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Writing Continues
Feb. 25th, 2007 11:22 pmFebruary is now coming to an end, and writing continues on my two big projects, the RQ Elf Book and the history of RPGs book.
Elfs.
Tonight I finished up chapter 2 of the RQ Elf Book in first draft. Chapter one was a first-person general overview and chapter two is a look at several locales for use in game. I purposefully choose different locales from the one that received attention in the HQ book, to try my best to make them both useful to the same readers. (I've been trying to keep that in mind throughout, though it was harder for the general overview section.) They're both stat free, though the latter part included some detailed maps and other specifics.
Current word count is 32.5k. By my original schedule I wanted to be at 40k by this point, but I missed 7.5k in my first two weeks, and I've been solid on schedule since. Which is probably fine, as my original schedule had me finishing a first draft around March 25, then having 5 weeks for revision, where probably 2-3 will do the trick.
Next week I get into the more game specific stuff, and we'll see how much that slows things down.
History.
Today I finished a first draft of a history of Metagaming, a relaxing history after spending pretty much all last weekend, from Friday to Sunday, writing up an exhaustive history of Steve Jackson Games. (Much of the time was spent reading Space Gamer magazines which I'd collected a decade or more ago and scarcely ever looked at.)
My optimal schedule for the early months of the year was a history a week, but I'm going to take one every two weeks as an acceptable fallback. I've thus far maintained one a week by spacing out the harder histories. My list so far this year is:
I wasn't sure that was possible when I first talked about it. I'm now starting to feel better, though the rate is exhausting. I've now got 75k words in drafts at various states of completeness. I expect the book might be as much as double that.
Next up is FASA. I might allow myself two weeks on that, but of course one would be better. I think I'm going to start on it tomorrow, amidst writing my board game review for the week. Big companies that I'm still aware I need to do include West End Games, TSR, Flying Buffalo, and Mongoose. I'm starting to get more out of my element for some of these game companies, but I've been pretty pleased with the results on companies that I wasn't deeply familiar with, like White Wolf and Steve Jackson Games.
Other Writing.
I finished up a slew of smaller bits this month, including a bit for an upcoming gaming information book, which will be out around GenCon, an article for TradeTalk #16, and an article for the next Knucklebones.
I've only got two bits of extraneous writing due before April, which should help with the crunch I've been facing these first few months: an article about Skotos for Flagship (in March) and my next Knucklebones articles (in April), which is on adventure games. I need to get going on that last one ASAP, mainly to see if there's an adventure games I should try and get review copies of before I write the article.
The doubling up of projects at the start of this year was a bit unfortunate, but has been doable thus far. Nonetheless I'm quite looking forward to finishing the RQ book, which will reduce my load to one book and let me relax a bit more.
Elfs.
Tonight I finished up chapter 2 of the RQ Elf Book in first draft. Chapter one was a first-person general overview and chapter two is a look at several locales for use in game. I purposefully choose different locales from the one that received attention in the HQ book, to try my best to make them both useful to the same readers. (I've been trying to keep that in mind throughout, though it was harder for the general overview section.) They're both stat free, though the latter part included some detailed maps and other specifics.
Current word count is 32.5k. By my original schedule I wanted to be at 40k by this point, but I missed 7.5k in my first two weeks, and I've been solid on schedule since. Which is probably fine, as my original schedule had me finishing a first draft around March 25, then having 5 weeks for revision, where probably 2-3 will do the trick.
Next week I get into the more game specific stuff, and we'll see how much that slows things down.
History.
Today I finished a first draft of a history of Metagaming, a relaxing history after spending pretty much all last weekend, from Friday to Sunday, writing up an exhaustive history of Steve Jackson Games. (Much of the time was spent reading Space Gamer magazines which I'd collected a decade or more ago and scarcely ever looked at.)
My optimal schedule for the early months of the year was a history a week, but I'm going to take one every two weeks as an acceptable fallback. I've thus far maintained one a week by spacing out the harder histories. My list so far this year is:
- White Wolf
- Atlas Games
- Holistic Design
- Digest Group Publications
- Game Designers Workshop
- Imperium Games
- Judges Guild
- Steve Jackson Games
- Metagaming Concepts
I wasn't sure that was possible when I first talked about it. I'm now starting to feel better, though the rate is exhausting. I've now got 75k words in drafts at various states of completeness. I expect the book might be as much as double that.
Next up is FASA. I might allow myself two weeks on that, but of course one would be better. I think I'm going to start on it tomorrow, amidst writing my board game review for the week. Big companies that I'm still aware I need to do include West End Games, TSR, Flying Buffalo, and Mongoose. I'm starting to get more out of my element for some of these game companies, but I've been pretty pleased with the results on companies that I wasn't deeply familiar with, like White Wolf and Steve Jackson Games.
Other Writing.
I finished up a slew of smaller bits this month, including a bit for an upcoming gaming information book, which will be out around GenCon, an article for TradeTalk #16, and an article for the next Knucklebones.
I've only got two bits of extraneous writing due before April, which should help with the crunch I've been facing these first few months: an article about Skotos for Flagship (in March) and my next Knucklebones articles (in April), which is on adventure games. I need to get going on that last one ASAP, mainly to see if there's an adventure games I should try and get review copies of before I write the article.
The doubling up of projects at the start of this year was a bit unfortunate, but has been doable thus far. Nonetheless I'm quite looking forward to finishing the RQ book, which will reduce my load to one book and let me relax a bit more.