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Second editions are *hard*

Second editions are hard.

Something I didn’t realize until I had to do it is that writing the second edition of an RPG is hard.  The first edition was shiny and new – I wrote that thing by working for a month straight, nearly every day.  One of the reasons I was able to is I had no idea that the work I thought I had to do was only ten percent of the work I really had to do: typography, pdf work, Index and ToC, headers and footers, manual pagination, and much, much more.

This time around it isn’t a new game system, but a (much-needed) update of an existing one.  This time around I know what I am getting into.  This time I have existing text to edit instead of blank pages to fill – which you would think would make it easier, but somehow it doesn’t.

This time around my actual income-producing job is much more active compared to last time – a good thing, I suppose from the standpoint of my bills (and my significant other), but a devil of an energy sapper.  It’s an observed irony to me that I have all the mechanics of DF2 worked out and pretty much solid – and it works very well, much better I feel than DF1 – but the nasty work of writing (actually, rewriting), composing, editing, type-setting – all that is daunting me.  And of course I have a deadline, so each week that passes without results haunts me.

You would think that would light a fire under my ass.  *Sigh*

I’ll get it done.  I still have several demons haunting me that won’t let me not get it done:

  • I have a con coming up by which this edition needs to be done
  • I feel it’s unacceptable to have improved DF1 so much and yet not have those improvements in the hands of the gamers and the world at large
  • I need to finish what I started, and DF2 is, I think, the conclusion of the Dream Factory journey
  • And the big one: I have a really really interesting idea for the next RPG system I will be developing – and I can’t move forward on that until I get this done

So fret not, DF2 is coming – and soon – months, not years.  But <grin>, lord is it not easy.