Though this is quite a literal phenomenon (temperatures were in the 90s all last week), this entry is more to do with the sheer amount of stuff coming down the pipe this summer.
Where to begin?
SJH Creative is born
For a long time, I wanted to form a company to cover my freelance work. Not that there's a lot of it, but there could be, if I really pushed myself out there and marketed my skills. Given the situation with my day job, and how it'll be dramatically changing towards the end of year, it's a good time to get a legitimate structure in place for tax purposes. Not just paying tax (I need to figure out all that) but to get tax breaks on equipment purchases and to be able to write off home office expenses, too.
But there's little real push I can make for freelance work right now, because of...
Greymalkin Designs and Gen Con 2010
This will be the third year in a row that Greymalkin Designs has released a new product at Gen Con. I'm pretty proud of that, especially given the frantic last minute work we've been putting into the latest book. All being well, we should have a hundred or so copies to take with us to the Convention. It'll look good along side the core book and the first supplement, Survivors. Having a main book and two supplements is pretty respectful for a very small press company.
Of course, Gen Con requires work. Not only going there and selling, but preparing games to actually run there. This year, I have to scenarios to produce. One is for Desolation and the other is a playtest game for the re-release of The Nearside Project next year. Matt has come up with some neat ideas for system, but I need to actually sit down and figure out what to do with it, as well as expand it out to deal with deeper system needs. So that's two scenarios and a playtestable system that needs written before Gen Con. No worries.
(Not to mention that after Gen Con, I need to dedicate 100% of my writing time to The Nearside Project. Which actually means that I'll suddenly have an urge to run/play/write something else game-related. It's always the way...)
Huge Work Project
I don't talk about work here much, since I like to keep work and play separate, but there is a gigantic project going on right now and through to the end of August. That's taking up a lot of mental hard-disk space. After it's over, there's a whole lot of uncertainty about what's next, other than a big red line in the sand around Halloween. Without going into too much detail, I'll be spending much of September and October job hunting, though I still hope to take November off (completely off) to work on The Nearside Project.
That's quite a lot to be thinking about. When looking back at my list of things I wanted to do this year, I'm conscious that the poetry collection isn't in there. I have still been writing (and I'm pleased that I finished "The Gun" at last) but things move around, as always.
Still, there's a chance that I could put the poetry out as a small SJH Creative project before the end of the year.
What's the rest of your year looking like?