Wow, browsing the Vlog posts is an interesting pass-time. It's like a facial hair gallery. Anyways, it's been a while since I made a text post, so here's my attempt at channeling my inner writer. Who, as you may well know, I am trying to bring out again.
My focus for my future has changed, yet again. This blog was started to help follow my drive for teaching and becoming an English teacher. However, with certain circumstances these last couple of months, mainly my financial situation, the educational hoops, jobs changing, family emergencies, theater productions and closing in on Round 10's final stages of production, my drive and desire to teach has been curbed in light of what is more readily viewed as 'real life'.
As is my way, I question things, even things that seemed so certain just a short time ago. And while I was questioning things, I was browsing through my collection of writing works, various essays, creative pieces, short stories and even my old novels, and I realized something at once obvious and profound.
Here I am, working on Round 10, creating a game system and a brand from the ground up. Yet who am I? I'm nobody. I'm a regular Joe Schmoe from central Minnesota. Nobody has heard of me, I have nothing to my name other than a small build-up of local support and a collection of online interests (not that I'm down-playing their importance at all. Everyone, from my family and friends to my online play-testers and the folks at Beyond the Horizon Radio). Who would want to purchase a game made by me? My name is nothing yet. Sure, the game should be able to sell itself, but at the same times the names of people like Gary Gygax, Monte Cook, Jeff Grubb and Greg Stolze are cornerstones in the industry that help push some of the products.
And it isn't just in role-playing. I want to get back into writing in general. I remember, five or six years ago, I would write for nearly seven hours a day, pumping out stories like a madman. Now I have a difficult time writing for more than an hour and a half, yet I know with discipline and routine I could get back to my old habits, maybe even put them to shame. And then it hit me. I am sitting on well over a million words of written material from the last seven years, material that has been sitting there, waiting for me to get up the nerve to approach another publisher with it, and then I realized exactly what I was doing with my RPG.
Self-publishing is a thing now. A real thing. A writer doesn't need to suffer through rejection letter after rejection letter. Granted, the marketing and distribution is completely in the hands of the author and whatever online self-publishing venue he or she chooses, but the action, the original hurdle of getting work out there and in the market has become much more manageable. And here I am, sitting on all of this material, some of which is actually good and some of which is simply a decent starting point, and it's just collecting cyber-dust.
So I have decided that, now that my time is opened up a bit, I will start to edit and revise some of my old works, primarily my novel Elephants in the Living Room, and see what my options are for self-publishing and getting these items available in the digital marketplace, primarily to help build my name and recognition, a little at a time, and if it brings in a small amount of revenue, all the better.
Keep an eye on my "Current Projects" page to learn more about what I'm working on, where you can find it, and how you can help! And as always, please leave any feedback for me or the blog! Comment on this post, send an email to support@round10rpg.com, and stop by the Round 10 website to stay up-to-date on the game's production and eventual release!
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