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Planning for February 2026

Planning for February 2026

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January was a fairly productive month, actually. I didn’t move out ahead on my university courses as much as I’d hoped, but I haven’t fallen behind, and so far my grades have continued to be exceptional. I’m quite pleased with my progress in the mathematics course, in which I seem to be succeeding with subjects that I failed to master forty years ago as an engineering student.

I made good progress on my creative projects too. I seem to be hitting my post-retirement stride – I’m having no trouble filling my days, and I seem to be exercising the discipline necessary to keep making incremental progress every day.

Here’s the tentative plan for February 2026.

University Studies

If I can do some advance work, that would be helpful at this point. If I hit the following marks, I should be about two weeks ahead at the end of the month.

Objectives for February include:

  • For my astronomy course: Read Topic 4, turn in the fourth graded assignment, and then read Topic 5.
  • For my mathematics course: Read Units 8, 9, and 10.

Therapy Writing (Fan Fiction)

I’m continuing to work on “What’s Past is Prologue,” and I suspect that’s going to be an active project well into March if not longer. Definitely going to end up at short-to-medium novel length before it’s done. It’s getting good engagement from my usual readers, though, so that’s nice to see.

The objective for February is to complete “What’s Past is Prologue” at least through Chapter 16.

Architect of Worlds & Conductor of Cultures

I was able to complete version 0.4 of the Cultural Evolution Game, and playtesters and my collaborators have had a chance to look at it. Not a lot of feedback yet, so I don’t have a sense as to whether this version is a step forward or if I’m going to need to do a redesign. I do plan to produce a version 0.5, possibly in February, although that’s likely to be more fleshing-out and adding supporting material rather than changes to the mechanics.

I also got started on a formal errata list for Architect of Worlds, although I still need to track down a couple of items before I can release the thing. Lesson learned: keep a formal list of errata while you’re producing them, dummy, that way you don’t have to rack your brains months later to figure out what you were thinking at the time.

The objectives for January are:

  • Work on a minor rewrite and expansion (version 0.5) of the Cultural Evolution Game
  • Contribute to the initial design for other portions of Conductor of Cultures
  • Begin researching and drafting a new edition of “Abbreviated Architect of Worlds for Traveller“
  • Continue working on a formal errata list for Architect of Worlds, so readers can see what’s been fixed in each minor-version release so far
  • Continue to collect research for a potential second edition of the book, and make occasional world-building posts to this site based on that new research

Personal Universes

Still continuing to collect notes and do game design for a version 0.60 of the “Human Destiny Sourcebook,” based upon FATE. Incremental progress means I’m a still long distance from being able to share any of this.

I did get some work done late in the month on something I call the “Tree of Worlds” setting. Think of this as a low-fantasy framework for alternate histories, with a generous helping of esoteric conspiracies in the mix. I’m actually writing this document as a GURPS supplement, of all things, and that’s probably how I’ll end up releasing it when it’s done.

Both of these will be posted to my Kofi, free for subscribers, when they’re presentable.

Planning for January 2026

Planning for January 2026

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December was a very quiet month. Most days I simply made incremental progress on game design, writing, and my university work, without hitting any big milestones. Truth be told, I was kind of taking it easy. So there’s not much specific to report about the month – I kept up with my obligations and a lot of second-tier projects just marked time.

So, without further ado, here’s the tentative plan for January 2026.

University Studies

At the moment I’m only a few days ahead on both of my courses, so I hope to do a little catching up. If I hit the following marks, I should be about two weeks ahead at the end of the month.

Objectives for January include:

  • For my astronomy course: Finish the third graded assignment, complete the first half of the course exam, and read Topic 4.
  • For my mathematics course: Finish the second graded assignment and read Units 7 and 8.

Therapy Writing (Fan Fiction)

I was able to finish “The Spooky Season” in December, and start on what looks like a short-novel-length piece: “What’s Past is Prologue.” This is going to be a big work, rounding out the “season” of Star Trek: Lower Decks stories I’ve been writing since early last year. A lot of established Star Trek characters are going to appear, there’s going to be lots of intrigue, mystery, and starship battles, and Beckett Mariner is going to have her first no-kidding command with extremely high stakes.

The objective for January is to complete “What’s Past is Prologue” at least through Chapter 10.

Architect of Worlds & Conductor of Cultures

I was able to complete version 0.3 of the Cultural Evolution Game, and playtesters have had a crack at it. The assessment is that the mechanics work, but I’ve heard a couple of insights that are leading me to rethink the design almost from scratch. So version 0.4 is in the pipeline, and if my Muse’s rumblings are any indication, it’s going to look quite different.

The following list includes two top-priority items, the rest being “as time permits” (which may mean no progress).

The objectives for January are:

  • Complete a major rewrite (version 0.4) of the Cultural Evolution Game
  • Contribute to the initial design for other portions of Conductor of Cultures
  • Begin researching and drafting a new edition of “Abbreviated Architect of Worlds for Traveller“
  • Reconstruct a formal errata list for Architect of Worlds, so readers can see what’s been fixed in each minor-version release so far
  • Continue to collect research for a potential second edition of the book, and make occasional world-building posts to this site based on that new research

Personal Universes

Still continuing to collect notes and do game design for a version 0.60 of the “Human Destiny Sourcebook,” based upon FATE. Incremental progress means I’m a long distance from being able to share any of this, although I may try to produce a short character-design document in January.

I’m also playing with revising a very old setting – I originally came up with this one for my personal RPG campaign over thirty years ago – for which I may write up a top-level overview. More about that once I’ve fleshed it out a bit.

If either of those (short) documents gets finished this month, I’ll post them to my Kofi, free for subscribers.

2025 in Review

2025 in Review

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This year was . . . an experience. Almost nothing went as I was expecting a year ago.

Personal Life

I began the year still employed by the United States federal government as a researcher in cybersecurity, an instructional designer, and an instructor. I knew the incoming administration was likely to disrupt my professional life, but I was in a wait-and-see mode.

Then the new administration came in and immediately demonstrated that it planned to be far worse than in the President’s first term. Federal departments, including mine, were being handed over to right-wing influencers who had absolutely no competence in the fields they were being asked to lead. Federal policy was immediately being oriented toward far-right-wing ideology, without regard to any facts on the ground. Critical elements of our national security were being tossed on the trash-heap. Personally, I was already being directed to do things that I considered ill-advised at best, abominably stupid at worst. I fully expected to be fired at some point for non-compliance with idiotic or outright illegal orders.

As it happened, I reached a critical age milestone about a week after Inauguration Day. My wife and I reviewed our finances, and concluded that although it wasn’t ideal for me to retire at that point, it was quite a bit more feasible than I had realized. So I started the paperwork to retire from federal service, and that evolution was completed in mid-May. I’ve been retired on my own pension, my wife’s Social Security, and 40+ years of savings ever since.

(The three months between “deciding to retire” and “walking out the door” were among the most productive in my federal career, ironically. I wrote two full-length graduate-level courses in cyber leadership in that time – not from scratch, as I had helped build earlier versions of the same curriculum in 2023-2024, but there was a lot of new material. God alone knows whether either of those courses will ever actually be delivered to students. I’m honestly not sure whether the department I worked in even exists today as more than a skeleton crew.)

Retirement has been fairly pleasant, actually. I’m eating more healthfully, I’m getting more exercise, and while my stress level is not zero it’s certainly much lower than it was before. I’m having no trouble at all filling my days, including spending a lot more time with my wife and my adult children. So that’s all to the good.

University Studies

I’m currently in my third year of working toward a second bachelor’s degree in Natural Sciences (Astronomy) and a master’s degree in Space Science and Technology, all from the Open University in the UK. That program is likely to take until the spring of 2031 to complete, unless I pick up the pace at some point. So far I’ve passed all my courses with distinction, so I’m on track for my original plan. Don’t know if I’ll ever do anything with this education professionally – I’ll be pushing 66 by the time I complete my graduate work – but if I’m still capable, I might find myself an undergraduate teaching position somewhere. At the very least, it will be nice to actually have the formal training to back up all the astronomy I’ve picked up and used over the years.

To be honest, I’ve been glad I retired this spring, because my coursework in 2025 has been a bit more challenging. Had I stayed employed, something would have had to go on the back burner, and that might have been the bulk of my creative work.

Speaking of . . .

Creative Work

At the beginning of 2025, my tentative plan for creative projects involved re-releasing some of the original fiction I wrote in previous years, writing some new original fiction, and working hard on RPG material for the Human Destiny and Fourth Millennium settings.

Basically none of that happened.

In part that was due to a new book-length project: Composer of Cultures, which is likely to become the third book in the Ad Astra Games “insanely detailed worldbuilding series.” Architect of Worlds took me the better part of eight years to write, and we’re trying to produce the new book in less than a year, so it’s soaking up a lot of my development and writing time. Fortunately this time it’s a team of three writing the book: Ken Burnside, a paleontologist named Jess Miller-Camp, and me.

It’s been interesting work so far. I’m in the process of designing a “Cultural Evolution Game” which will likely be the last 40% or so of the book (Dr. Miller-Camp is writing a “Biological Evolution Game” which will come first). We’re hoping to have the book ready for the summer convention season, but we’ll see how things go.

Meanwhile, I may not have been writing much original fiction in 2025, but I did write just under 200,000 words of new fan-fiction.

Okay, when I wrapped up my first fan-fiction phase in 2017 or so, I swore I would focus on original work from that point on. My Muse isn’t always that easy to keep disciplined, though. Over the past few years I fell in love with the new Star Trek series Lower Decks, and when that had its finale in early 2025 I found myself wanting more. So I started writing not just fan-fiction, but Star Trek fan-fiction.

(Talk about getting back to one’s literary roots! I was reading – and writing, although none of that work ever saw the light of day – Star Trek fan-fiction back in the 1970s, and that era has had a significant impact on my literary life ever since.)

So far I’ve written ten complete stories, most of them novelette or novella length, and I’m currently at work on the eleventh. It’s been fun, I’m not nearly out of ideas yet, and I’ve acquired a fairly consistent audience. So this is probably going to be part of my creative output for a while.

Looking Forward

It’s difficult to make plans for the coming year, because let’s face it – my country and much of the rest of the world are currently in the hands of malicious incompetents, and I don’t think we’ve even begun to see how much destruction they can inflict on us. Just surviving with our integrity and sanity intact is likely to be a victory.

Still. Day by day I’ll have my household to keep together, my university coursework to stay ahead of, and many more creative projects on the stove than I’ll have time to bring to fruition. Most likely creative goals for 2026 will involve completing Composer of Cultures, and writing more Star Trek fiction. Pushing my own original creative projects forward will be on the agenda too. I’m improvising from one day to the next, but I haven’t fallen off the piano bench yet . . .

So for all of you who keep track of my work, many thanks and here’s hoping you’ll find some value in my output in the coming year.

Planning for December 2025

Planning for December 2025

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November was another mixed bag, due to a bout of illness and the need to finish preparing for Philcon 2025. I’ve been doing okay on staying ahead of schedule with my university courses – and getting top-notch grades, too, which is a morale booster! A couple of important creative projects have been pushed to the back burner for a while, though. Now that Philcon is over, I’m hoping to get back to making good progress on those.

Philcon 2025 After-Action Report

Philcon was a blast, by the way. A few minor stumbles, but on the whole I think it was a good con.

One of the two RPG events I drew up didn’t happen, for lack of players. I think I’ve concluded that Friday evening is just not the right time to try running a tabletop game at Philcon. If I do any games at future cons I think I’m just going to draw up one for Saturday evening.

My seminar ran into some trouble when I was unable to project slides, but I had a backup plan for that. I was able to direct the audience to the slide deck on this site, and most of them were following along on their phones. Lots of good questions afterward, and I sold and signed every single copy of Architect of Worlds that I had with me. Could have sold more copies, most likely.

(A surprising number of people at Philcon knew who I was as soon as Architect was mentioned. I’m beginning to think that book has gotten more penetration in the niche “SF creatives” market than I expected.)

The panels I was on all went off well. I particularly enjoyed the one I did on Friday evening with Jim Cambias, Andy Campbell, and Michael Ryan (on science-fiction gaming) and the one on Sunday afternoon with Charles Gannon and Dennis Myers (on exoplanetary science). Both of those moderated by Jennifer Povey, who’s pretty skilled. Being a panel moderator is tough work, and I always appreciate when it’s well done.

I also picked up information for some of the spring and summer conventions located closer to home – I may see if I can get onto the programming dockets for one or more of those.

Anyway, what follows is the tentative plan for December.

University Studies

I’ve lost a little ground, but I’m still ahead of schedule on both courses, and my grades so far have been sterling. It helps that I seem to have done a lot better job wrapping my brain around differential equations than I did the last time I studied them, forty years ago.

Objectives for December include finishing Topic 3 and the third graded assignment for my astronomy course, and finishing units 4-6 and the next two graded assignments for my mathematics course.

Therapy Writing (Fan Fiction)

I had hoped to finish “The Spooky Season” in November, but here it is December and I’m still writing the Halloween-themed story. Finishing that is going to be the objective for the coming month. Good news is that I still seem to be bringing in readers. Lower Decks may have been over for a year, but it seems that people still want more stories about the Warp Drive Five.

The objective for December is to complete “The Spooky Season” and start on the next story.

Architect of Worlds & Conductor of Cultures

The next minor version of the Cultural Evolution Game is mechanics-complete, and I’ve made good progress on some of the explanatory and supporting text. I’m fairly certain I’ll have a new partial draft ready for collaborators and playtesters to look at, hopefully by mid-December.

The objectives for December are:

  • Complete a minor rewrite (version 0.3) of the Cultural Evolution Game, including a substantial portion of the supplementary material, and submit that to playtesters for comment
  • Contribute to the initial design for other portions of Conductor of Cultures
  • Begin researching and drafting a new edition of “Abbreviated Architect of Worlds for Traveller“
  • Reconstruct a formal errata list for Architect of Worlds, so readers can see what’s been fixed in each minor-version release so far
  • Continue to collect research for a potential second edition of the book, and make occasional world-building posts to this site based on that new research

The Human Destiny Universe

I’ve been able to collect some notes and do some back-of-brain game design for a version 0.60 of the “Human Destiny Sourcebook.” In particular, I think I’ve settled on the underlying game system for it, and I’m kind of kicking myself for not considering this one before. Version 0.60 is going to be designed around the FATE system published by Evil Hat Productions.

The objective for December is to continue work on a version 0.60 of the “Human Destiny Sourcebook,” with the understanding that it may be some time before I have a complete draft to share.

Upcoming Conventions

As mentioned, I’m interested in some other SF conventions that take place a little closer to home. The ones I’m specifically looking at include Balticon, Capclave, and RavenCon.

The objective for December is to apply for programming seats at Balticon 2026, Capclave 2026, and RavenCon 2026, and begin planning for possible appearances at these three conventions.

Planning for November 2025

Planning for November 2025

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October was a mixed bag, unfortunately. My top priority has been to stay ahead of schedule with my university courses, and I’ve been doing okay on that. My creative work has been a bit spotty, though. Hoping to improve on that in the next few months, especially after Philcon 2025 is over.

Here’s the tentative plan for November.

University Studies

I did good work on this block of objectives – I’m well ahead of schedule on both courses. Staying that way is my top priority for the foreseeable future. (For the record, differential equations are annoyingly difficult . . . although I do seem to be making better progress with them now than I did forty years ago.)

Objectives for November include finishing Topics 2 and 3 and the second graded assignment for my astronomy course, and finishing units 3-5 and the first two graded assignments for my mathematics course.

Therapy Writing (Fan Fiction)

Writing fan-fiction hit a snag in October. I did write a complete short story, but I wasn’t comfortable with it and it got almost no engagement from readers, so I decided to delete it and move on. Chalk that down as just being off on the wrong track.

Fortunately, late in the month I got an idea for a seasonally appropriate new story, and I managed to post the first chapter of “The Spooky Season” on Halloween. So finishing that is going to be the objective for the coming month.

The objective for November is to complete “The Spooky Season” and maybe start on the next story, although that next story is likely to be a big project, so it’ll likely have to wait until after Philcon.

Architect of Worlds & Conductor of Cultures

October saw a major re-design of the “Cultural Evolution Game,” and that’s been getting a lot of favorable response from my collaborators and playtesters. So I think I’m very close to an actual release candidate for that. At the very least, I ought to be able to start writing the supporting material – all the tools a user will need to interpret the outputs of the Cultural Evolution Game in terms of an alien culture’s history. Tentatively I want to have a complete first draft for my section of the book by the end of the year.

The objectives for November are:

  • Complete a minor rewrite (version 0.3) of the Cultural Evolution Game and submit that to playtesters for comment
  • Begin writing supplementary material for the revised Cultural Evolution Game
  • Contribute to the initial design for other portions of Conductor of Cultures
  • Begin researching and drafting a new edition of “Abbreviated Architect of Worlds for Traveller“
  • Reconstruct a formal errata list for Architect of Worlds, so readers can see what’s been fixed in each minor-version release so far
  • Continue to collect research for a potential second edition of the book, and make occasional world-building posts to this site based on that new research

The Human Destiny Universe

I’ve decided to give this project a zero-baseline review and rewrite, rather than continue trying to make incremental progress with it.

Back in 2024 I produced a version 0.53 of the “Human Destiny Sourcebook,” which got shared with my then-patrons and submitted to a Chaosium design contest. Recently I’ve been reviewing that, and I suspect I’ll do better to rewrite it from the ground up. So that’s the primary objective at the moment.

The objective for November is to start work on a version 0.60 of the “Human Destiny Sourcebook,” with the understanding that it may be December or even early in 2026 before I have a complete draft to share.

Upcoming Conventions

My schedule for Philcon 2025 has been finalized: one seminar, four panel appearances, and two RPG sessions. I’ll be keeping busy that weekend!

Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to finish putting together my Dune: Adventures in the Imperium scenario in October – made progress with it, designed the pre-generated characters for it, but it’s nowhere near finished yet.

The objectives for November are:

  • Finish composing a Dune: Adventures in the Imperium scenario for five players, to be run at Philcon 2025
  • Final preparations and attendance at Philcon!

After Philcon is over and we’ve gotten through the Thanksgiving holiday, I may be able to do some re-allocation of effort in December and later. Mostly I’ll have to see how things are going with my university courses.

Planning for October 2025

Planning for October 2025

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September was a reasonably successful month. I hit all my top-priority milestones, even if not many of the lower-priority items made much progress. In particular, I really want to get back to making progress on the Human Destiny setting, but somehow other items keep rising above that on the priority list. Unfortunately, I suspect that’s only going to continue.

A note for my blog readers: you’ll notice that I don’t update this blog very often, two or three times a month at best. Most of my day-to-day blogging is happening on Bluesky instead, and that’s likely to continue as long as that platform remains viable. If you’re also on Bluesky and haven’t followed me yet, find me at https://bsky.app/profile/jfzeigler.bsky.social.

Here’s the tentative plan for October.

University Studies

The new academic year at the Open University is officially open, and I’ve gotten started on both of my courses. At the moment, I’m actually ahead of the pace on both, although it’s only been a week . . .

Objectives for October include finishing Topic 1 and the first graded assignment for my astronomy course, and finishing units 1-3 and the bulk of the first graded assignment for my mathematics course.

Therapy Writing (Fan Fiction)

I finished “The Stern and Direful God of War” with a day or so left in September. That turned out to be the longest of my Star Trek stories so far.

I haven’t started the next story yet, although I think I’m starting to converge on what that’s going to be about. I’m thinking of writing the occasional “back stories of the main characters” series, set in the same version of Trek continuity but not in the same timeline.

The objective for October is to complete a new Lower Decks story. This is likely to be a lower-priority item, though.

Architect of Worlds & Conductor of Cultures

In September, I mulled over the “Cultural Evolution Game” for Conductor of Cultures, taking into account the first round of playtester feedback. I was also wrestling with the problem that the game, as designed, was too specific to human-like cultures – that is, sophont species that fit the “terrestrial omnivorous mammal” default.

Late in September a different structure for the game came to me, and I’ve started a major overhaul and redesign to fit. That’s likely to be the big project for at least the first half of October.

The objectives for October are:

  • Complete the overhaul of the Cultural Evolution Game and submit that to playtesters for trial run
  • Begin writing supplementary material for the revised Cultural Evolution Game
  • Contribute to the initial design for other portions of Conductor of Cultures
  • Begin researching and drafting a new edition of “Abbreviated Architect of Worlds for Traveller“
  • Reconstruct a formal errata list for Architect of Worlds, so readers can see what’s been fixed in each minor-version release so far
  • Continue to collect research for a potential second edition of the book, and make occasional world-building posts to this site based on that new research

The Human Destiny Universe

I (again) got essentially no work done on the Human Destiny setting this month, so the outstanding objectives for this project are unchanged. if at all possible, I do intend to make another attempt at the first two items on this list this month.

The objectives for October are:

  • Build a revised map for the “Human Protectorate” region and release that to Ko-fi
  • Produce a one- or two-page document that describes typical starship designs and mission profiles, and release that to Ko-fi
  • Re-work the spreadsheets I have modeling the exploration and colonization of near-Sol space, now based on FTL assumptions
  • Revise existing “Atlas of the Human Protectorate” documents to reflect the reappearance of FTL in the setting, and release the new versions to Ko-fi
  • Resume producing new documents in the “Atlas of the Human Protectorate” series (most likely starting with the Alpha Centauri writeup) and release that for patrons to Ko-fi

Upcoming Conventions

I made good progress on work for Philcon 2025 in September. In particular, I’m signed up to deliver a seminar, two RPG sessions, and possibly several other panel appearances. I finished drafting the seminar in September, and put together a complete Star Trek Adventures scenario for the gaming track. So the only remaining objective for October is to compose a Dune: Adventures in the Imperium scenario for five players, to be run at Philcon 2025.

Re-publishing Earlier Fiction

I think I came to a realization regarding the notion of republishing my original fiction . . . which is that I’m probably not going to do it.

Well, that’s a bit extreme. As time permits – which probably won’t be until after Philcon – I plan to take down the two or three items I’ve published via Amazon KDP and similar avenues. I’ll probably subject those to an editing pass, and republish them either through my own resources (this blog and Ko-fi), or via sites like Royal Road or Wattpad. The goal is to best find an audience, of whatever size, for each piece.

I’ve come to the conclusion that in the current environment, I have no hope for ever publishing any of my original work through the traditional channels. Not least because those channels are collapsing in real-time while we watch, caught between the so-called “artificial intelligence” bubble and the descent of the United States into authoritarian fascism. Which doesn’t mean I plan to stop writing original work, but it does mean I’m not going to go into that with any expectation of ever making a penny. Any given original work I come up with is going to be put on a case-by-case basis where I think it’s most likely to find any audience at all.

Planning for September 2025

Planning for September 2025

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I was pretty busy throughout August, reaching several milestones, so I’m reasonably happy with how things went. In general, I seem to be adapting pretty well to retirement – I’m having no trouble at all in filling my days, and if anything I still don’t feel as if I have enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do. So, as we move into the fall, here’s my tentative plan for September.

University Studies

I’ll be taking two new courses from the Open University in the coming year. One is a bog-standard observational astronomy course, which I don’t expect to present serious challenges. The other, however, is an advanced mathematics course which revisits a lot of the topics that defeated me forty years ago: differential equations, calculus of scalar and vector fields, Fourier series, that kind of thing.

Okay, I have a lot more experience as a mathematician now, and hopefully I’m a lot better disciplined than I was in my twenties, but I suspect this material is going to be a challenge. Fortunately I already have the textbooks for it. So, although the course doesn’t formally start until next month, I’m going to start working on the first few units now.

The objective for September is to spend at least an hour a day studying and practicing for the first two or three units of my mathematics course.

Therapy Writing (Fan Fiction)

I finished a Star Trek: Lower Decks novelette titled “Mariner’s Seven” in August. That was a fairly straightforward heist story, with some connections to the Star Trek: Picard series.

The next story is titled “The Stern and Direful God of War.” I suspect this may be a bit longer piece than usual. It’s going to involve exploration, some weirder-than-usual aliens, and a really deep cut into Star Trek canon. The objective for September is to complete that story.

Architect of Worlds & Conductor of Cultures

I spent a lot of time in August coming up with an initial design for a “Cultural Evolution Game,” which is likely to be a big chunk of the planned Conductor of Cultures book (notice the new working title – we decided that would be a better fit for the theme established by Architect of Worlds).

At the moment, that mini-game is being poked at by my collaborators and a few playtesters, and I’m mostly involved in collating their feedback and starting to consider a final draft of the overall design. I may or may not actually get that design work done this month. On the other hand, there’s likely to be a lot of supplementary material for the mini-game, and I can start writing that even while the game design itself is still coalescing.

The objectives for September are:

  • Work on the design for the Cultural Evolution Game
  • Begin writing supplementary material for the Cultural Evolution Game
  • Contribute to the initial design for other portions of Conductor of Cultures
  • Begin researching and drafting a new edition of “Abbreviated Architect of Worlds for Traveller“
  • Reconstruct a formal errata list for Architect of Worlds, so readers can see what’s been fixed in each minor-version release so far
  • Continue to collect research for a potential second edition of the book, and make occasional world-building posts to this site based on that new research

The Human Destiny Universe

I got essentially no work done on the Human Destiny setting this month, so the outstanding objectives for this project are unchanged. if at all possible, I do intend to make an attempt at the first two items on this list this month.

The objectives for September are:

  • Build a revised map for the “Human Protectorate” region and release that to Ko-fi
  • Produce a one- or two-page document that describes typical starship designs and mission profiles, and release that to Ko-fi
  • Re-work the spreadsheets I have modeling the exploration and colonization of near-Sol space, now based on FTL assumptions
  • Revise existing “Atlas of the Human Protectorate” documents to reflect the reappearance of FTL in the setting, and release the new versions to Ko-fi
  • Resume producing new documents in the “Atlas of the Human Protectorate” series (most likely starting with the Alpha Centauri writeup) and release that for patrons to Ko-fi

Upcoming Conventions

It’s looking as if Travellercon 2025 isn’t going to happen – I haven’t been able to make any contact with their organizing committee, and with other priorities piling up I’m afraid that one is dropping off the list.

So my main focus is going to be on Philcon 2025 in November. I’m already signed up to deliver a seminar there, as well as two RPG sessions, and sit on any other panels that seem appropriate. I’ve made good progress on the seminar and one of the games, but there’s lots of prep work still to be done.

The objectives for September are:

  • Finish preparing a world-building seminar, “Foundations of Worldbuilding: Getting the Astronomy Right” for Philcon 2025
  • Finish preparing a Star Trek Adventures game for five players, to be run at Philcon 2025
  • Work on a Dune: Adventures in the Imperium game for five players, to be run at Philcon 2025
  • Sign up for up to 3-4 panel discussions at Philcon 2025

Re-publishing Earlier Fiction

I continued to make very little progress on this item in July, and it’s probably going to stay close to the bottom of the priority list. The objective for September will be to continue researching my options for re-publishing, and start developing a workflow for it.

Planning for August 2025

Planning for August 2025

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July 2025 didn’t go quite as planned, largely because of the new Symphony of Cultures project taking up a lot of space. I’m not dissatisfied with how the month went, by any means. These planning messages, and the project white-board I maintain in my office, are intended to make sure I stay creatively busy and don’t get side-tracked into unproductive channels. If a worthwhile new project crops up and pushes other items aside, I have no objections.

So here’s my current status, with the tentative plan for the month of August.

University Studies

I’ve learned that I passed both my physics course and my planetary-science course “with distinction,” which rounds out the 2024-2025 academic year nicely. I’ve successfully enrolled in two new courses for the coming academic year: a straightforward astronomy course, and a course on advanced mathematical methods. Tuition is paid, I’m good to go, but the courses don’t formally start until early October. No new objectives for this item.

Therapy Writing (Fan Fiction)

I wrote a Star Trek: Lower Decks novelette titled “A Temporary Madness” in July. Be warned, if you’re considering reading that one – it’s mildly smutty. Fan-fiction leans that way sometimes.

I’m currently working on a new story, titled “Mariner’s Seven.” This is a pretty straightforward heist tale, in which Beckett Mariner and her friends are breaking into a high-tech casino on behalf of Starfleet Intelligence. Naturally, things are not going entirely according to plan. The objective for August is to complete that story.

Architect of Worlds & Symphony of Cultures

Ken Burnside and I (finally) reached an agreement on a “policy document” describing what we consider appropriate for projects to automate the Architect of Worlds design sequences. That document is located here.

The biggest development in this category was the new Symphony of Cultures project, in which I’ll be collaborating with two others to design and build a sourcebook for producing alien species and cultures for interstellar fiction. That’s going to be a big project, likely to take up a lot of my time over the next year, so it’s going to be prominent in my planning messages for months to come.

The objectives for August are:

  • Design a complete mini-game for the development of an alien society’s history based on its planetary environment and psychological traits, and begin writing that section of the Symphony of Cultures rough draft
  • Contribute to the initial design for other portions of Symphony of Cultures
  • Begin researching and drafting a new edition of “Abbreviated Architect of Worlds for Traveller“
  • Reconstruct a formal errata list for Architect of Worlds, so readers can see what’s been fixed in each minor-version release so far
  • Continue to collect research for a potential second edition of the book, and make occasional world-building posts to this site based on that new research

The Human Destiny Universe

I had a burst of cartographic activity early in July, and was able to produce and publish two maps for the Human Destiny setting. The third map – a small scale map of the so-called “Human Protectorate” – is still on the drawing board.

The objectives for July are:

  • Build a revised map for the “Human Protectorate” region and release that to Ko-fi
  • Produce a one- or two-page document that describes typical starship designs and mission profiles, and release that to Ko-fi
  • Re-work the spreadsheets I have modeling the exploration and colonization of near-Sol space, now based on FTL assumptions
  • Revise existing “Atlas of the Human Protectorate” documents to reflect the reappearance of FTL in the setting, and release the new versions to Ko-fi
  • Resume producing new documents in the “Atlas of the Human Protectorate” series (most likely starting with the Alpha Centauri writeup) and release that for patrons to Ko-fi

Upcoming Conventions

Attendance at Travellercon this year is looking less likely, but there’s still time for me to get everything set up for that, so we’ll see.

Philcon is definitely a go, though – I’m already committed to being on the program for a seminar and some other panels, and I’ll be running a session or two in their gaming track. So that’s definitely on my schedule for a lot of prep work between now and November.

The objectives for August are:

  • Continue to attempt to register for convention programming for Travellercon 2025
  • Begin preparing a world-building seminar, tentatively titled “World-Building for Science Fiction: Getting the Astronomy Right,” for Philcon 2025
  • Begin preparing two tabletop game sessions to run at Philcon 2025
  • Sign up for up to 3-4 panel discussions at Philcon 2025

Re-publishing Earlier Fiction

I continued to make very little progress on this item in July, and it’s probably going to stay close to the bottom of the priority list. The objective for August will be to continue researching my options for re-publishing, and starting to develop a workflow for it.

Planning for July 2025

Planning for July 2025

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It’s not quite the end of June yet, but I find I’ve made decent progress on all my objectives for this month, and I’ve discovered a couple of dependencies in my creative work that mean I need to move a few tasks up in the priority order. So I think I’m going to lay out the plan for July a few days early and get started on that now.

As I began with last month, the planning message for July is going to be organized around a list of high-level projects, with a few paragraphs for each. Note that for any item that has multiple objectives listed, those will be more or less in priority order, and I’m not making any commitment to finish all of them in the coming month.

University Studies

I successfully completed my two courses for the 2024-2025 academic year at the beginning of June. Haven’t seen the results of my finals or my overall grades yet, but I’m reasonably confident I did well with both courses. I’ve selected two courses for the 2025-2026 year, but those don’t start until September, which leaves the rest of the summer free. No objectives for this item.

Therapy Writing (Fan Fiction)

I completed the Star Trek: Lower Decks novella “Panem et Circenses” a few days ago. Turned out pretty well, I thought – at least it’s been keeping my regular readers over on Archive of our Own happy and calling for more.

I haven’t come up with a title for the next story, which is going to involve character development, identity politics, and dealing with family issues, all of it happening on Vulcan. As I’ve observed, someday someone is going to write a story involving pon farr in which the characters involved resolve the situation without complications, and just end up happily married and ready for the next adventure. I’m not going to be writing that story!

The objective for July is to write the next story in my Lower Decks fan-fiction series.

Architect of Worlds

Today I had a lengthy conversation with Ken Burnside about a number of items having to do with Architect of Worlds. In particular, we had a long-overdue discussion about his vision for providing automation for Architect. We also talked about some possible follow-on products, most notably an expanded and improved version of the “Architect of Worlds for Traveller” document I put together a couple of years ago.

The objectives for July are:

  • Draft a one-page specification document for an automated utility for Architect of Worlds which can he hosted on the Ad Astra Games website, and get that approved by Ken Burnside
  • Begin researching and drafting a new edition of “Abbreviated Architect of Worlds for Traveller,” with the objective of being able to start final layout in August
  • Reconstruct a formal errata list, so readers can see what’s been fixed in each minor-version release so far
  • Continue to collect research for a potential second edition of the book, and make occasional world-building posts to this site based on that new research

The Human Destiny Universe

I was able to rework my basic “structure of interstellar civilizations” document for Human Destiny in June, and published that for my Ko-fi readers. The next step in reworking that setting is going to involve some cartography, and some general notes on ship design. One I’ve finished those steps, I think I’ll be going back to the star system writeups I’ve already done and revising those, then starting to produce new ones.

The objectives for July are:

  • Build revised maps for near-Sol space on two scales, one for just the “Human Protectorate” region, another for a substantial portion of the Orion Arm that places the 8-12 other civilizations that humans will interact with most frequently, and release those to Ko-fi
  • Produce a one- or two-page document that describes typical starship designs and mission profiles, and release that to Ko-fi
  • Re-work the spreadsheets I have modeling the exploration and colonization of near-Sol space, now based on FTL assumptions
  • Revise existing “Atlas of the Human Protectorate” documents to reflect the reappearance of FTL in the setting, and release the new versions to Ko-fi
  • Resume producing new documents in the “Atlas of the Human Protectorate” series (most likely starting with the Alpha Centauri writeup) and release that for patrons to Ko-fi

Upcoming Conventions

I had originally intended to hit some of the conventions closest to me this year, but the windows for getting on con programming and making other arrangements passed while I was still employed by the federal government, and I missed a lot of those opportunities. So in 2025 I think I’m going to hit the same conventions I attended last year: Travellercon in October, and Philcon in November. I’ll revisit my plans for conventions in the Baltimore-Washington area next year.

The objectives for July are:

  • Register for convention programming for both Travellercon 2025 and Philcon 2025
  • Begin preparing a world-building seminar, tentatively titled “World-Building for Science Fiction: Getting the Astronomy Right,” for one or both conventions
  • Begin preparing 2-3 tabletop game sessions to run at both conventions

Re-publishing Earlier Fiction

I made very little (although not zero) progress on this item in June, and it’s probably going to stay close to the bottom of the priority list. The objective for July will be to continue researching my options for re-publishing, and starting to develop a workflow for it.

Planning for June 2025

Planning for June 2025

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Well, here we go, my first creative-planning message in close to six months. Now that I’m retired and have a lot more open time, I intend to get back into a regular schedule of creative work, organized as before around a loose plan that’s updated each month.

I’m going to experiment a little with the format, though, starting with this month. Instead of publishing a bullet-point list, I’m going to have a few one- or two-paragraph sections, each of which describes the current state of a project set and sets out tentative goals for the coming month.

So, without further ado . . .

University Studies

This month I’m wrapping up my university studies for the 2024-2025 academic year – this is my effort to acquire a second degree in Natural Sciences (Astronomy) and maybe acquire a graduate degree in the discipline in the coming years. The first week in June is probably going to be spent mostly on studying for my final exams, which are scheduled for 5 June and 9 June.

Therapy Writing (Fan Fiction)

The one creative outlet I managed to maintain, during that last stressful five months of my federal career, was a new burst of fan-fiction writing. That’s been in the form of a series of Star Trek: Lower Decks stories, forming a personal continuity that picks up where the television series left off. So far I’ve written five complete stories and am busy with the sixth.

If you’re interested in reading any of those:

The objective for June is to finish “Panem et Circenses,” and maybe get started on the next story.

Architect of Worlds

Now that I have some time free, there are a few things I’ve been wanting to do with Architect of Worlds that may be rising to the top of the priority list. Most of this is just product maintenance.

The objectives for June are:

  • Talk to Ken Burnside about how to approach the question of automating Architect – do we want to license one pro developer to be able to sell a piece of software, do we just want to be able to offer a seal of approval for amateur developers, or do we want to try something else?
  • Reconstruct a formal errata list, so readers can see what’s been fixed in each minor-version release so far
  • Start collecting new research for a potential second edition of the book, and make occasional world-building posts to this site based on that new research

The Human Destiny Universe

This is my primary space-opera setting, which has seen a few published stories already and is intended eventually to support more fiction as well as a tabletop RPG.

Lately I’ve been continuing to re-think the setting’s core premises, possibly because I’ve been on a Star Trek kick of late and I’m looking for ways to make the stories and the eventual RPG more Trek-like. For a while I was thinking in terms of a slower-than-light-only universe, but in many ways that’s a poor fit for pseudo-Trek, and it makes it much harder for any one character to have lots of interstellar adventures in their lifespan. I think I see a way to keep the over-arching premises of the setting while re-introducing FTL starships, but that will require some re-thinking of the structure of interstellar civilizations.

The objectives for June are:

  • Re-work the document I have that describes the shape and structure of interstellar society in the setting
  • (Tentative) Re-work the spreadsheets I have modeling the exploration and colonization of near-Sol space, now based on FTL assumptions
  • Finish writing another document in the “Atlas of the Human Protectorate” series (most likely the Alpha Centauri writeup) and release that for patrons on my Ko-fi site

Re-publishing Earlier Fiction

This is probably the last item in the priority list, but I eventually want to evaluate my previously published fiction (3-4 ebooks, mostly published on Amazon Kindle Direct) and prepare to re-issue all of it. That’s going to involve removing these ebooks from Amazon, possibly giving them each an editing pass and rebuilding them, and then re-publishing them on a few less-billionaire-owned outlets. (I’m making almost no money from Amazon anyway, so I don’t anticipate losing much by moving my work elsewhere, and who knows? Sales may actually improve.)

The objective for June is probably going to be limited to researching my options for re-publishing, and starting to develop a workflow for it. I may get a first ebook re-issued this month, but that seems unlikely.