I like goals.
I would not necessarily say I am goal-oriented in general, but when it comes to writing, there is something about setting my sights on a number of words written in a specific amount of time and trying to hit that number. It is one of the reasons National Novel Writing Month appeals to me so much. It’s all about that arbitrary goal.
Sometimes, though, you need to take a step back and reevaluate. Maybe you set your sights for Miami but your car will only take you to Houston. (No, analogies are not a strong point for me.) Maybe you’ve gone to Houston before, but you have forgotten how to get there and you end up in Denver. Maybe you don’t even have a car, know how to drive, or even where any of these places are.
You have seen me boast before about my perfect NaNoWriMo streak. (NaNo Prime in November, at least. I think I have only “won” Camp once.) In my mind, therefore, since I can consistently average 1,667 words a day in November, there is no reason I should not be able to average 1,000 outside of November. Thus my massive 385,000 word goal for 2020. You may also recall the use of that evil word “fiction,” preventing my use of these blog posts toward the goal.
Well…
We are not quite halfway through the year, but I have decided to take a look at my progress and reevaluate what I believe I can do. At the time of this writing, which is about two weeks before posting – yes, I like to work slightly ahead when I can – I am 139,833 words behind schedule (according to all the original criteria). This is a number I cannot overcome, so if I don’t want to simply quit, I need to make some adjustments to my goal:
Instead of 1,000 words a day, I intend to average 500 words a day, leaving November’s 50k goal where it is because NaNoWriMo. That brings me down to 68,333 behind.
I am also going to include the words from blog posts, since that is all about my writing hobby as well. Knowing my initial intent, I have labeled that column of my tracking sheet “Cheater Blog Posts.” Not counting this entry, that knocks my deficit down to 60,599 words behind. Still not great, but much less discouraging than 139,000+.
If I could plop my butt in a chair and actually write every day, this would be simple. As it is, I plop my butt in my chair and watch Netflix. Or YouTube. I am more interested in being entertained than I am in entertaining. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I set this writing goal for a reason. I wanted to try my hand at writing consistently outside of November. I’m doing a little, but it’s not enough.
WRITING IN PUBLIC
There is nothing significant to report on that front. I toyed with a randomly selected writing prompt, but after about 200 words, I lost interest. (I counted those words, of course.) The project I think I actually want to work on feels overwhelming, however, because it involves gutting a 90k-word thing to make a slightly less boring introduction to a series I really want to get back into writing. That gutting will likely be a complete redraft, but since I have already written the story once, I don’t trust myself not to lose interest in it when writing it again. I have also been living with this story idea for more than two decades, and it’s entirely possible that my love of the characters is all in my head. (Heh.)
So I’m working myself up to it with little pieces of this and tiny bits of that until I can screw up the guts to just dive back into this world I haven’t played in since 2014.
GAMING THINGS
Yes, there is actually a gaming thing I did! I have been trying to get my monthly group to do an online session, but there has been one hold-out, which means we can’t schedule anything. However, one of the group agreed to help me test out both of the services I want to use.
So a few weeks ago, he and I logged onto Tabletopia and played a quick game of Santorini. Then we switched over to Tabletop Simulator and played part/half/most of a game of Marvel Champions (via the Steam Workshop). There seem to be pros and cons to both.
Ease of set-up is an issue. Tabletopia handles this better, as they seem to have worked with the publishers. Tabletop Simulator sets up the games that come with it with no issues (and maybe the official DLC, though I do not have any of that just yet. I’m not going to buy something I can’t play with my friends), but the Workshop games that do not have a script built in require manual set-up. Seems like no big, since an actual boxed game is always manual set-up… but in a manual game you can just pick up the components with your hands. In TTS, all component manipulation comes with a learning curve.
Game selection: Tabletopia has a pretty big library, as (again) they work with publishers. But the games I am most interested in playing are not on it. Plus, even the games I found that I would like to play require a premium subscription – again, which I will only spring for if I can play with my friends. Santorini is one of the games you can play for free, which is why my friend and I played it as a test.
Tabletop Simulator has a small selection of pre-loaded classic games (chess, checkers, backgammon, etc.) and another small selection of publisher-designed DLC (I would buy Superfight and Tiny Epic Galaxies if my friends agreed to play them). Most of the games available for TTS come from the Steam Workshop. It is important to note, since I am a creator of intellectual property myself, that these selections are NOT officially endorsed by the publishers. If you do use TTS to play games from the Workshop, I encourage you to ALSO buy a physical copy of the game(s) you play so that the people who worked so hard to bring this game into existence can be compensated. I already own Marvel Champions (and as much of the add-on content as I have been able to find). I would be playing the physical game with my friends if not for this pandemic.
Also, as a related aside, if you find something on the Workshop that is also an official DLC, please buy the DLC and compensate the creators.
Wow… that was a soapbox tangent. I played a couple of games online with one member of my regular game group. It was fun, and I hope that the rest of the gang can agree to play soon. I’m itching to play Pathfinder ACG!
Also, Gamex 2020 went virtual this year. It’s the Strategicon event scheduled for Memorial Day weekend each year. I have not been able to attend for the last few years, because it has coincided very nearly with my annual trip home to Austin. This year, that trip got canceled so I was available to attend the virtual convention. Problem is, I was not sure how. The official Strategicon website did not seem to have corrected information on registration, unless I managed to miss it. That was a bit disappointing, but such is life. I do not know how the games would have worked anyway. Would they have gone with TTS or Tabletopia? Or some other virtual table system I do not know about? Would they have required webcams, which I do not have on my desktop computer?
Questions I may never have the answers to.
WRAPPING UP
As usual, I hope you are happy, healthy, and staying as safe as you can with the crazy state the world is in right now. If you live in an area where the numbers are still high but the government has lifted restrictions (or worse, never placed them), I hope you take extra care as you go about your life.
Mayhap, next post, there will be something significant to report.
Hoping so, anyway.