Legend: Write a few new chapters of The Sunlit Lands.
    • Human Destiny: Research and produce a timeline for the terraforming of Mars in this universe.
    • Human Destiny: Write a new short story for eventual collection and publication.
  • Second Priority (“work on this as time permits”):
    • Architect of Worlds: Start work on a section describing the structure of the galaxy and of interstellar space, and providing guidelines on how to make maps for interstellar settings.
    • Architect of Worlds: Start work on a section of special cases and additional worldbuilding material that doesn’t fit into the design sequence.
    • Human Destiny: Write a few thousand more words of the Cortex Prime sourcebook and setting bible.
    • Scorpius Reach: Write a few new chapters of Second Dawn.
  • Back Burner (“work on this only if everything else gets blocked”):
    • Architect of Worlds: Return to improvement and polishing of the Introduction and Design Sequence document, leading to a new minor-version release. This work may involve updating all of the worked examples, and making mathematical notation more consistent.
    • Krava’s Legend: Write the second short story for the “reader magnet” collection.
    • Scorpius Reach: Start work on a third edition of the Game of Empire rules for Traveller.

If I can produce enough new prose between The Sunlit Lands and a Human Destiny story, that will likely be a charged release for my patrons this month. If some of the Second Priority material makes progress, I’ll likely post that to my blog and share it with my patrons for free as well. I also have a couple of good candidates for book reviews for the month of November.

Planning for October 2021

Planning for October 2021

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Well, September didn’t go according to plan on any level, but I did manage to get a few creative tasks done:

  • I produced a new minor update for the main portion of Architect of Worlds, and shared that with my patrons as a free update.
  • I finished revising “In the House of War” and published it through Amazon and a number of other outlets. The workflow for that involved the Draft2Digital service, which worked out rather nicely – I think that will be the default for future fiction releases.
  • I published a book review.

Reviewing all of the open projects, I think I’m most concerned to get some new fiction written. Second Dawn has been hanging fire at six chapters since the Kindle Vella service went live. Even worse, it’s been over a year now since The Curse of Steel was released, and I’m no closer to having the sequel finished than I was in the spring. Time to start cranking out some chapters for one or both of those!

So here’s the plan for the month of October:

  • Top Priority (“this is how I’ll judge whether the month has been successful”):
    • Krava’s Legend: Write a few new chapters of The Sunlit Lands.
    • Scorpius Reach: Write a few new chapters of Second Dawn.
  • Second Priority (“work on this as time permits”):
    • Architect of Worlds: Start work on a section describing the structure of the galaxy and of interstellar space, and providing guidelines on how to make maps for interstellar settings.
    • Architect of Worlds: Start work on a section of special cases and additional worldbuilding material that doesn’t fit into the design sequence.
    • Human Destiny: Write a few thousand more words of the Cortex Prime sourcebook and setting bible.
    • Human Destiny: Write a new short story for eventual collection and publication.
    • Krava’s Legend: More research toward improvements to my release-and-marketing workflow.
  • Back Burner (“work on this only if everything else gets blocked”):
    • Architect of Worlds: Return to improvement and polishing of the Introduction and Design Sequence document, leading to a new minor-version release. This work may involve updating all of the worked examples, and making mathematical notation more consistent.
    • Krava’s Legend: Write the second short story for the “reader magnet” collection.
    • Scorpius Reach: Start work on a third edition of the Game of Empire rules for Traveller.

Ideally, I’ll produce at least six chapters each of The Sunlit Lands and Second Dawn, that can be this month’s charged release for my patrons, and I’ll be able to polish and publish the Second Dawn chapters next month. If any of the Architect of Worlds documents or the Human Destiny setting bible make enough progress, those will turn into free updates. As always, I’ll want to complete one or two book reviews for self-published or indie fiction this month.

Watch this space for status reports, and if any of the above interests you, please consider signing up as a patron using the link in the sidebar.

Planning for August 2021

Planning for August 2021

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Okay, July was something of a wash.

I didn’t completely fail to meet my objectives. I did get a book review published, I got the first few chapters of Second Dawn posted to Kindle Vella before that platform went live, and I did get started writing more chapters for that. I got a little bit of work done on other projects as well. Still, the month was conspicuously short on major milestones. I was distracted by a couple of minor bouts of illness, and my day job soaked up more of my attention and energy than usual. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Even so, the goal for August is to pick up the pace a bit, and have more material for my patrons and readers, both free updates and enough new work for a charged release. I’m also thinking about a shift in emphasis among my second-tier projects – I’m feeling a bit more inspiration for the Human Destiny setting at the moment, so I think I may do some new work on that.

Here’s the priority list for August.

  • Top Priority (“this is how I’ll judge whether the month has been successful”):
    • Architect of Worlds: Return to improvement and polishing of the Introduction and Design Sequence document, leading to a new minor-version release.
    • Human Destiny: Write a few thousand more words of the Cortex Prime sourcebook and setting bible.
    • Krava’s Legend: Write a few new chapters of The Sunlit Lands.
    • Scorpius Reach: Write, edit, and publish a few new chapters of Second Dawn.
  • Second Priority (“work on this as time permits”):
    • Architect of Worlds: Start work on a section describing the structure of the galaxy and of interstellar space, and providing guidelines on how to make maps for interstellar settings.
    • Architect of Worlds: Start work on a section of special cases and additional worldbuilding material that doesn’t fit into the design sequence.
    • Human Destiny: Write a new short story for eventual collection and publication.
    • Krava’s Legend: More research toward improvements to my release-and-marketing workflow.
  • Back Burner (“work on this only if everything else gets blocked”):
    • Krava’s Legend: Write the second short story for the “reader magnet” collection.
    • Scorpius Reach: Start work on a third edition of the Game of Empire rules for Traveller.

For my patrons, this month’s free releases will probably include a new minor-version release of the Human Destiny sourcebook, and possible a minor-version release of the Architect of Worlds design sequence. This month’s charged release, if there is one, will most likely be composed of new charters from Second Dawn and The Sunlit Lands. As always, I’ll want to complete one or two book reviews for self-published or indie fiction this month.

Watch this space for status reports, and if any of the above interests you, please consider signing up as a patron using the link in the sidebar.

A Change in Plans

A Change in Plans

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I went to set up the first few chapters of Second Dawn in the Kindle Vella platform last night – successfully, as you can see from the image above. However, in the process I also discovered that Amazon is very close to taking Vella live. I’m seeing hints that it may be up and running for the general audience as early as this week, almost certainly by the end of July.

Well. When I started writing Second Dawn, it was under the assumption that it would be a couple of months before I needed to work on the next section. Apparently that isn’t the case. When Vella does go live, I want to not only have those first six chapters in place, I want to have a few more chapters ready for weekly release.

All of which means that I’m changing the plan for July a bit. My main fiction-writing effort, in what’s left of this month, is going to involve building a backlog of chapters for Second Dawn. Ideally, I’ll have six more chapters ready to go within a couple of weeks.

How that interacts with my other plans for the month, I’m not sure yet. I’m probably not going to be working on Krava’s Legend quite as much as I’d planned on. I do still want to get some work done on Architect of Worlds so I can at least send out a free update of that material for my patrons. I’ll probably also produce a free update of the Scorpius Reach setting bible along the way. We’ll see how the next few days go.

Planning for July 2021

Planning for July 2021

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Well, I said I was going to spend the month of June focusing on writing new fiction. Apparently I wasn’t kidding. I produced about 22,500 words of new early-draft fiction in June, for an average of about 750 words per day all month. Pretty good work rate for me.

The new material included the first six chapters of Second Dawn, which is mostly likely going to be the first serialized novel in a series, all published on the Kindle Vella platform. Second Dawn is placed in my new Scorpius Reach space-opera setting, and I’m quite happy with how it’s turning out so far.

I also wrote “Derga’s Tale,” a roughly 10,000-word novelette set in the Iron Age setting of Krava’s Legend. “Derga’s Tale” is the story of how Krava’s parents met. It’s the first short piece in what’s eventually going to be a collection of 5-6 stories, all prequels to The Curse of Steel. Once I’ve written all of those stories, I plan to edit them into a book-length collection, which I’ll then use to practice the new publication and marketing methods I’ve been researching. In particular, the collection will serve as a “reader magnet” that I can use for promotion of the series.

Finally, I also released a minor-version update to the Scorpius Reach setting bible, and published one book review. Not a bad month in all, even if the month didn’t quite go as I’d planned it. Planning is essential, even if you don’t always stick to the plan.

Incidentally, June was also surprisingly successful on the social-media front. I appear to have lost a patron at the beginning of the month, but since then I’ve seen three or four new patrons come in. Welcome to all the newcomers! Surprising number of new Facebook contacts as well, given that I’m not taking any specific action to promote this site. I’m not going to question good fortune.

Now that I’ve gotten some fiction written, I think this month will be spent focusing on pushing Architect of Worlds a few steps forward. Here’s the priority list for July 2021.

  • Top Priority (“this is how I’ll judge whether the month has been successful”):
    • Architect of Worlds: Return to improvement and polishing of the Introduction and Design Sequence document, leading to a new minor-version release.
    • Architect of Worlds: Start work on a section describing the structure of the galaxy and of interstellar space, and providing guidelines on how to make maps for interstellar settings.
    • Krava’s Legend: Write a few more chapters of The Sunlit Lands.
    • Scorpius Reach: Finish final editing of the first six chapters of Second Dawn, and post the novel to Kindle Vella so it’s available to readers when the platform goes live.
  • Second Priority (“work on this as time permits”):
    • Architect of Worlds: Start work on a section of special cases and additional worldbuilding material that doesn’t fit into the design sequence.
    • Krava’s Legend: Write the second short story for the “reader magnet” collection.
    • Krava’s Legend: More research toward improvements to my release-and-marketing workflow.
    • Scorpius Reach: Start work on a third edition of the Game of Empire rules for Traveller.
  • Back Burner (“work on this only if everything else gets blocked”):
    • Human Destiny: Write a new short story for eventual collection and publication.
    • Human Destiny: Write a few thousand more words of the Cortex Prime sourcebook and setting bible.

For my patrons, this month’s free releases will probably include a new minor-version release of the Architect of Worlds design sequence. This month’s charged release, if there is one, will probably be a block of new material for Architect of Worlds, and possibly another short story from Krava’s Legend or a few new chapters of The Sunlit Lands.

As always, I’ll want to complete one or two book reviews for self-published or indie fiction this month. I’m in the middle of a very good candidate right now, so two reviews this month seems possible.

Watch this space for status reports, and if any of the above interests you, please consider signing up as a patron using the link in the sidebar.

Status Report (20 June 2021)

Status Report (20 June 2021)

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A quick note for my patrons and other readers, at the two-thirds point for this month. Things are going reasonably well, and I’m making good progress on this month’s projects.

As I mentioned at the beginning of June, this was likely to be a month for writing fiction rather than working on non-fiction or world-building projects. At this point that certainly seems to have been the case.

Later today, I believe I’ll reach my objective for getting started on the first “Scorpius Reach” novel – six complete chapters, setting up the main story with some action, a bunch of character introductions, and some world-building.

Rather than spend the rest of June working on The Sunlit Lands, I think I’m going to write the first of several short stories set in the same Iron Age fantasy world. The idea is to write incidents pulled from the back story of my main characters. When I’ve got five or six of those, I’ll pull them together into a “reader magnet” collection that I can use to help promote the series. I’ll also make use of that collection to practice some of the improvements I’m making to my publication process. The idea is that it should be easier for me to share the collection, and future work, more widely.

The first story, I think, will be “Derga’s Tale” – the story of how Krava’s parents met and became lovers. Krava’s father-to-be, Derga, is an ordinary mortal man in love with Tivetha, the daughter of a god. What’s more, Tivetha has sworn a Red-Sonja-like oath, never to become involved with any man who can’t defeat her in a fair contest. Derga knows that several men have tried to meet her condition and failed, and he also knows that he has no chance to defeat her in any fair contest of strength or armed skill. So how does he proceed?

So by the end of June I should have about 16,000 words of new fiction. My patrons will get that as their charged release for June. I’ll also release a free minor-version update to the Scorpius Reach setting bible, and I may release a free minor-version update to the Architect of Worlds Introduction and Design Sequence document. That last item is looking kind of iffy right now – it may be next month before I have enough new work done to justify that release, but we’ll see.

Planning for June 2021

Planning for June 2021

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The last few months have been very productive, and I think this pattern of posting a status report and priority list at the beginning of each month is helping. Not to mention that it’s likely to be useful information for my patrons, and anyone else who’s following my work.

May was a good month overall. I released an update to my Scorpius Reach setting bible, adding a fair amount of material to the initial draft. This gathered some good attention from the Traveller communities on Facebook and Reddit. I also released a minor-version update to the Architect of Worlds Introduction and Design Sequence document. Finally, I wrote and released the first draft of a completely new section of Architect of Worlds: the Working with Astronomical Data document.

I did not get any new fiction written, and I think I need to refocus on that in the coming month. Earlier this year I had a potential project to write and sell several stories, and for a while I was holding time and energy aside for that. Unfortunately, that seems to have fallen through, so I’m turning back to writing in my own original universes again for a while.

One very useful milestone happened this month. I’ve been developing my Scorpius Reach setting, not just as a test-bed for the Game of Empire rules, but also possibly as the backdrop for some serialized fiction to bring to market. Although the stories themselves are going to be entirely original to me, and I don’t plan to market them as anything but original fiction, there was still a potential IP problem there. I’ve been using the Traveller game rules to help develop the setting, and the “bible” for it is framed in terms of a Traveller universe. So I decided to approach Marc Miller, the owner and primary publisher of Traveller, and discuss how best to avoid stepping on his intellectual property. Once I described what I was planning to do, he immediately and graciously granted me permission to proceed without any concerns. So that’s a big potential obstacle out of the way. I plan to start writing the first Scorpius Reach serialized novel in June.

So here’s the priority list for June 2021. I’m reworking the format a little, to organize by a hierarchy of urgency first, rather than by overall project:

  • Top Priority, or the “this is how I’ll judge whether the month has been successful” level:
    • Architect of Worlds: Return to improvement and polishing of the Introduction and Design Sequence document, leading to a new minor-version release.
    • Krava’s Legend: Write a few more chapters of The Sunlit Lands.
    • Scorpius Reach: Write the first few chapters of a serialized novel to be published via Kindle Vella.
  • Second Priority, or the “work on this as time permits” level:
    • Architect of Worlds: Start work on a section describing the structure of the galaxy and of interstellar space, and providing guidelines on how to make maps for interstellar settings.
    • Architect of Worlds: Start work on a section of special cases and additional worldbuilding material that doesn’t fit into the design sequence.
    • Krava’s Legend: Write the first short story for the “reader magnet” collection.
    • Krava’s Legend: More research toward improvements to my release-and-marketing workflow.
    • Scorpius Reach: Start work on a third edition of the Game of Empire rules.
  • Back Burner, or the “work on this only if everything else gets blocked” level:
    • Human Destiny: Write a new short story for eventual collection and publication.
    • Human Destiny: Write a few thousand more words of the Cortex Prime sourcebook and setting bible.

For my patrons, this month’s free releases will almost certainly include a new minor-version release of the Architect of Worlds design sequence. This month’s charged release, if there is one, will probably be a block of new fiction from the Krava’s Legend and Scorpius Reach settings. I do hope to produce some new Architect of Worlds material this month, but there probably won’t be enough of that to bundle up as a release for my patrons, so maybe look for that in July.

As always, I’ll want to complete one or two book reviews for self-published fiction this month.

Watch this space for status reports, and if any of the above interests you, please consider signing up as a patron using the link in the sidebar.

A small administrative note: I spent some time this morning cleaning up the post tags on this site, merging a few tags and making sure they had consistent format. In particular, I merged all the tags that made any reference to my high-fantasy novel series into the krava’s legend tag. I also merged the tags that referred to the various Bios-series games by Phil Eklund into the bios tag. Might make the site a little easier to navigate.