This is a snapshot of my Sunday afternoon. I've really taken to focusing on writing on Sundays. I do it through the week in drips and drops, but Sunday I get a solid block of time to focus on developing my adventures. Ivy knows when I am getting antsy so she sets me up with our bookstore at home. She cleans off the table, moves it to face the woods behind our home, makes a batch of the best smelling coffee, Folgers Vanilla Biscotti, grabs my coffee mug from the the now extinct bookstore of Borders, plugs in the laptop and I grab my iPod, Bose headphones and my flashdrive full of adventures I haven't finished.
One of my micro-adventures has gotten out of control. Normally I'll beat it and cut it down until it fits, but I decided to ride this one out, to see what would develop. What's developed is a sandbox adventure. Right now I can think of four scenarios that will fit into the hex I'm drawing. That's the map on the laptop. I didn't take a closer picture of it because I didn't want my players getting a sneak peek. Plus, this is one I'll probably playtest and get opinions.
Because I am horrible at keeping secrets, you can also see the Fiend Folio to the left. I plan on featuring a few of its inhabitants in the ecology of the hex. I love flipping through my old gaming books because ideas start popping into my head. This is where I get into trouble. More ideas than time and ability.
I like keeping projects short otherwise I lose focus and drift to the next project. Thus my flashdrive of unfinished adventures. But I like this one enough that I've commissioned +Jim Magnusson to do the art for it. Right now I'm still hashing out what art I'll need.
Back to the table for me. The coffee is hot, the weather is cold, the scene is beautiful and in my mind I imagine grimlocks crawling out of fissures in the black of night, swarming across the land, silent, hungry, and in the distance they turn their sightless eyes to the north, the slightest of noise, they turn as a single entity and increase their pace. They will eat tonight.
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| In between cups of coffee. |
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Looks like a great place to do work! Look forward to the resulting adventure.
ReplyDeleteYou and Ivy make a great team. When I sit down to write, be it an adventure, a recipe or a walking blog I normally last about 5 minutes before one of our cats jumps up on my desk, puts a foot in the coffee mug, knocks over the paints on my figure painting area or just sprawls on the keyboard. Also my view isn't as inspirational as yours - just the houses on the other side of a suburban London street. Though in the spring I get birds nesting in the eves above my window and even more excited cats trying to scratch their way through the glass. Happy writing!
ReplyDeleteAll the best with the work, warm greetings!
ReplyDeleteA flashdrive of unfinished adventures sounds like a fantastic idea. My equivalent is a tattered green notebook, coffee-stained and filled with scraps of paper (backs of envelopes, receipts, other folks' business cards...) that have emerged from my pockets and lodged themselves in there.
ReplyDeleteIt is a good thing to have these repositories. How many evocative gaming ideas have flashed into your mind and been forgotten because they didn't get jotted down somewhere?
@ Tim:
ReplyDeleteSo envious. Free days for writing.
That's a fine looking thinking spot!
ReplyDeleteYou could write another (unfinished) adventure about a quest to find a flashdrive of unfinished adventures.
ReplyDeleteYou are amazing Tim...
ReplyDeleteMrs Mom