Senseless Blathering

It's Sunday morning. I've been awake for about sixteen minutes (which explains any obvious typos). I hit the sack late last night, around 12am, after writing a number of words for the WFRP project. I'm driven to finish this chapter today, as difficult as it may be to do so.

After I returned from Gen Con Indy, I decided that I needed to re-prioritize my hobbies. I made an inroad with a large game company, and I may very well be writing for them come October. Their project sizes are daunting, larger than anything I've written thus far, but the paychecks...oh, the tantalizing paychecks..!

Outside of writing (which, I admit, I do less frequently than I should, even when I'm on a deadline), I have two primary hobbies: role-playing and re-enacting.

As far as role-playing goes, I've been playing with a group of guys that meets every Friday, rain or shine. Weekly games have always been tough for me to attend, and after my son was born, it was all but impossible to commit to a weekly session. I tried, though, I really did. In the five months since Stephen came along, I've felt further and further removed from the group (as detailed in this post on my Freelance Father web log).

While I'm up for gaming, I'm really not up for the weekly schedule. The games tend to run so long that they disrupt Saturday for me. Weekends are my primary writing time, and I can't really sacrifice them if I'm going to be committing myself to larger and larger projects.

So I sent the current DM an email and bounced my resignation off him before I wrote to the group as a whole and wished them adieu. It's not as if I'll never play with them again (at least, I hope not); at present, though, it seems to be the easiest route to take. I certainly don't want to burn any bridges. After all, they're really the only game group I've found in years that hasn't immediately scared me away.

I'll probably continue to DM/GM for my own group, though. I have to keep my finger on the pulse of the games I write for, which means running those very same games and keeping the rules fresh in my mind.

The other hobby is re-enacting the American Civil War. Between my current writing and my son, my participation in re-enacting has been pared down to one day out of every two that there is a scheduled event. I may need to cut it out entirely, depending on how things go. Our next event is in Huntington Beach next weekend. With my current deadlines (yeah, two of them, 9/12 and 9/14, respectively), I'm hesitant to attend. I've told my wife that I'll consider going up one day.

Re-enacting isn't as simple as it sounds. You don't just throw the uniform on and march around. Prepping for a Civil War weekend eats up lots of time. You've got to get your gear together, load your (blank) rounds (which takes up a good stretch of time), make sure everything is packed and ready. On the day of the event (or the day before, if you're staying over-night), you have to drive there, unpack your gear, run around and shoot, socialize, and then pack it all up again and come home.

Okay, so maybe that isn't complicated, but it is time consuming.

I want to succeed in the game industry. I don't yet know if I want to run the financial risks of being a full-time freelancer, what with a new child. It feels like we're barely getting by as it is, and that's with a steady paycheck. Freelancing is more like a second job, albeit a part-time one. If I want to succeed, I think I may need to step on the gas. Of course, this means that my other hobbies will have to suffer.

So that's what's been on my mind since last weekend.

In other news...

The WFRP game keeps getting pushed back. I'm not real concerned about it, since the adventure is pretty much written for me. I've never run pre-made adventures before, and I find them to be both liberating and, at the same time, unfulfilling. At any rate, I hope the players are enjoying them. We should have our third game this coming Thursday.

I'm not sure how long it's been since our first session, but we're probably averaging one game every three or four weeks at this point. Sad.

I'm a bit more awake now. I think I'll scrape together something to eat for breakfast, visit the WC, and then check on my family.

Cheers!