Weather Update:

Okay, so it’s not actually a weather update so much as a Sloth update. But weather just sounds more fun, plus it reminds me of Bill Wurtz’s History of the Entire World I Guess.

Some news about me:

• I finished knitting one sock and started another vs finishing the second sock

• I realized my pen pals are having a BABY and therefore need to speed knit a baby blanket to send to them

• This is the second time I am speed knitting a baby blanket

• After the first time, I said never again…

• I had another virtual D&D session and it went BEAUTIFULLY—more on that soon, I promise

• I woke up in a fugue state this morning and crafted a loosely based off of Monster of the Week and Dungeons and Daddies “Monsters and Mommies” game after talking to one of my players who also loves D-A-D and came up with some beautiful Mom Archetypes and plot lines that will become a side one shot for the party

• (me, telling my collaborateur about my creative method: “they come to me in my dreams like a prophet receiving visions from an angry god“)

• I will be posting the full fun module(s) when I finish creating it, depending on when that is

• Work on the other modules (two sessions and a campaign bible) is mostly finished, now I just have to collect it together and find a place to post and/or list it.

• I’m thinking maybe Etsy?? Another service???

• Much to think on—if anyone has suggestions let me know

In unrelated fun news, here’s what I’m reading:

• Finished! - Range - David Epstein (why generalists succeed where specialists fail)

• In Progress - The Monster of the Week manual, for research purposes

• In Progress - Save the Cat!: The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need - Blake Snyder

• Just Started - Because Internet - Gretchen McCulloch (Linguistics book on the internet)

• On Deck: Patton: A Genius for War and the Silent Patient (and about 50 more books….)

Other than that, it’s been a fairly productive week for me! I’m almost nearly done with one of my courses from a previous post and getting a lot of stuff on paper, which is always helpful for me. Should have a better post next week as this weekend is a three day weekend!

Toodles,

Steph <3

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Nothing special to add today, more just a follow up of my post last week.

Virtual D&D night was a huge success! While I, and my group, much prefer getting together in person (and it’s far easier to control the flow in person), this is a great option since we can’t do that. It’s also giving me the opportunity to use some of what I’m learning in the online classes I’m taking to help shore up our online system and workflow. My goal is to really streamline the process and make sure feedback and metrics are gathered. I’m hoping to get one, maybe two, additional posts about codifying and improving this process so keep an eye out for those when I finish writing them.

And for those wondering:

Online Classes I am taking during this time:

• The Science of Well-Being, through Yale via Coursea

• Miracles of Human Language: An Introduction to Linguistics, through Leiden University via Coursea

• Teaching Online Classes via General Assembly

I know it’s not much but it’s helpful to keep things interesting when I could be just sitting here spending the majority of my time rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the 5th time (and trust me, if it wouldn’t rot my brain I would). Plus I’ve always wanted to learn more about Linguistics, as its the basis for so many things including programming languages. Initially I was just going to dive in and buy Syntactic Structures from a local bookstore but then I thought hey, why not learn from some educators first? I’ve got the time.

I’ve also started gathering all of my pictures and notes on virtual map making, so I expect to have that post up by the end of the week, quarantine schedule willing. I did just get enough yarn to make a sweater and I’m nearly done with a cowl so we’ll see which of the three wins this duel for my attention.

In the meantime, did you know that there’s a man out there who’s just doing things in a primitive fashion in the woods of his backyard and filming it? Easily the most soothing videos on youtube tbh.

That said, I will stick to my classical and film scores playlist to get my relaxation on.

ttyl y’all.

<3,

Steph

What a whirlwind!

As I looked back at my last post, I realized I really have been busy.

Besides switching jobs, working two jobs in tandem while I transitioned, moving floors of the office, setting myself a crazy knitting goal and working towards, AND heading out to the burbs for D&D after the holiday, it’s been a real trip.

Hopefully now that things have settled down, I can elaborate a bit more on my coming research projects as part of my new job in the future, show some more work re:D&D and hopefully post some finished knitting projects.

To give a little sneak preview of my next big thing at work, I’m starting a more longterm research project (obviously with tactical, impactful goals, this is a corporation after all) about SaaS sprawl! I’m excited to get started and I’ve already got some great ideas in the hopper, specifically around using existing research into urban planning and urban sprawl to formulate a model for assign SaaS sprawl. It’s a nerdy, delicious sort of project I can sink my teeth into and I’m just jazzed to dive in.

Hopefully you’ll hear from me again soon!

<3,

Steph

A Year of Hibernation Will Do You Good

Last night marked an auspicious event—I finally FINALLY DM’d my first game in my home-brew campaign.

I’ll pause for your applause.

But on that score, let’s take a pause and talk about the hibernation.

A lot has changed for me in the past year, I started a more labor intensive role, I started knitting, I was working my way through finishing ER, getting back into long form writing again, and I was most importantly working on fleshing out the world of my campaign. Each one of these projects (except for ER) took a ton of focus, concentration, goal setting and smashing, and in between that I also had vacations and real world obligations.

I think in today’s day and age, there’s such a strong pressure of feedback culture—sort of a gut-reaction maybe to the adage that if a tree falls in the forest and no one’s around to hear it, are you really working? I don’t know what it is, but these periods of hibernation, where there’s no obligation to respond on your progress and to just focus on the work can be really beneficial. There’s been plenty of studies which you can Google or DuckDuckGo that support the idea of having uninterrupted creative time, time in which you switch off from the dreaded Social Media, time for just existing with your chosen media and avoiding self-editing and in experience, it rings true. Some of my best days at work are days where I have a couple of hours in the morning to just hack away at an idea and come up with something brilliant. For each of these projects, I gave myself the time and space to investigate and learn and I think it improved it for the better in each. Again, except for ER.

But let’s get back to the question I’m sure you’re asking: what is this campaign you’re mentioned and why did it take you a year to talk about?

I’ve been listening to D&D and consuming D&D content since I found The Adventure Zone back in early 2015. I had just started getting back into listening to podcasts regularly after pretty much just listening to the RoosterTeeth Podcast from start to finish for the 3rd or 4th time, starting with My Brother My Brother and Me when I realized that they had started playing D&D on their side show. This was also roughly around the time I started seeing posts and blogs about this Critical Role thing on Tumblr and started following some subreddits on RPG Horror Stories, because i’m that kind of person.

Sidebar—my dad has always loved this heavy metal music video where a band beat the sh!t out of some LARPers which I have included here. It’s pretty much a cross-section of all my favorite interests (drinking, garage bands, heavy metal and D&D). Sometimes, he will just turn to me and pretend to cast fireball and now his daughter is a DM so enjoy the irony of that one.

It took two years of watching videos on and off, writing a whole novel for NaNoWriMo after not having written since high school and sobbing in the dark to the end of the Adventure Zone Balance arc finale that I finally had the thought: Maybe I should write a campaign.

At this point, I sort of wanted to play D&D but I didn’t have any friends who were really interested in it, aside from a few people I talked to about the podcast. But I really loved the idea of crafting a collaborative story with friends, as I’d been doing it in some way shape or form since middle school. And, unknowingly, one of the only high fantasy series I read from elementary school to middle school was in fact a D&D novelization. I figured, if nothing else, I could turn my world into the plot of a really expansive series that would get picked up by HBO for a show and sweet sweet cash money and residuals. Yes, this was well before the Game of Thrones finale.

So about a year and a half ago, I started working on the map you see above, of a world called Ein Sof (Ein-zof), a world plagued with thousands of years of warring before a flood wiped out most of the land and left this archipelago. Filled with a rich forgotten history, lost cities and temples, happy and sad stories, this was the world to be fleshed out by my players and my NPCs. And yesterday, that world finally became real.

But this has already gone on quite a bit, so I’m going to be separating this out into a series of posts about world building and hosting your first home-brew campaign from your always novice DM, particularly how I came up with this wild idea, what I created and why I created it, and how you turn that into a game. My experience may be limited in D&D but my experience in world building is pretty extensive, so stay tuned for more.

<3

Steph

International Time Zones will be my Cause of Death

It's not that I don't like talking with the folks around the world and making their lives easier. Really truly, it's what I enjoy doing. I just wish I could figure out the difference between the different areas so that I'm not double booking myself as I forget that Hong Kong on their Thursday is my Wednesday night.

To be fair to them and myself, this is a continuous problem I have and why I rely so much on my digital calendars, because the time zone conversions are well worth it. Zero idea how folks do without it.

To get to the point, I'm going to be busy this whole month, due to international calls, so shorter but still consistent posts are in your future.

Stay sane out there kids.

<3,

Steph

Finally Done

But of course, because life is nothing if there's not karma, I ended up spraining/pinching the nerve in my neck so no updates this weekend while I recuperate.

But I have been re-listening to the entirety of the Adventure Zone so have a little hour long sketch I did of Istus. I love the idea that this weaver goddess weaves everything, including her own hair. I also just love the idea of this giant structured gibson girl hair turning into these long rope-like braids. Also also: art nouveau. Still a favorite of mine.

Hopefully I'll feel better after this week and be able to make some actual updates:

<3,

Steph

New Year, Newer Me

Nearly finished reading Rebel without a Crew today, still about 100 pages to go, and I realized that keeping a journal is probably a good idea. Often when I’m sitting around doing other things, even at work, I’ll have ideas or try and remember what I did, or what I was doing when I’m trying to remember something and I draw a blank. Hopefully this combination of human failing and desire to create, even through stealing good ideas, will get me into a better habit. 

Plus, if nothing else, it’s an easy goal to do. 

I have this problem a lot, I won’t lie. I set a goal (and I’m really starting to get sick of the phrase ‘setting goals’— it’s only the start of January and the start of a half year project— kill me now) and then along the way, it takes too long and I move onto something else. Which, is sort of why I’m doing this. I finished my novel at the start of May in 2017 and haven’t touched it since. No ones waiting on it but I’d still like to have edited it. I’ve read that you write your novel four times before it’s done and the goal was to do just that. The only problem being that, like Monet, my head is constantly bursting with ideas. And this journal is a way to put off actually editing the novel. 

Plus there’s the art, my website, my movie ideas, work stuff, baking, vlogging— all the things I’ve had ideas for but haven’t gotten further than my last progress point. Maybe that should be my true goal of 2018, the year of finishing. Though, before I commit to that, I should probably write out this whole deal so that I’m not writing out 40 things and then being disappointed come Christmas 2018. 

Here’s a list of items, to ever be added to for 2018:

• Finish editing novel (4 times rule)
• Finish portfolio website
• Finish padding portfolio website
  • Artwork
  • Videos
  • Design
• Start writing weekly on blog
• Start sketching weekly
• Lose the last 15lbs!
• Exercise 4 times a week (3 on holiday weeks??)
• Implement new version of the Source
• 5’x7’ painting
• Write out scenes/plot for voluntary hospital movie (make sure it doesn’t exist first)

Obviously going to keep work stuff to a minimum here as that’s all kept together in short form in my bullet journal and true notebooks. Some of the personal stuff will fit in the bullet journal, just due to the fact that writing stuff out helps me keep it together, but I’m going to try and keep everything in one spot. 

Luckily, this journal idea should actually help with the blog goal. I can kill two birds with one stone and select sections of this for my weekly post and then just copy and paste. Word to the wise if you’re reading this: never doubt how lazy I can be. Who knows? I’ve been watching old episodes of the Big Fat Quiz Show and giggling like a loon. 

One day, I’ll have an easy January but that is not in 2018. 

And We Are Back!

It's been a few months, whirlwind for me, dull for any reader, but the short of it is that I'm back and I have not only a new look but new content to match.

What's happened to me since the old design?

• I went on a trip to Germany!
• I wrote a novel!
• I moved out of my condo, renovated, then moved back in on the exact same day I moved in the first time!
• I finally caught up on Bojack Horseman and yes I cried. No shame!

Other than that, it's been nose to the grindstone as I work towards completing some big projects at work. I'll be really excited to get these secret things off the ground, corporate gods willing it will be done. 

I will try and be better updating and posting here more regularly and with my new hosting and set up, it should be much easier.

<3,

Steph