Less editing, more writing.

I was recently looking for an article stub in my big pile of ideas and introductory paragraphs on my hard drive. I found what I was looking for, but I also got to thinking about this pile... I've got stuff that's four and five years old that I've been sitting on, never getting around to finishing, or sometimes really even starting.

I haven't finished a whole lot lately. "[[http://www.fudgefactor.org/2004/04/department-13.html|Department 13]]" is already over a year old. The "Just Fudge It" article in the new Fudge 10th book is actually over four years old. I've got another article that I submitted to [[http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/darkplaces/|GURPS Dark Places]]... also written over four years ago, and DP has been "in production" ever since (they lack an editor, and now it doesn't fit their "big hardback" publication model, so it'll probably never be more than a PDF). I was writing a series of brainstorming ideas articles ("The Idea Factory") for RPG.net a few years ago, but that didn't last very long... and I have two unfinished articles for that series on my hard drive.

I suppose one of the reasons I haven't finished much lately is it's been disappointing to put my nose to the grindstone and crank out a couple good articles, just to have publishers sit on them for years. (I have to give it to Ann, she beat GURPS Dark Places to press with F10.) I've often been tempted to pull both those articles back and publish them in Fudge Factor.

Nowdays, my writing time is taking up with managing FF, most of that just plain editing. I like the job... it's fun and satisfying to work with authors to help them improve their work, and to see the finished product out the door. But it's more fun to write my own stuff and see it published. I don't see getting FF off my plate any time soon, so that means I need to focus more on getting some of my own writing done. I have no shortage of ideas... there are tons of them collected and started over the years sitting on my hard drive.

Maybe I should take that bit of advice that says, "Write every day, even if it's only a little." Except I do write daily... email and blogs, every day. :) Just not enough game writing. I usually want a couple hours to settle into that. I can't get much done twenty minutes at a time. But maybe I need to start taking those twenty minutes and see if I can learn to be more productive with smaller chunks of time.