Lost Badgers and Kid Guards
Last year’s recession hit the freelance RPG pretty hard. So much so that it made it more difficult for budding RPG bloggers to get published outside of their online havens. On more than one occasion I’ve shared my desire to become a freelance writer and I sent several pitches to different publishers.
As things stand today, I have written a level 5 D&D 4e adventure to be published, hopefully, sometime over the summer and I also have an article in the last issue of Kobold Quarterly.
Those who’ve followed me for some time know that I sent some very promising pitches to Wizards of the Coast for D&D adventures. I even went as far as writing a detailed outline for an adventure, named “Where’s Francis”, aimed at pre-teen children. It was a follow-up on the fate of Francis the Badger from the now legendary D&D advertisement video.
(The outline is really, really awesome, I’ll publish it soon).
Alas, for various reasons related to staff shortage and editorial choices, none of my pitches were retained past the detailed outline stage. As always is the case with rejection, some disappointment set in and I started the circle of self doubting again .
That is, until I talked about it to my friend Luke at Pax last weekend.
Yeah, that one.
Luke: You know what Phil? Fuck them! You can write for yourself now, even in that droning English-frog style your fans inexplicably love.
Chatty: Ha! Screw you too. Yeah, heaven knows I have the established brand and reputation for that.
Luke: You totally do, more than those yet-unfired schmucks working on dumbing down 4e and ripping off old campaign settings.
(Yes Luke talks about, and sometimes even plays D&D)
Chatty: Hmm… I’ve been thinking about it, I just can’t bring myself to take that first step.
Luke: Oh fuck you Phil, stop being such a pussy! You know you can do it. Hell, would you consider doing it with me?
Chatty: Bwa? Like doing a kids’ RPG using Mouse Guard?
Luke: It could be something like that, it doesn’t have to be MG. Kids like crunchy crap with tons of numbers like Pokemon and all those card games with numbers in the gazillions.
Chatty: Hell man, my 8 year old son loves WoW minis and Dominion and didn’t we both grow up with AD&D?
Luke: Exactly my point, the design could be even more crunchy than 4e. All kinds of stuff kids love doing. Can you imagine the shit that this would stir in the community? I can feel the trolls lining up to take potshots already, it would be beautiful.
Chatty: (Getting excited) Are you shitting me man? This would be so cool to put in everyone’s face just how brights kids are.
Luke: I shit you not. Kids are great roleplayers and brighter than the last generation in terms of processing info. It’s a great design challenge for a dumbass newbie like you.
Chatty: Yeah yeah, fuck you too. Oh man! Imagine, we could expend on the Character Burner and adapt BW’s magic rules to push the existing MG rule set into a full fantasy game, but…
Luke: Hmm?
Chatty: I’d worry about how kids would react to social mechanics that force outcomes…
Luke (Waving me away in his very New York style): Oh come on man, draw the damn plans before buying the paint. We can get to those later… just think about it.
Chatty: Dude… that would be, like , 55 shades of awesome. Thanks for the offer, you rule.
Luke: Yeah… I get that a lot…
So there you have it. I’m going full-spectral gaming in terms of design too! We still have to work out many details and nothing is set in stone, but the project and the idea has been launched. For the moment, I just need to find a cool Burning Wheel-like name for the game.
Got any suggestions? I am so excited about this!
Fall Seven Times, Stand Up Eight
This is going to be another of those non-RPG, exceedingly personal posts. It seems I write at least one a season. Feel free to skip. I’ll be back soon, this post explains why I’m not really ‘here’.
I find it interesting that I made the exploration of failure in RPGs such an intense interest of mine because I’m currently living with the consequences of failure in my own life right now. Don’t worry, nothing major, but important enough that it may affect “The Plan” if I don’t play my cards more carefully from now on.
As many of you know, in my quest to free time to write more, I’m currently prepping a series of teaching seminars for a local university. I started teaching them to corporate clients that require short technical and management courses to train their employees. So far I did 2 classes and I have my 3rd on Wednesday this week.
The idea behind this is that since these seminars pay 3 times my current hourly salary, I will be able to progressively phase out my old day job and work less hours to maintain my family’s quality of life.
However, as I’m just starting and have 5 or 6 courses to prep for, I have to work MORE in order to get the ball going. As I had initially planned my schedule, I thought that if I would be able to cover my D&D game prep, do some short blog posts and do the course prep by making notes for myself and giving all participants a book on which I based my material on.
Last week, I had to teach a one day introductory MS-Project 2007 course to a private client group. It was a last minute request from the Uni and I got about 2 weeks to prep it. No sweat I thought, I had taken 3 MS-Project classes in the last 8 years and I had about 90 hours of Project Management training in 2006. Heck, that’s what my day job currently is, this should be easy right?
I built a course on the basics of MS-Project. Since there are no recent, easily available French manual for the current version of the software, I ordered English ones. I mean what could go wrong right? I could wing the rest!
The class was a fucking disaster… and not the kind where an insufferable keener says that getting 95% in a test is a disaster. As the course progressed (the first half was great), I realized that I didn’t know enough about many of the software’s functions that the participants wanted to know about. Moreover, instead of coming out and saying I didn’t prepare the course to go much deeper than basics, I tried to wing it by doing some exploratory teaching…
Those who’ve worked with MS-Project will likely groan out loud by now. That piece of software is exceedingly finicky and does not respond well to the ministrations of an increasingly panicky teacher.
Bottom line, the clients became visibly and vocally frustrated as I flustered more and more and lost all confidence.
Those who follow my antics may know that I have long suffered from anxiety attacks when I’m in a depressive states. They have always been focused on one thing, and only one thing:
“Oh Shit, I’m going to fail and lose everything!”
And here I was, in front of 11 confused and frustrated adults, living exactly what I dread the most: I was making a damn fool out of myself because I didn’t prep properly and I didn’t check with the client enough to target their specific needs.
Of course, I came back home after the course, my spirit crushed and my dreams of making it as a seminar hot shot seriously jeopardized. The next day, at my day job, I was displaying clear signs of slipping back in depression and I could read the worry on the faces of my colleagues.
Then I got an email from the client asking me to call her…
I had 2 choices here. Let my feelings take over and go into full on anxiety spike or bite the fucking bullet, call the client and see how I could salvage this. I was scheduled to give the same course to the second half of the client’s group this week.
As I expected/feared, I got served with a list of things that the participants didn’t like or would have preferred (better examples, better preparation, better mastery of content and more importantly, French class notes that they could written on during class and brought back home ).
The client was cordial, empathic even, but quite firm.
As she spoke, anxiety made way to annoyance and anger. Yes, the course went bad, and it was mostly my fault… but hey, I had 2 weeks to build it, I had other shit going on and I only spoke to the client like 5 days before the course while my prep was already done based on the course’s catalog description!
Instead of lashing out, a lose/lose proposition for all parties, I took note of her feedback, thanked her for taking the time to share it with me and we agreed on a clear set of things I would implement in the next class, with the rest of the group.
Chiefly among those was preparing the aforementioned set of class notes that would replace the 20 manuals I had the university order.
Again, I was angry, mostly at myself for falling for rookie mistakes. I have 5 other courses to prep for, I could not really afford spend more time on this. But that’s what being a professional means, You put your name on the line, you deliver or you give the spot to the next contestant. I agreed to the list and went about my business so that hopefully I could salvage the contract and my rep with the university if I pulled the next one off.
I also focused my anger and promised myself that I would NEVER make myself the fool again in a seminar.
My anger became near-monomaniacal focus and triggered the mother of all work crunches, one I hadn’t had in ages! What followed was 30 straight working hours (i.e. I slept, ate and took about 2 hours of breaks a day) over 3 days where I produced a formatted and fully edited 35 page MS-Project course booklet complete with screen shots and exercises.
I dumped it at Staples this morning to get it printed and bound at my expense.
Now that the red mist is slowly receding, I realize that the experience was cathartic. First, I’m no longer anxious or angry (well less angry). Second, I learned how to create some pretty kick ass course notes, how to manipulate a rather complex French grammar and spelling app, how to prioritize my stuff better and how to plan my time around it.
Far more importantly, I’ve learned, hopefully once and for all, that even if I fail miserably, even if I see my perceived credibility drain from the looks of people in front of me, even if people start challenging me about what I know or what I do…
It. Didn’t.Fucking.Kill Me.
It never did.
It never will… at least if I manage not to be dangerous (a must read! 5 Chattys!).
Being a very bright, risk adverse, rules abiding child, I grew up with very low exposure to failure. yet I grew being deathly afraid of it. Fearing failure to the point of developing a psychological pathology is one of the biggest barrier to development and growth a person can have to deal with.
That’s probably why I try so hard not to fail at DMing and as a writer. I’ll likely struggle with that crap all my life.
But fuck me if I didn’t kick part of these stupid inner demons to the curb this week. It felt GOOD to fight back!
So yeah… I’m starting to learn that falling down is part of life… Getting up is the real trick. Took me only 37 years to realize it.
That’s why I slowed blogging to a crawl. I also suspended my D&D game so I could save the prepping time (we’ll play boardgames instead). I have to prepare several more courses that are scheduled for the month of March, April and May. I want to do them right and I will make sure they are up to my (now adjusted) quality standards before focusing on other projects.
Wish me luck for Wednesday.
On 4e Adventures: Part 1, Third Parties and the Freelance Writer
I’m a very instinctive type of guy, and lately my gut feeling has told me that some 3rd party publishers of 4e adventures have left the boat (or are thinking about doing it). For instance, I learned yesterday that Joseph Goodman of Goodman Games has been musing online about adding Pathfinder support to his DCC line.
I also have a good feeling why the 3rd party module market has dropped (I’m excluding Wolfgang Baur’s Open Design 4e projects because they are patron financed):
- WotC corners the market for ‘generic’ adventures that fit in the official worlds with D&Di and dead tree adventures.
- Some publishers create adventure models incompatible with 4e’s design philosophy (the DCC is a likely candidate, worked great in 3.x, not so much in 4e).
- The financial crisis has hit this ‘non-essential’ part of the industry hard.
Again, my gut feeling tells me that there’s a nook that can be exploited for adventures written under the auspices of the Game System License. Adventures written based on a different philosophy than previous projects (learning from them). Adventurers that break the mold in more than one ways.
I smell a business opportunity!
As it so happens, for D&D 4e, writing adventures is what I want to do most. Now that I’ve sunk my teeth in a 5000 word adventure, I’d love to tackle a 32 pager. But I also want to be paid an amount a money for it that corresponds to my skills and experience (irrespective of the capacity of this market to pay).
Choices need to be made.
As a freelance adventure writer that leaves very few possibilities:
- Write for WotC
- Pros: Highest pay rates, highest name recognition, owns the trademark
- Cons: High barrier to entry, slow/opaque submission screening process, getting paid can be a challenge
- Write for Open Design/Kobold Quarterly
- Pros: Decent pay rates (for RPGs), excellent reputation, highly professional, rapid responses
- Cons: KQ takes no adventures, Open Design does but requires familiarity and experience in their patron system
- Write for Goodman Games
- Pros: Very approachable staff and owner, established brands, highly recognizable name
- Cons: Low rates, low product flexibility, editing issues
- Write for an untried/developing imprint (ex: Expy games, Nevermet Press)
- Pros: High product flexibility, easy to pitch to, very low risk
- Cons: Uncertain pay rate (often profit sharing), unproven track record and leadership
- Start your own imprint
- Pros: Full liberty, very instructive experience ( be it in success or failure)
- Cons: Very high risk, difficult quality vs Cost decisions, Wide skill set needed ($$$), uncertain sales level.
Part of ‘The Plan” for me is to hit all of those over the next year… and this may include the last one (likely in partnership with other like-minded souls) if we conclude that the RPG market is a viable use of the growing writing talent around us.
In part 2, I’ll do a high-level review of current 4e adventure and share elements that I’d like to see more of in D&D 4e adventure, maybe elements I could cover.
In the mean time, let me know about your own experience with 4e published adventures, publication plans, imprints you like/own/plan to open.
Chatty's Goals for 2010
Happy new year people! New year, new ‘decade’ (hush, pedants) and possibly new pants!
As is becoming a tradition on Musings, this is when I look over last year’s goals and set new ones. I say goals and not resolutions because resolutions are all about ‘have to, and should, and ought to” and I have zero tolerance for that passive aggressive guilt-ridden crap. 
Objectives are things you strive for, resolutions are things you hope to achieve, like maybe, if I feel like it.
So onwards to the objectives.
RPG Writing and Online Presence
Looking over the 2009 list and given the state I was in when I wrote it, I’m impressed to see just how much was achieved. Without rehashing yesterday’s post, I was able to recapture the fun of blogging and put Musings back on track.
It’s not as meaty as it used to be, I post less often but it sits exactly where I want it to be. It remains my little corner of this digital gamestore where I talk about my campaign, debate ideas, flirt with Indie games and describe my quest to become a better GM.
In 2009, I targeted a few up and coming writers and tried to give them a nudge here and there to get them to consider taking it to the next level (Submitting ideas for publication). It might be weird for a guy who hasn’t actually published anything in 2009 to do that, but you have to understand I’m as much a teacher as a writer.
More specifically, my talent-senses have zeroed in on the guys who hide behind the aliases of Wyatt Salazar, Gamefiend and NewbieDM. These guys ooze potential, quite possibly more than I do. I like to think that I helped them a bit over the last year and will continue doing so over the next one. Be on the lookout for them.
I also did go to Gen Con but I never got around to publishing an e-book. Missing just one Online objective isn’t bad.
I also officially started writing for RPG publishers, with one 4e adventure and 2 gaming magazine articles written, I overshoot last year’s objective. Yay! The adventure and one article will see publication for sure. Let’s hope the other one does too.
For 2010 things are going to be the logical progression of what was started in 2009.
- Maintain the blog , tackle and complete cool series like the ongoing one on creativity.
- Go to PAX east and Gen Con with the primary mission of playing and having fun (less working and schmoozing. Well… Some schmoozing)
- Build myself a name in the RPG industry outside of the online community (more gaming articles and pitches for magazines like Kobold Quarterly, Level Up and Dungeon).
- Make a pitch for one major D&D 4e product (like a 32+ page adventure or a guide)
- Publish at least 2 e-books of material based on my Blog.
Other Objectives
I’ve discussed my personal life too much in 2009 so I’ll spare you the review. Suffice it to say that re-achieving balance and serenity was only the first part.
I’m also building myself a teaching, translating and non-RPG writing business. I seriously doubt that it is viable to make a living as a freelance RPG writer and I want to expand my writing horizon further out. I will remain a Hobby-lancer because RPGs are one of my passions. Just don’t be surprised when you see my name pop in other types of blog.
(If you write such a blog, I’d love a guest post invite).
And who knows, maybe I’ll find a way to support my family without needing the ‘day job’ anymore?
So there you have it. 2010 will be about building a name outside of the Blog/online arena and implementing the changes that started in 2009.
What about your goals? Any armchair designers getting ready to swim with the sharks yet?
Chatty's Year 2009 and the Importance of the Tribe
Yes, Yet another Year End Post. I’m sure the RPGbloggers network‘s first page must crumble under that Echo Chamber effect.
But I don’t quite care about that.
The Year in Review
Oh man what a year. Last year you could taste the the first signs of the rapid unraveling of my mind in my Dec 31st post. To say that the first half of 2009 was anything less than hard and painful would be a lie. Not that my life or job were bad. My family was spared from all the unpleasantness of the financial crisis. As I’ve discussed before, like many creative minds out there, I found myself touched with Bipolar Disorder as I went through my 2nd severe depression in 6 years.
Instead of bearing this moniker as a mark of shame, I decided to openly profess what I suffered from and fully accept that I would likely take medication to treat this for the rest of my life (baring a scientific/spiritual breakthrough to explain it). Had I been a more famous person, I’d likely have written a book about it.
Maybe I will someday.
Fortunately, the medications not only left my creative mind intact (it’s not always the case), it has helped me lower the volume of noise in my overactive mind and helped me focus my ideas more. So much so that during the first half of 2009, while feeling miserable for myself and overly anxious all the time, I was able to actually start and complete multiple projects:
- I wrote a short D&D 4e adventure for Goodman Games entitled ‘When Madness Seeps through…‘ (yeah, how ’bout that, eh?) to appear in the From Here to There anthology to be published in February 2009.
- I met the inimitable Chgowiz, we ran the The One Page Dungeon contest and published the One Page Dungeon Codex
- I tackled an unfinished project and wrote a Primer for the Dungeon Reality Show.
- Following a positive response by Wizards of the Coast for a D&D for Kids adventure proposal made in late 2008, I wrote an extensive outline for a Feywild-based Goonies-like adventure. I’m still waiting for their official feedback (but it got me to learn how to write an official submission)
- I wrote a gaming article for a well-known gaming magazine. To be published in early 2010.
- I started creating my own D&D 4e adventures for our campaigns with the highly successful Primal/Within arc.
I went back to work in June of 2009 with The Plan (Get better, Get projects, Go part time, Freelancer) the hell out of it) and everything went up from there. Incredibly so!
At Gen Con, surrounded by friends I trusted, my impression that I could be a successful RPG writer was confirmed. Slapping hands and giving bro hugs to guys whose adventures/book I had purchased the year before (or whose websites were so much bigger than mine) gave me back the confidence that had eroded while my mind rotted in the grips of depression.
Getting invited by Chris Sims to have a few beers with him, a few other WotC freelancers (Hi Miranda!) and some WotC designers and mad geniuses was one of the high non-gaming points of the con.
After Gen Con, the focus was on stabilizing my full time job while I explored other possibilities. My anxieties slowly abated as did my depressive moods. I sent out resumes to colleges and universities (for continuing education job and training seminars).
I also sent a pitch for a Kobold Quarterly article that was accepted. In fact, I just finished writing it yesterday.
Then, by a near-freakish series of coincidences, I scored a dream part-time (about 12-20 days a year) training seminar gig that pay near 4 figures per day. I just happened to contact the center’s director the week before he completed his winter course catalog. I sent him pitches for 3 courses and he really wanted to add them to his list! Then, he lost a teacher one week before a course and I accepted to take over it and the students loved it, scoring me another new course in the aftermath.
At the same time, at the behest of Chris at WotC, I launched myself into a 6 week project of brainstorming for crazy cool adventure ideas for inclusion in Dungeon magazine. It culminated in what I hope are killer pitches sent in early December. Whatever comes out of this, I’ll have learned to write enticing RPG pitches this year. If it does works, it will be part of my 2010 portfolio of projects.
Right after that, I asked my day job if they’d consider dropping me to 3 days a week… and they said yes, with no conditions! Letting me understand they’d rather keep me part time than lose me outright.
Wha? Okay!
So starting next week, I’ll be working 3 days a week as a Quality Assurance Project Manager in my Pharmacogenomics Center and spend 2 working on my courses, blog and writing projects. This is so cool. And that’s not all, a local vocational college called me to schedule an interview in January to teach pharmaceutical manufacturing classes.
Wow! On January 1st of 2009, I would never have believed how my life would turn for the better in such a short time.
The dream is back and I have an ongoing plan for 2010!
The Tribe
Throughout this year, one element ties my recovery to the way things have been turning up lately. My Tribe.
I define the Tribe as the post-modern family. It combines the elements of those in your family you hold dear, your close friends and all those you’ve let into your circle of trust. In my case, that includes my wife and kids, my mother, my gaming group, some online friends, etc. People, I’d drop everything to help and those who have done the same for me this year.
People I care for and trust have told me to drop everything and write, others have helped me build The Plan, others did simple things like kicking me into gear and getting me to register for Gen Con when I was convinced I didn’t deserve it! The Tribe supported me in my doubts and nudged me to get better. People from my Tribe have called contacts to give me leads for teaching gigs.
But best of all, most of my Tribe has been repeating this near-Mantra to me on a nearly weekly basis
“Are you still taking your meds?”
They all know that my biggest threat now is myself. I’m better now, better than I have been in years! In such cases, people with my condition often stop taking medication, thinking they no longer are ‘in danger”. Few people understand that Mood Stabilizers act to prevent manic phases (the ‘fun’ part of bipolar disorder) and that depression are, in part, triggered by the biochemical ‘cost’ of such manic phases.
So yes Tribe, thank you for asking, I’m still taking them. I’ll take them as long as a better treatment isn’t discovered.
More specifically, I want to thank the following members of the Tribe for this year.
My wife Alex: She was under no obligation to stick around through a second depression, heaven knows she didn’t deserve this. Still she did and I am eternally grateful.
My children Nico and Rory: They are the light of my days. I spent hours with them during my at-home recovery and we forged strong bonds that I hope will long remain.
My mother: She believes in me and doesn’t care about money and status. She’d rather see me starved and happy than rich and miserable. She planted the seed of The Plan in my mind.
Mathieu: Long time friend, playing RPGs with me since we’ve been 13. He’s my reality check guy. Helped me write The Plan and checks on my mental health periodically. Thanks bro.
Dave the Game: Nudged me when I faltered and strong believer in my talents. Collaborator and partner in many of my upcoming projects. I think we teach each other stuff about being writers by working together. Expect to see both our names to appear near each other in coming months.
PM: Always ready to provide an oasis of Geek when things became too dark to face, PM has stoked the fires of my creativity and is everything an overlord would expect of a potentially backstabbing loyal lieutenant.
To those and many others, I thank you.
And to you dear readers. You stuck around when things were gloomier. Yet I see your numbers grow daily (near 2000 now) and am amazed that so many drop by to have a quick read or a quick chat. Stick around, the fun is only starting.
Tomorrow: Chatty’s RPG goals for 2010!
Chasing the Dream: Chatty Moves One Step Closer…
A few weeks ago I wrote a very personal post about the state of me and what I wanted to do with my still nascent writing life.
In that article, I posted a list of what I wanted to do in the short to mid term to achieve my ultimate goal: becoming a writer that can help his wife sustain a family of 4 without having trouble making ends meet.
Sounds simple huh? Well it’s a hell of a lofty goal. I’ve spent months following the antics and struggles of far better writers than I like James of Men with Pens, Bob of The Writing Journey and E of Geeks’ Dream Girl. It became apparent that the life of a successful freelance writer, while possible, requires the same 4 ingredients of success found in all other endeavors: Talent, Luck, Work and Attitude (and some more work).
I know I have all of those… heck, I’ve a D&D adventure and an article in an Ennies-winning magazine coming up this winter. That’s why I’ve started believing I could turn my life around a writer’s career.
However, I also talked with many members of the RPG industry, mostly writers, editors and designers that have been doing it for some time. I came to realize that unless I move to Seattle and convince Wizards of the Coast or Paizo to hire me, writing for RPGs is not a job I want to do full time if I plan to fulfill my part of the family’s financial responsibilities.
Please understand that as a professional slowly creeping up to 40, I’ll never take a 25k$ job as a game designer nor work as a 1 cent per word freelancer, I’m 10-15 years too old for that. My responsibilities, skill set and experience dictate that I either go for the big fish now or change industry. After 30 months blogging, I consider my industry internship over.
So that’s why I’m being very careful about the whole things and being very methodical. Thus, in order to become a self-sustained writer, and succeed in doing it, I came up with a plan with my wife and my friend Math.
The plan is
- Get Better before taking any life changing decisions
- Explore how I could work part time to feed my family and get more time to teach/write
- Pitch writing ideas/projects to create a predictable revenue pipeline
Well project 2 came true over the weekend. I was able to convince my company’s HR to grant me part-time status (3 days a week, full schedule flexibility) as of January 4th. This means I’ll free up some days to prepare the five 2-day seminars I’m going to give a few times a year. I’ve also been contacted for an interview about a technical college part-time teaching gig in pharmaceutical sciences. More importantly, I’ll have actual writing time!
I’ve also tackled project 3. That’s why those following me on Twitter have seen me going on and on about preparing pitches for Dungeon and Dragon magazines. I wrote 4 in hopes of getting one or two approved to work on next spring (the approval process can be long). I’ll write more pitches, to both Wizards of the Coast and Kobold Quarterly early next year.
I want to build a bigger RPG name for myself so that I’ll be able to sell more than 15 copies of D&D adventures if and when I decide to start my own imprint.
My eventual model for a part-time RPG business is Monte Cook‘s. While I don’t think I’ll put my name on a Dungeon Master Guide in the next decade, I admire how he combined his spotless geek cred with a very high quality product line (his wife Sue is likely an Editor Goddess) and his growing loyal fan-base to create a solid enterprise that supported him (and maybe still does).
I also plan to branch outside of RPGs (remember, kids to feed). I’ve a good head for scientific writing, psychology and management and I know my conversational style is tailor-made for coaching in these fields, so I’ll look into that.
In the mean time, I’m also building myself a teaching/seminar catalog to make ends meet. Teaching is (surprise, surprise) second nature to me and I absolutely love doing it. Except now, unlike 12 years ago, I can do it on my terms and with an adult population.
Anyway, I just thought I’d share the good news, I recall when online personalities I followed like Scott Kurtz made moves to get the lives they wanted for themselves. I’m happy to see that I too can now do it.
It’s going to be a great journey, I can feel it.
The State of Chatty: Fall 2009 Edition
Disclamer, this is not a RPG post, at least not directly. I’m going to update readers about the state of my project and my general health.
I usually always write these posts when I’m in the throes of some sort of crisis or from the depths of depression. Well I’m happy to tell you that I’m actually doing this one while feeling quite good!
As long time readers know, I was diagnosed with Type 2 Bipolar Disorder last winter. At the time, I was slowly recovering from a severe depression triggered by a hypomanic phase that started during Gen Con 2008. I started treatment for my condition in spring and I have now fully recovered. I’m happy to report that like most illnesses, depression and bipolar disorder can be alleviated and treated.
The reason I started with this piece of very personal history is because, during my darker periods last winter, I made a plan to go after what I wanted in life…. and what I want is to write and teach. The plan was really simple and long term.
The short version of it was:
- Get Better before taking any life changing decisions
- Explore how I could work part time to feed my family and get more time to write
- Pitch writing ideas to create a predictable revenue pipeline
- Write a novel
And that’s what I’ve been doing, planning things slowly, deliberately.
Well this week, results have started to show, in spades!
After spending the last few weeks brainstorming D&D 4e adventure ideas for publication, I whittled down my list of 30 ideas down to 6 which I pre-pitched to Wizards of the Coast. Out of the 6, five were flagged as ‘go ahead and make a proposal for Dungeon/Dragon magazine’.
That was a great start for the week.
Then later, I got a call from a local university that has these 1-3 days corporate training seminars on Quality, Management and Software use. They hired me to create and teach three courses I pitched to them a few weeks back (Starting a Blog, Using Social Networks, Preparing for an Audit). The courses would be part of next winter’s session.
They, then called me back the same day, asking me if I could teach a class (Time Management and MS-Outlook) next week (!!!). Trial by fire anyone?
Oh and that gig pays 3X my current hourly salary. Irregular but very lucrative!
And just so you know, I love teaching… I would do it for free… and I have.
So this was already an awesome week in and of itself when my friend Yax of Dungeonmastering.com sent me a message asking me if I’d like to collaborate on one of his Expy Games project for next winter.
Man, when it rains, it pours!
I slept on it and accepted. I’ll let you know how it turns out. While I’m on the subject, I also want to mention that for all these projects, I intend to collaborate with many friends, chief of which will be Dave:The Game, whose general awesomeness needs no more introduction. Dave and I will be partners in many upcoming projects… unless we get into a huge feud about creative differences and geek substance abuse (like Mountain Dew and Coffee Crisps).
Now I was ready to call it a night on a generally incredible week when, right before I left for my Star Wars game yesterday, I got this little piece of Twitter:
@wilw: @ChattyDM Have I told you how much I love your blog? If I haven’t: I love your blog.
(Brain explosion)
For those not on Twitter, @wilw is actor/writer Wil Wheaton who many of us have enjoyed listening to during the Penny Arcade/PVP D&D podcasts (and that Sci-Fi show with the bald starship captain).
Oh crap! I hope he doesn’t dig up my first trope post…
I often say (in half-jest) that one of the secret goals of each blogger is to get the world to acknowledge they exist. Well, I can say that I hit a geek jackpot yesterday! Thanks Wil!
All right all this means that I now have to produce 5 D&D adventure outlines before year’s end and I need to create a 16 hour course about Outlook and Time Management before the end of the week. Given that I still work full time, this means that I need to cut somewhere and that’s going to be the blog, at least for this week while I prepare the course and write the first outline.
I’m also going to skip last game’s report, not much happened last Friday that can’t be recounted in 2 weeks when the final confrontation against the campaign bad guy will be done.
So I’ll see you all later this week, or next week. Wish me luck!
Touched with Fire, the 700th post.
This post will get intensely personal, while overall positive, it will dwell on some of my personal issues of the last year. Feel free to skip
Way back in November, I wrote a somewhat somber post celebrating my 500th post.
At the time, I didn’t realize that I was diving full speed into severe depression, my third in the last 10 years.
It got so bad that I was given sick leave from work and I had to get a psychiatric evaluation, my second in 4 years.
During the evaluation, the subject of my Gen Con 2008 experience was broached and I explained how excited I became, how energetic I was, how little sleep I needed and how I announced a ton of projects that I all more or less abandoned. I even jested that my wife was convinced I had taken drugs at Gen Con because she didn’t recognize me.
Well, it seemed that this episode was very significant…
After a few more questions about prior such episodes (none) and if I lost touch with reality by taking stupid dangerous risks/decisions (nope) and about my family’s mental health history, the diagnostic was preety clear.
I have type 2 Bipolar Disorder
Of course that news crushed me. Still, I reached out to people I trusted (including my many online friends) and discovered that creative people, especially writers, are often bipolar.
In fact, the expression Touched by Fire (coined from a book on creativity and bipolar disorder) is a very apt description of the many Creative Surges I would get every few weeks or so, sending me in a spiral of new, semi-gibberish ideas that could consume me whole for a few days!
All this…plain old Manic-Depression… Sigh.
Sheesh. Can’t I even be insane in an original way?
So after accepting my situation (with the help of my family and friends) I had decided to start taking Mood Stabilizers, although I was deeply worried that the meds would make me a zombie without any creativity.
I was refereed to a grandfatherly psychiatrist who took the time to explain what the medication I was going to take would do. He pulled the studies about Mood Stabilizers and creativity and candidly told me that they was a slight chance my creativity would slump. There was also a slight chance that it would increase but mostly, it should stay the same.
So I took them… and the rushing noise in my head slowed and the depression abated. I rapidly recovered, with the help of exercises, regular social activities and the meds.As I got better, I found my voice again.! My creativity was whole, better organized and easier to channel.
I even started projects… and finished them!
We did the One Page Dungeon Contest and created the One Page Dungeon Codex. I wrote about the Dungeon Reality Show, I created a new DRS adventure and made a PDF out of it. I wrote an adventure for Goodman Games, a Kobold Quarterly article and I successfully pitched an adventure idea to Wizards of the Coasts.
Hell, I went to Gen Con and I returned normal!
So things are looking up. In fact, I got so busy lately that I missed several of the blog’s milestones:
- My 600th post some time last spring
- My 2nd Blogging anniversary on July 27th
- The 10 000th of the blog comment a few days ago
So thanks to my recovery, I got through all those and the 700 posts point!
Not bad for a (mostly) one-person show run by a mad overlord.
The blog is doing well, having weathered my illness with little impact. I don’t have specific plans about it. I write what I feel like. Whenever I feel constrained about a feature or a post, I put it aside untill I feel liek doing it again.
However, as I slowly make my way to freelance writing, I realize that all time I spend on projects will be time away from the blog. When I blog, I’m not sending picthes to Dragon/Dungeon magazine or Level Up and Kobold Quartely.
However, blogging remains my favorite medium to explore RPGs (except playing, of course), so I don’t plan to stop anytime soon.
I want to thank everyone who’ve supported me this last year. In the depths of depression, it becomes impossible to believe that people could care about you. That’s why I’m so grateful to all those who stepped up to do guest posts, took the time to email and call me to check how I was and who made sure that I was doing all right.
And lastly, I also want to thank the readers who stuck around to read my articles. During the darker times, writing often became the anchor that pulled me out of the blackness and made me see the sun again. When I got comments on articles that were excruciatingly hard to write, it motivated me to keep at it.
See you at 800!
Great News! Chatty's D&D 4e adventure to be published
I got some news from Goodman Games today.
My short D&D 4e adventure will get published! I can’t say anything about it but be certain that I will keep you updated! It should see the light of day next summer.
I’m so happy and have been geeking out most of the day!
For those who are wondering, this isin’t Kobold Love, that one’s still on the ice for the time being, but another adventure I got contracted to do based on a short pitch I sent out.
Yay!
Now I need to start thinking about the next project.
Chatty's First Freelance project
Its official.
I just signed a freelance writing contract with Goodman Games.
After a few flip-flops on my part, I (helped by a few people hitting me on the head with a frying pan) decided to plunge forward come what may. I shall be spending the next few weeks writing (with the help of a friend) a short 4e compatible adventure.
This is going to be my first serious foray in publishing. Its a small enough project that I feel confident that I’ll meet expectations. After that we’ll see if its addictive/rewarding enough to do more.
As things stand, I must deliver this by mid-January. I’m not going to say it (I’m not). Suffice it to say that this project creates a temporary shift in free time priorities… and I sadly can’t blog about it much.
I’m nervous and elated at the same time!
Wish me luck!
