Commitments, Hobbies, and a Quote by Mark Twain.

 

Around the time I decided to make another stab at being a professional novelist, I also decided to pick up a new hobby – model building.

No, I'm not building dioramas of Mundus and scenes from Don't Fireball the Neighbors. (I don't have near the skill level.) What I'm doing is bribing my brain.

I'm not very good at building new habits. Unfortunately, being a serious, professional writer means getting into the habit of writing even when the creative 'flow' is slow. I'm supposed to write something everyday – story, blog, social media, or even in person journal.

Now, I DO want to write professionally. I DO want those better habits. My inner storyteller looks as this the way an athlete looks at a training menu. I'm committed to this journey.

My inner six year old looks at this and whines, “Why'd you have to spoil my fun by making it a chore?”

The six year-old has a point. Commitments bring a certain level of stress and self-critique. Also, building a habit is mental work. Work takes effort.

If I was a sensible, responsible adult, I would just muscle through with positive self-talk. “Every session builds your skills.” “Five people interacted with your last post. That's a good start.” “Readers will see the passion and though in your world-building.”

However, I have a very loud inner-six-year-old. She isn't good at big picture thinking.

So, I've taken a page out of my mother's parenting hand book – reinforcement via bribery.
I started model building, with the condition that I can't work on them unless I've worked on writing that day.

For the most part this system has work very well.

Building and painting models is fun and uses a different part of my creativity. It's more about color and picking the order to build and paint things. My progress is also literally tangible. I go from a box of plastic bits, to a gray figure, then to a displayable piece. It provides short term gratification.

There is the community element. I picked models that are part of the 'war gaming' niche. After you build and paint them, you can simulate battles at the local hobby shop. It's also surprisingly easy to get feedback and tips about your models. (Getting helpful feedback from fellow writers is like like pulling teeth. There's a reason I'm playing for an editor for look over Don't Fireball the Neighbors.) Visiting the game shop is also another 'carrot' I can use.

Yes, there have been slip ups. Days where I hobby first and them write while I wait for the glue/paint/clay to dry so I can do the next round. However, this is not the really danger.

In addition to the inner six-year-old, I have an inner CEO who 'over promises' what the work force can produce. In simpler terms, I have trouble setting realistic timelines.

The most glaring example of this is “Tanksgiving.” Last time I was at the hobby shop, I got caught up in the hype and pledged to bring a newly painted model to a battle royale event. I severely underestimated how long it would take paint my tiny little 'attack tractor.'

I let the pressure of the deadline push me off writing rhythm. It took slightly over a week of multiple painting hours a day. I didn't even make a token effort at writing. My tunnel vision was stronger than my budding habit.

I finished my model the day this post went up. (Pictures to follow when I find a light box.) The trimuph is tainted with the regert that I didn't keep my writer's goals. Regret can quickly be as heavy weight of commitments. Yes, I enjoyed myself. However, there's the nagging feeling that I could have found something else to blog about if I had just slowed down and recentered myself. Also, painting on a deadline, it just is too stressful.

As Samuel Clemens, pen name Mark Twain, put it.

“[H]e would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”

Dugeons and Dragons, and Mice and Men

"The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry"

To a Mouse, Robert Burns

This Halloween, I had ambitious, nay, insane plans.

I would run a horror Dungeons and Dragons one shot for my sister, my brother, and my mother. The source material, Curse of Strahd is a popular module. It's set in the Gothic Horror inspired lands of Barovia, a land of tragedy ruled by a Vampire Lord who seeks the reincarnation of his lost love.

As is the case with most of my ambitious plans, things got out hand quickly.

Now, for those who are not familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, setting up one play session game is tricky. The DnD is part collaborative storytelling and part chess with dice. The players are directing the choices of their custom designed character. The Game Master, that's me, is in charge of everything else. Yes, literally everything. Set design, villain motives, weather patterns, and spreadsheets that translate the words 

“My barbarian goes into a rage. I attack the werewolf,” 

into dice rolls and numbers that tells me how badly the target is hurt. I then translate those results into a narrative clip, 

“Your hammer smashes into his knee and there's a crunch. However, as you whined up for another hit, you see the flesh twist and the bones snap back into position. What would have been a crippling blow is an ugly bruise.”

There is a lot of setup that goes into any Table-Top-Role-Play Game. I did not slack. I spent the better part of September cherry-picking and trimming down the source material to fit in the playtime. The original game can easily become a year long commitment with over 100 hours of play time.

I kept it simple. Well, I tired to keep it simple. My goal was three hours of playtime. However, as I trimmed content, I found myself having to create content. This because a huge undertaking.

For example, I had to cut the 'ominous temple to dark powers.' In the base game, this temple provides lore about the vampire and meet the Dark Powers who will offer the character risky deals for their favor. It's a good way reward characters taking the time to learn about the vampire. It also takes multiple play sessions just to explore the area.

Because the players could no long travel to the Dark Powers for those boosts, I had to design a way to bring the Dark Powers to the players. The solution was delightfully twisted. If a character dies in the game, their soul goes to limbo were something offers them a deal.
This mechanic works because it allows my players to stay in the game after they fall in battle. It also work with the narrative themes of power corrupting and that running from death has consequences. The Dark Powers are evil. Their favors have downsides.

However, this tweak only solved half the problem cutting the temple causes. I still needed a way to give the players a way to learn about the vampire's history. Most importantly, I need a way that was 'show not tell.'
The simplest way would be for me to design and act a monster hunter character. However, they downside is that if the players miss or have their characters make a bad impression on this hunter, they can't get the backstory. Also, Game Master run characters can easily take all the oxygen out of the table. The players essential get baby-sat through the story. That's not collaboration.

So, I put a spin on the monster hunter. I killed him. As the players explore, they hear rumors about gruesome fate of the hunter and his companions. If they investigate, they can find caches and notes about the hunter's plan to weaken the vampire and then kill him. However, it's obvious something went wrong.

This method give the players a choice on how much or how little exploring they feel like doing. Maybe the think they can salvage the hunter's plan. Maybe they feel they have a better plan and ignore the hints. Maybe they hear the rumors and decide that opposing the vampire is a waste of time.

The removing the temple was just two of several modifications I made. There was also some flavor and thematic modifications.

First, there was the infamous Vistani problem. The original Curse of Strahd game is old - really, really old. There are some toxic racial setrotypes about Romani and other Nomadic cultures. This is a leftover from Stoker's Dracula novel in which a 'tribe of Gypsies' serve as the vampire's willing minions. My source book doesn't make more than a token effort to hide the fact that all the Vistani are con-artists and spies for the vampire.
Classical horror trope or not, that had to go.

Secondly, and just as pressing, the book described the vampire's castle as a ruinous mess, broken ceiling, rotten furniture, and swarms of rats, bats, and spiders. This is fine, unless one of your players has a phobia of spiders.

I spent two hours going over the narrations notes line by line, checking for spiders and spider webs. Gruesome displays in the dungeon? No problem. A midnight parade of the ghosts of fallen adventurers? Also good.
A belfry with a nest of giant spiders living in the bell? That drop down onto the players? If that stayed, my phobic player might pass out, or set fire to the game table.

By Halloween day, I had put several weeks of my creative writing time into this game. My computer screen looked like a math textbook and a public speaking class had an eldritch baby. The session ran smooth as butter.

Sadly, I failed in my original plan, run the game in one session. Even with cutting 75% of the material there was just too much too do. There was also the human element.
My family can't stay seated for three hours straight, especially not my mother. During our two and a half hours of playtime, we took multiple stretch break that somehow always turned into house tidying breaks.

We even had to stop short of my three hour mark. My sister got a migraine attack. Yes, I'd spent ages building this, however, if you are in pain, you are in pain. My options were to reschedule for when she felt better or try to cut and re-balance the entire game on the fly for Mom and my brother.

Nevertheless, it was a good Halloween. Before the migraine attack, everyone was having a blast. Even my mother, a complete novice to DnD was able to enjoy the story. She actually killed a vampire bride by using a long-sword and an alligator.

It will be interesting to see what kind of story unfolds.