And the year comes to a close.
Reflections on a change in pace and living a creative life.
It has been a strange year. I’ve gone from a relief teacher who runs a small business, back to full-time teaching, and then into a corporate role as Behaviour Coach servicing schools across the region.
These changes have put me at odds with my desire to work in creative spaces or even to just engage in creative activity. I can assure you, there is nothing more damaging to the creative life than 4-hour administration meeting. Often, I have found myself at my computer or the table wanting to write but not really knowing what I want to work on. Have no desire to put pen to paper even though I have that little precious bit of time. I’ve had to learn to be easy on myself in those moments and accept that my brain is soaking up new information and my creative work is going into other spaces.
I am working on how I will incorporate writing into my life as full-time work (which I enjoy, for the most) and family and life as a go forward. Exploring new ways of organising my writing time will be a part of my process next year.
What have had time to do this year is watch, listen, and stand on the outside of our little creative scene. I’ve some fantastic year of creations, conversations, and collaborations. I’ve bookmarked things to dive into during the teaching break and Christmas holiday period (a much longer period for those in Australia). So, that’s what I want to share with you this month. A collection of things that I have lined up to read over the summer and perhaps you will too.
Chris Bissette’s Advent Novella: The Mouth of Winter
I have to lot of respect for Chris’s work and their approach to writing and design. The Wretched was the first non-5e system that I did any writing with, it opened my eyes to what RPGs can be. It changed my perspective on roleplaying games and my approach to writing. For the last five years, Chris has released an Advent Calendar project on Itch.io during December. Each day a new section of the project is released until the 24th of December. This year it’s a novella. It highlights Chris’s mastery of the written word and the breadth of experience they’ve had with writing. After reading the first two chapters, I held off so I could read it all at once. Check it out here.
Cairn 2e Warden’s Guide
I really like Cairn. The Warden’s Guide is just an excellent, well thought out tool for creating worlds and adventures. I’m plugging away at an adventure, Worm Juice, and I am using Cairn 2e as the system for it (no more system-agnostic adventures from me). I’m keen to dive into the mechanics of the game and the procedures outlined in the Warden’s Guide to help bring that adventure to life. If you haven’t read the Cairn 2e Player’s Guide and Warden’s Guide, get around it. Yochai also writes about the system quite a bit, and in this post breaks down how he made an adventure using the tools in the book.
The Awards Debrief by Clayton Notestine
Clayton dived deep on his experience as a judge on the Ennies and RPG awards in general. I read the first one and loved it but haven’t been able to read the rest. The Ennies have always felt so strange and hard to understand, and these blogs shed light on that strangeness. Clayton also made The Classic Explorer Template for ttrpg zine layout and it’s incredible. The perfect tool for learning design while making your zine real.
Draw Steel for some reason
This is a weird choice, and MCDM certainly doesn’t need any promotion from me. I played Vampire the Masquerade in high school and didn’t touch another RPG until 2016. I live in a fairly small town and at the time didn’t know anyone else who played RPGs, so I had to learn how to run games. Matt Colville’s Running the Game was integral to my development as a GM. So, when MCDM said they were making their own game, I jumped on board. I never realised how far my tastes had come in the hobby until I opened Draw Steel and read. It’s dense, and convoluted, and crunchy. But I am compelled to read it still — why? I’m not entirely sure, but I think I just want to see just how far down the path I’ve come.
Elmcat’s Blog
I’m just gonna be reading a lot of Elmcat. If have seen the Map of the OSR, then do it. Then go read other stuff. Elmcat is killing it.
Old memory unlocked
My mother gave me a disposable camera that had been in the storage loft for 20 years. It was mine. I knew it was mine, but I did not know what was on it. I had it developed last week. Heat and time spoiled the film. But there were some gems that came out of it.
It has also given me a velvety new texture to use in some design one day. I will never know what this was a photo of and I think that is special in this age of perfect photography.
That’s all folks.
I’ll probably post some more bits and pieces on Dungeon Bison over the summer break. I have a little selection of half-finished doodads there.
Long days and pleasant nights,
Stuart.
Excited about your adventure! Let me know if you need US distribution.