The History Book: Week #23
Aug. 26th, 2010 12:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aLast week I (again) knew that I had a fair amount of time to write, to I decided to take on another large history, and one near-and-dear to my heart, Chaosium.
Though I knew it was a long article, the revision took me a surprising amount of time (because I'd thought it was already pretty polished and "done"). I'd guess I spent something like 8 hours total on it, give or take. Part of this was expansion: more than once I came across something I'd short-handed and which wouldn't have been as obvious to someone who wasn't as much of a fan. Part of it was creation of new boxes, to match the new style of the book. I added boxes on Different Worlds Publications, Wizard's Attic, Impressions, and Different Worlds magazine.
And finally, I added Lynn Willis back into the history. In all of my more recent versions of these articles, I've tried to better highlight the personalities who contributed to a company, which is a pretty big change from the articles that first appeared online (of which Chaosium was one).
But there was a problem with Chaosium beyond that: Lynn had asked me to remove him from the history. At the time I wasn't thinking of the article as being part of a (somewhat) scholarly book, so I was willing to do it. More, I think I wanted to please Lynn, who was really my mentor during my years at Chaosium and who totally froze me out when I decided to leave.
Three and a half years later, I wasn't willing to make that same concession. Not only did the book deserve to have Lynn in it, to properly detail the history of Chaosium (and Metagaming, where I think I'd already included Lynn), but Lynn deserved to be there too. I've grown less tolerant of the oh-I-don't-deserve-any-credit thing over the years and considerably less willing to enable it.
I was talking with Chris H. at Endgame a few weeks ago, and he noted that the benefit of the book getting canceled three years ago was that I could make it into a better book now. And, that's surely the case. Every time I redraft an article, I know it's somewhat better, but when I do work like I did on the Chaosium and White Wolf articles over the last couple of weeks, it's obvious that they're considerably improved afterward.
When the book comes out, compare the finished articles to the dozen or so that I posted online and I think you'll see a world of difference.
Though I knew it was a long article, the revision took me a surprising amount of time (because I'd thought it was already pretty polished and "done"). I'd guess I spent something like 8 hours total on it, give or take. Part of this was expansion: more than once I came across something I'd short-handed and which wouldn't have been as obvious to someone who wasn't as much of a fan. Part of it was creation of new boxes, to match the new style of the book. I added boxes on Different Worlds Publications, Wizard's Attic, Impressions, and Different Worlds magazine.
And finally, I added Lynn Willis back into the history. In all of my more recent versions of these articles, I've tried to better highlight the personalities who contributed to a company, which is a pretty big change from the articles that first appeared online (of which Chaosium was one).
But there was a problem with Chaosium beyond that: Lynn had asked me to remove him from the history. At the time I wasn't thinking of the article as being part of a (somewhat) scholarly book, so I was willing to do it. More, I think I wanted to please Lynn, who was really my mentor during my years at Chaosium and who totally froze me out when I decided to leave.
Three and a half years later, I wasn't willing to make that same concession. Not only did the book deserve to have Lynn in it, to properly detail the history of Chaosium (and Metagaming, where I think I'd already included Lynn), but Lynn deserved to be there too. I've grown less tolerant of the oh-I-don't-deserve-any-credit thing over the years and considerably less willing to enable it.
I was talking with Chris H. at Endgame a few weeks ago, and he noted that the benefit of the book getting canceled three years ago was that I could make it into a better book now. And, that's surely the case. Every time I redraft an article, I know it's somewhat better, but when I do work like I did on the Chaosium and White Wolf articles over the last couple of weeks, it's obvious that they're considerably improved afterward.
When the book comes out, compare the finished articles to the dozen or so that I posted online and I think you'll see a world of difference.