Aug 2023 Update: First Sponsorship and a New Writing Project

Science Fantasy Awesome

My solo RPG channel Science Fantasy Awesome continues to grow at a steady rate, with new episodes of Gone Solo GOZR still releasing weekly. I also had the opportunity to do my first sponsored content video for a solo system called Overpowered. I hadn’t really considered sponsored content for this channel before, but it opened my eyes to possible ways to defray my costs. Plus, it was fun to make!

Writing

With both of my children now in childcare part time, my schedule has opened up and I have started writing again. I wrote and self-published a novel under a penname during the pandemic, and intended to write and release the next book in the series right away. That didn’t happen as planned, and I diverted my energy into other projects, most notably Tarot of the Trunk.

In anticipation of my new availability, I began making notes about writing in that series again. Due to some other factors, I had already decided to abandon the penname and rerelease the first book in the series under my own name. But a lot of my thoughts on the series had evolved, and I was planning on making major revisions to the first book.

At a certain point, I realized that re-working the first book was not something I wanted to do right now. The series is really close to my heart, and I knew it was going to be slow-going. With re-launching my author business under my own name, I wanted to start building momentum straight away. So I decided the better move would be to write a new series based on a idea that was less precious to me, so I could move faster and finish and release the series sooner, start to generate an audience, to give the original series a better footing.

So, I’m working on a new series about a wizard’s apprentice who gets replaced by an android. In an homage to the mix of science fiction and fantasy genres, I am using both AI tools (technology) and a tarot deck (magic) to generate ideas and speed up the writing process. So far, even with limited time, I have been able to write very quickly, so I am very excited about the good start for this new project.

July Update: Gone Solo GOZR and AlleyFOLK Clocks Booster

I’ve just returned from a two week family vacation. It’s always nice to step away from things, shake up the routine and schedule, and reset. Of course, I came back with an idea for a new divination project that will have to be postponed as I’ve already scheduled my time to get back into writing. But, I’m excited to loop around to this next project at some point in the future.

Science Fantasy Awesome

I pre-recorded several episodes of Gone Solo GOZR to continue my weekly release schedule even while I was away. I am very excited to jump back into making new episodes because I want to find out what happens next, and I can’t find out unless I play!

AlleyFOLK Suit of Clocks, next projects

When I took over organizing the AlleyFOLK projects, I inherited several unfinished collaborations that I was very interested in seeing through to the end. One of those was the Suit of Clocks booster, the first AlleyFOLK booster organized around a guiding theme, in this case, fleshing out a “Suit of Clocks” to go with the Nine of Clocks card from the Alleyman’s Tarot. Many of these cards had been sitting in a Google Drive for months so I was excited to see them released and shared with the community.

The community voted on the next themed booster and decided on “Gates and Ways,” a booster themed around doors, pathways, and portals. I like the looser theme, I think it will help inspire artists in a different way. Several of the slots are already claimed.

The AlleyFOLK Hanafuda is the other unfinished AlleyFOLK project. I would also like to see this one finished, but the original enthusiasm from months ago has died down. It’s a bigger ask since each artist has had to contribute four cards instead of one. All we need is a few more artists to commit to creating cards and we can finish it. I’ve posted about it a couple times but haven’t gotten that interest fully piqued. We’ll get there.