What’s happened so far
January (and February) were both pretty much washes for getting things done. January itself was dealing with the Omicron COVID wave (which sucked up time and sanity), and then just as February was shaking itself down to be normal, my employer got hit with a cyberattack that dropped pretty much all of my plans into the drink. And then gave me more things to work on over the weekend (as we needed to secure all of our assets and redeploy paper backup processes in order to keep operations, well, operating.
So while nothing really happened writing-wise, a few more little things happened on the side. Some more paperwork got straightened out, and I’m at least back into the usual Sunday cadence for writing and other work. That’s almost as much of a win as anything else.
What’s happening next?
First off, my Gencon trip is a go. Convention pass is paid, hotel is booked, flight is booked. Judging from how restrictions are shifting and changing, it’s looking like 2022 is going to be a solid Gencon year. Locally it’s harder to say. Most of the local events are spring/summer ones, and the spring events aren’t happening. Just too short a timeframe. But we might have some summer events, and maybe a few fall ones. Fingers crossed.
Beyond that, a lot of what’s coming up is detailed in the goals updates: Start processing turns, get the playtesting invitations going, review what remains to be done on Scenario book 1, and start ramping up the writing.
2022 Goals
These goals are approximately in order of priority and in order of precedence (IE have to do #1 before you can do #2). There’s some goals from 2021 that are coming back, but a some of them are going to be brand new ones as well. As before, some of them are one-and-done, while others are big projects. There’s a couple more tasks on it this year compared to last, but a bunch of them are more housekeeping tasks; easier one-and done things that can be pounded out sometime in the year.
So enough banter. On to the list!
1) Complete turn processing for all empires up to turn 175
No progress on this one yet, but as per above I’m working to get back to the monthly schedule I had set up for myself way back when. So this is going to get an official time to work on!
2) Update/Archive all the Sketch Sunday Worldbuilding
No progress on this one yet either.
3) Finish playtesting and balancing for Scenario Book 1 – The First Contact War
I’m working on getting this organized so I can post the request sometime in April.
4) Finish the writing work for Scenario Book 1 – The First Contact War
Not started yet.
5) Introduce and post completed artwork
Two pictures missed have been identified. Aiming to have these set up for posting in April.
6) Go do a second pass on the artwork for Scenario Book 1, incorporating new details and design concepts over the past year
I’ve decided that I’ll be putting a request in with D1D2M3 to have him do the front and back cover of Scenario Book 1. I think he’ll do an excellent job of it, but I just have to wait for him to be free for commissions again. Sometime in the summer, I think.
7) Start fishing in my contacts to find someone who can do proofreading for Scenario Book
This task is sitting low on the to-do list for fairly obvious reasons. Need to be done writing and my own edit pass before the work can get handed off to an editor. Need to reach out to some of my friends/contacts, see if they know anyone.
8) Rename systems/planets that do not fit the universe setting
Not started yet.
9) Look at the Solar Starfire Freight Handling Rules
Not started yet.
10) Set up a redundant deWulf data backup
At this time I’m setting up for going back to Gencon, but once that’s done I’ll be looking to shift some cash towards setting up and having a NAS hooked up to my network for regular data updates. So this realistically has a fall timeline for completion.
11) Update the deWulf Story Document
The currently available deWulf story document on the website is, to be honest, really old. It was originally done as just a backup log, but with it out and on the website it does have some amount of actual attention. So the plan is to split it into three parts and then give it some short synopsizes on the website to explain (and more importantly warn) readers what’s going on in each of them. Mind you that’s not warn them of anything really questionable…. it’s more like my early writing is kinda… rough.
Which is anther reason why this is so far down the to-do list.
12) Review Sketch Sunday
I’ve been doing some more thinking on this one, and I think at least for the immediate future I’ll be doing some sketches to tie them into sort of theme “arcs” where I look at a specific place or group of places. I’ve done this a few times where I grouped already done sketches together, but I’ll be trying to make some new sketches as a series. A new thing; we’ll see how it works.
13) Designing a Space Navy series
I have a smooth notes copy of the first of these for the deWulf. I’ll be chiseling some time out of my schedule to start writing more and more of this for them as time goes.
Dollarton Proxima Shipyards 