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June 18th, 2009
11:40 am
It happens to everyone. Really. At first the project is a bright, sparkly land of possibilities. You design and develop, energized by the act of pure unbridled creativity. It is fun, perhaps the most fun part of the creative process. At this point there are no limits, no drudgework. Just The Design.
But then comes The Work. Assembling. Writing. Coding. Whatever. Suddenly you have to make whatever it is you have designed happen. And this is where I have been lax. Sure, sometimes I get to write a particularly clever turn of phrase or it is interesting to see how the plot will be presented to the player, but I never feel more like a hack than when I am writing character sheets.
And they must be done. I have a deadline. A hard, fast, deadline if I want the players to get their characters two weeks before the game. There are 77 full characters to write, 6 replacement characters, and I-have-no-idea how many cast characters. Then there are the clue chases and side scenes, the information sheets, and the rule book. All told, we’re looking at, what? Over 500 pages of text? 600? 700? That’s a lot!
Right now, I’m about two weeks behind schedule. But I’m hampered by the fact that I don’t want to do this. This isn’t fun. It is work, hard, drudging work. The creative part is either done or I need to scrape the bottom of my creative barrel because a character has slipped through the vetting process without enough to do. Oh it’s rewarding work, sure enough. I get a lot out of the reactions when I give the character sheets to the players. But that won’t happen until September. Until then, it is work. Transcription. Converting GM notes to player readable materials. Blah!
I’ll get through it. I always do. But right now, I’m at the ebb of my excitement for Lullaby of Broadway Two. I know it will be a great game. I can see how busy people will be. I can see what they’ll be doing at the game and can predict to some degree the flow of the plots. I think the event will be a fun, rewarding experience.
But – wow – is it hard work to get there.
So, rather than this just be whining without anything constructive, I thought I’d talk about what I do to get past it.
First thing is I try to set a writing schedule such that it doesn’t take over my life. I’ve seen too many LARP writers go crazy the weeks before a game trying to get everything done at once. I spread out my pain over several months so that I only have a little bit of pain at a time, but I also have a life. Unfortunately, I have managed to have too much of a life lately and am behind in my writing. So now I need to play catch up. But I try to schedule it so that I can take breaks, breathe, and be with my family and friends.
Secondly, I track my time. I have a little spreadsheet that I keep updated to see how many characters need to be written (58, including replacements), how long I need to work on a character to meet the September 1 deadline (1.29 days/character at the moment), and when I would finish if I actually kept to my likely schedule of 1.5 days/character (9/13, about 2 weeks late).
I collaborate. Besides the other people who have written and are writing character sheets (thanks!), there are a number of people on the Lullaby of Broadway writers’ list. And I know I can go there and say, “ok I need a plot involving X, Y, and Z,” and someone will provide something useful. Sometimes I even get an overabundance of useful. It’s far better than trying to scrape the barrel when you discover that a character was less plotted than you originally thought.
Here’s an interesting thought: do you know who provides the best plot ideas for a character? The player of that character. That’s because the player is actively invested in the character and is thinking “wouldn’t it be cool if…” Many LARP writers want to spring plots on the player, but I can easily think of several examples where the player suggested plot ideas for their character that were just excellent. If you’ve got a resource that is that rich, it’s almost a crime not to use it. So what if the player knows a little of what is coming? You can always twist the plot here and there and make it a surprise if you have to.
And finally, I write. It has been said that if you want to be a writer, you need to write every day. Even when you don’t want to write. Especially when you don’t want to write. And so I do. I don’t have to worry about the blank paper syndrome. I have my notes. I know what needs to be written. I just need to do it.
So, what do you do to get through the writer’s blahs? How do you force yourself to put words on a page?
Character count: 25; Lola will be done before I go to sleep tomorrow.
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