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| A Conversation with the Author |
I have a busy life. Folks who have hung around for a bit invariably know that I've got a set of twins - it's in the biopic after all - as well as a full time job and (as of recently) another little guy on the way. December has come - it's almost halfway done, as of when this post should publish - and, this time of year, most of you, dear readers, can identify this problem.
Despite the responsibilities I have - I've still run this blog, posted something every week, started a podcast, and occasionally even found time to run a game or two. Because of that, I've been asked a couple times by friends about what I do differently to manage my time - and I wanted to post the highlights from those conversations here, hoping that maybe - for those of you out there having trouble keeping your game together during the busy holiday season, hopefully this may be a way to keep that creativity flowing and keep the spirit of the game alive for you.
And for those of you with whom I've had these kind of conversations - if the below article sounds familiar, it should! Thank you for pinging me, for your trust, and thank you for sharing your experiences with me: both so I can incorporate some of your successes into my own process but also to spur me into putting it all into words, for the benefit of the wider internet.
Happy holidays, everybody!
Find Time For Yourself
First and foremost - you have to find time for your creative outlet.
This seems blasé - something you'd see posted in the 00's, white on a black border around some picture of a waterfall or bird; or something you'd see embroidered on a wall hanging next to the equivalent hurl-bait to "Live Laugh Love" - but it doesn't mean (or, isn't intended to mean) what you may think it does on initial impression. Finding time for yourself does not mean prioritizing yourself or your hobby over your obligations - instead, it means literally that: finding the time on the schedule, on the clock, that isn't taken up by other, more important things.
For the first year of my boys' life - or, the year starting after the point where they started sleeping through the night - that time was 8 PM. They would fall asleep around 8, I would have an hour or so of time to myself, and then I would try to go to sleep at 9.
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| Time Opens the Gates of Dawn |
9 PM? Really, grandpa? Yes - because the other "finding time for myself" activity, cardio exercise, can only happen early in the morning, before my wife wakes up. But I digress.
So what did that mean for me - I had to schedule creative time, game time, to hit on or after 8 PM: because that's the point that the twins went down, my wife would try to wind down, and I'd have some time to myself, free time, which I could spend either doing dishes or gaming. And dishes can wait.
Your time may be different. You may have some time in the afternoon where your
distractions sleep; you may have some time in the morning before your
obligations start. But that's the name of the game - figure out when that time
is going to be and then have the discipline to jump on it. Time-boxing those
hours, dog-earing those hours, to try to get your hobby done is the best way
to make sure it does.
Break Creative Projects Down
8 to 9 PM is only an hour. Is it possible to run a game in that short a span? It can be - depending on the way you play - but if I am being honest, I don't play that way. The games I have been able to participate in over the last few years have definitely pushed me past my bedtime. To accommodate - I've either gotten up late or doubled down on coffee the next day. But as rough as that sounds - it only applies in certain circumstances - the next huge thing that has kept me going is breaking projects down.
When working on your home setting - you won't be able to draw a hex map and stock a hex map in the same day. This is wisdom outside crunch time - with maps, with dungeons, and with life, it's best to stay one step ahead: prep to about a session and a half out from where the party currently is and play. Knowing that you're going to incrementally prep - apply the same theory to the item under preparation. If you're building a dungeon - for example - break it down into actionable tasks:
- Draw map
- Determine corridor traps
- Define themed wandering monster list
- Stock section A
- Stock section B
...and so on.
These actionable items should be doable, finite tasks with definitive end
artifacts. "When I have produced this, I will have completed this
corresponding bullet point," so to speak. Once all the bullet points have been
put together - you'll have your completed product.
Doesn't that run the risk of feeling tonally different, knowing you're going to be in different mindsets between start and finish? Yes. Look at Watchtower on the Indigo River. There is a palpable difference - in my opinion - between the stocking of the different adventure sites and wilderness. Knowing that, it becomes important to have an editorial read-through: a final task in your task list to come at it, read through it, and ensure tonal consistency. With Watchtower, I expect I'll have to re-do several of the maps - they are slightly different in symbology - and I'll want to re-stock - more emphasis on frog-men and the undead; less "got to include this entry from the Monster Manual!" But that will come with time: and will happen just before a final play-test.
Hopefully.
But when you're working on a smaller project - one which doesn't spread over
the course of essentially your blog's entire lifespan - having four or five
sections will take four or five sessions to map, stock, and finalize enough
for beta: it will be easier to keep tonal consistency - especially if you find
some music or other inspiration to consume in the background while working.
Take Notes On the Go
Last May, I had a very gonzo dream - one that dove into my fears and perceptions of my own failings, but transformed into a mostly cohesive narrative about a protagonist (it was originally me, but by the middle, it was a bit disembodied) who had to deal with responsibility, temptation, and then forcible injection into reality after a season-long emotional affair with a strange, supernatural entity: one which faded from him after his attempt to codify the ethereal, to tame the unbreakable wild, germinated the seed buried deep in her consciousness that had always served as a blemish to highlight fundamental incompatibility of the real and the beyond.
Less dramatically, I also have a file on my Desktop - "To Message.txt" - which
contains notes on call-ins I want to make to other people's podcasts. The
point is, Notepad is your friend: as are other tools that allow you to take
notes in the moment when inspiration has hit, but when you have other things
you need to do.
Google Keep and voice-to-text - in this sense - is my best friend. I have a Christmas list on it - a list of things I see and the names of people I think would like it; I have a grocery list on it - shared with my wife so she can see what's there, think about adding what she needs, and then write it down on a post it note that she doesn't share while I'm at Publix instead; and I have several RPG-related notes saved. Am I selling you Google Keep? Not intentionally - but it's backed up, I can access it cross-platform, and I have an Android device. The key - if I have a cool idea, or if I want to make a new podcast episode about a subject, I can write it down when I have the idea and then come back to it later for implementation.
To that end - the benefit: you never know when inspiration will strike - and when it does, you can't guarantee you'll be in the middle of doing something from which you can't get away. Having the ability to jot notes down - class lecture notes: not the meat of what you think, but pointers that will activate your brain cells to re-think the same ideas, to remember where you were, mentally, when you came up with them. Sometimes, the notes you jot down in the middle of a workout or on a smoke break at work become the task bullets on your next time-boxed personal time.
And maybe one day you too will write that sappy Harlequin novel that your
brain conjured up in unconscious delirium and then, on waking, thought was
neat enough to catalog.
Keep a Backlog of Creative Ideas
Related to the above, don't be afraid to keep ideas on the back burner. Recall
earlier, I mentioned that the way to make a project come to completion is to
break it into doable pieces and then have the discipline to execute on each of
the pieces so that you can stitch them together at the end.
One of the things that happens to me - at least - and I've seen it in other people on occasion: if I'm not being productive, or not being as productive as I want to be, or if something I thought was going to be great turns into a flop, I can get discouraged - I can lose the motivation to create. I can lose the interest I had in a project - and I find myself pulling back, pulling out of games I would normally have played in, not committing to projects that I would have normally been gung-ho about. While burnout can be a thing - I'm not saying that you don't need to take a break, play something else on occasion to keep the flame burning, the passion stoked, for your hobbies - but pulling away can be a self-perpetuating cycle. How many blogs have you seen start and then suddenly stop posting? How many YouTube channels have 10 followers, 4 videos, and no updates in 3 years?
Don't let it happen to you.
Keep a backlog of creative ideas - keep a list of things you'd like to do - so
when the doldrums come, you can pivot. You can change your focus, stay in the
hobby, stay in the swing, but you can take a break from the stuff that's not
bringing you joy. As of this writing, I have 15 blog posts in Draft: some of
which have nothing in them but the title and maybe a line to clarify
what I was thinking when I wrote it. I have 3 podcast subjects I'd like to
address and 5 guests I'd like to have appear: one of whom I've talked to about
it and am working through scheduling.
I have those backlog items because I
know a week is going to come when I'm not feeling it and, when that happens,
Stick With It
For me, at least - and I assume there are others like me - creativity is
easier when it's constant. Behaviors are easier when they become habits; if I
leave a project, game, or hobby for long enough, the inertia will keep me out
of it - and conversely, the more I engage, the more I work on it, the more
easy it is for me to keep going, to produce, and to improve. Knowing that - I
don't let myself rest: and I would advise you consider the same.
With a backlog of items, per the above advice, you're never at a loss for something to work on - and having small projects can be the difference between feeling dead in the water and feeling like you're smooth sailing. That big project with 30 task points in it got you down after the first 7? That's alright - take a break from that big project: give yourself some little wins and don't let the intimidation of the last 23 items tear down your love of the project.
Keep trying.
Keep playing.
Keep creating.
The enemy is letting life keep you down - and though sometimes life
will put you down: childbirth, for example, may from experience put a
dent in your gaming schedule - but there is always either a way around or a
way through.
And Them's My Two Coppers
Find the time, break and schedule such that it fits into the time you found,
find and use tools to help keep you moving, and - most importantly - stick
with it.
Delve on, readers - even through this busy season!
Public domain artwork retrieved from OldBookIllustrations.com and adapted for thematic use. Attributions in alt text.
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