Limping Through June

As my four-year-old daughter likes to say, I have some good news, and I have some bad news. I will give you the (relatively, albeit minor) bad news... the blog is simply not a priority right now. I know. You are shocked. Aghast. Flummoxed. Beside yourself with rage.

Whoa. Step off there, Charlie. It is only a blog. "But Mike," (you say) "I love Army Ants, and I'm going through something akin to withdrawal. This is bad news indeed. Bad, bad news."

I'm sorry. I truly am. You'll survive. Okay. I feel better. Now on to the good news.

The good news is that, even though I'm not blogging about it, I'm working like crazy on the Ants RPG. I've created a good chunk of content (maybe 15 pages) in the last few days, and have locked down all of the major concepts/mechanics/fiddly bits. I've basically ditched the entire layout approach I was taking and went with an entirely different look for the book, and I am MUCH happier with it. It went from a functional layout to a game I want to play.

This is my process: I try to work on three parts every time I sit down. I spend some time fleshing out some new material that will be later in the book, I do a layout for and edit the stuff I did in the last few days, and then I go back and do a fine-tuning on things much earlier in the book. In this way, I'm hoping to make the final edit (which will be the last week before I send it to the printer) go a little more smoothly. So, the design of the game is coming along well.

As far as blogging... I have done well with blogging when I make it part of my monthly routine. April was great... the last two months, not so much. So, I'm giving myself a free pass on the rest of June. I'm wrapping up grad school and work, going on a brief (3-day) sojourn out of town, and then getting back and getting down to business. July is all Army Ants all the time in my household (my poor wife and child will probably not see me... they will have to slide food under the door). I plan to blog daily during July for the big lead up to launch, giving progress updates on where we are, what I've done, and what still defies my will and refuses to yield to its proper place in the rules. By the way, that's exactly what happens. Some things simply refuse to work in the rules until I figure out how they are supposed to work, and then they slide in place. It's very much like a huge jigsaw puzzle, but it's only a 500 piece puzzle and you start with 5,000 pieces, only 500 of which actually fit together. I'm going to keep sorting pieces and put this thing together.

I'll talk to you July 1 and let you know how it's shaping up. Peace.