2010 Recap, Plans for 2011

Whew, it’s been a crazy year. When I started this project, I had no idea what would happen, and I’ve got to say, I’m pretty pleased with the results so far. Let’s review: A year ago, in January of 2010, I decided to try to write one game poem a week for a year. I didn’t reach that goal, but I did make thirty-five out of fifty-two, and that’s not too bad, all things considered.

In that time, I also managed to get the wherewithal to pick my favorite twenty-four game poems (so far), edit the heck out of them, learn me some Adobe Illustrator to create some art, and lay out and publish a book of game poems that hit the ground at GenCon 2010. I hand-made fifty copies, signed and numbered them, and either sold them or gave them out to interested parties, and all fifty were gone by the time I left, thanks in big part to the folks at the Design Matters booth. The book (unsigned and un-numbered, but still as sweet) is currently offered for sale in print and PDF at Lulu.com, and I’m also very excited to have it now available at Indie Press Revolution, currently only as a PDF, but I just ordered a fresh print run, and they’ll have those up for preorder any time now.

I fell into a slump, poem-writing-wise, after GenCon, partly because putting together the book took a lot of time and energy, and partly because I spent a good amount of time working on a game (Skin Men) for the 2010 Game Chef competition. (Skin Men is still in development, and in dire need of fixing up, playtesting, and re-writing. Look for more as the year progresses…) I managed to get another half-dozen or so new poems out before year end, but definitely lost the momentum that I had earlier in the year.

So, what’s on the table for 2011? I’d like to re-attempt my goal of a game poem per week again, but I don’t know if I can realistically spare the cycles to commit to that. I will try, though, and if I wind up hitting at least half that number, I’ll be totally happy. (There will probably be another book forthcoming this year, as well, if the writing-machine keeps up.) I’ll also be devoting more time to my other games, and other projects, but I’ll always come back here as often as possible. In fact, expect a new one any day now…

Until then, thanks for reading, and thanks for playing!


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