Get It Done (GID)
I’m going to admit it – the last six weeks I have gotten very little done on getting DF2 prepped. Oh, I have the mechanics, the rule changes all worked out, but I got that done by the beginning of June, and now it’s almost August. And while the world won’t end if DF2 comes out later (or never), it is my personal goal to have DF2 orderable, both in electronic and print form, by the unveiling at Carnage Con on November 3rd.
It seems far away – but it’s very much not. Consider, one should always plan to have some leeway – three to four weeks of padding seems decent, so I want to plan to have DF2 finished for Oct 1st. But it can take a month of shipping print proofs back and forth to finalize the printed version, so that backs us up to September 1st. And September 1st is now only a little over a month away.
So I need to buckle the frack down and Get. It. Done. Well, that’s a great slogan (actually, it’s a mediocre slogan) but what can I change about my approach to make this happen?
Actually, I have two ideas.
The first is I need to change my process. I had been planning to read through DF1 from start to finish, noting needed changes as I go. Then I would open up the DF1 text and edit it in place. Turns out that is a herculean task, too abstract and too many steps away from the actual goal. Talking to a writer friend of mine gave me an idea for a better work flow.
Instead of the slow vague approach, I need to get right into it, directly and immediately. I need to start a blank document and type DF2 in chapter by chapter. Oh, I am not saying I am going to rewrite the game text from scratch, far from it. I will be copying over lots that still works from the DF1 text – but not by copy and paste, but by eye – which will free me to tweak and shape as I go. By creating a stream of typed text going into a blank bucket called the DF2 text, I can merge the streams of the old text, the new changes, the new rules, etc. (Luckily in this case, this merging the streams isn’t “bad”, and we aren’t facing Gozer the Gozerian.) This gives me a specific action to do – and also a specific granularity. Since I am creating a text from blank, I can have itemized chapter goals.
Which brings us to the second idea. I tend to accomplish goals more reliably when I am working to deliver results to someone else by an expected date and time. When I can simply put off or move my ETAs, I bump them for whatever thing happens to be in my face demanding present attention – clients, relationship stuff, chores, life stuff. But if someone is depending on me to get something done by a specific date, I tend to not let it slide to a lower priority.
So that’s what I will do. Starting early next week I will include a post which will occur weekly, my “Get It Done” post. In it, I will tell you what I have accomplished for DF2 since the last GID post, and also, what to expect me to accomplish by the next one.
So let’s start now. Expect me to accomplish at least having the Introduction redrafted and in the DF2 bucket of text, and Chapter 1 well begun as well. Let’s see if these combined techniques get me off my duff and on the path. Oh, I don’t expect not to have setbacks – but I hope this combined approach keeps me returning to focusing on this endeavor regularly and to good effect.
Time is short. We don’t have an abundance of it, and life will conspire to steal every moment we have. Let’s see if I can still Get It Done.