Sir Poley's Blog, page 6

As a person who is very cynical and prone to biting criticism (especially of fanfiction), I just wanted you to know that your work is without a doubt the best fanfiction I've ever read, bar none. It's easily as good as works from Jim Butcher or Jasper Ffor

Flattery will get you everywhere! Even if you’re clearly wrong – nothing is better than the works of Jim Butcher and Jasper Fforde, especially the Nursery Crime series. One day I might write something a tenth as good as a wizard riding a zombie t-rex through a ghost hurricane in Chicago with his trusty polka-playing mortician, and if I do, I’ll probably retire on that day while I’m ahead.

Good to hear you are well. Long, sudden silences can cause concern. I enjoyed your Harry Potter and will try anything else you put online. Take care, enjoy yourself, and do things in your own time.

Thank you! I’ll do my best to make those things worth your time to look at. A writer once told me that if you write a bestselling novel, and that book is a waste of the time of everyone who read it, then if you multiply the time it takes to read by the number of readers, you’ll find you’ve pretty much just killed a person in terms of time wastage.

sirpoley.com - Index page

sirpoley.com - Index page:

Hey! I’ve been sitting on this for a while now, and figured I should enable it for wider-use. It’s the fancy, barely-functional, pseudo-complete Sir Poley Forums! Yay! There, you can talk about HPN20, Death or Glory, and other Sir Poley-related fun with each other. I really have no idea what I’m doing with regards to hosting a forum, so this is very much a learning experience. But go check it out and see if it works!

I ATEN’T DED!

There’s been a lot of speculation on the internet that I’m deader than disco. I’m not dead! Still breathing! Not even sick! Just wanted to put those fears to rest. I also wanted to come clean.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, I haven’t been working on Harry Potter and the Natural 20 for many reasons that are pretty boring, and I’ve barely been working on Death or Glory (Though I have actually been playing it a lot with friends and family, which I’ll admit is kind of selfish). I’ve written about thirty first chapters of stories since, but only one or two second chapters, and no third chapters. So let’s just call 2015 a wash and move along. La-di-dah.

I haven’t given up on either project, and I do actually plan on getting back to them. I am however declaring Tumblr bankruptcy: my inbox has two more zeroes at the end of it than I’m really comfortable with. I’ll start trying to read (but not necessarily respond to) messages that arrive after today, but messages from before Jan 7 are probably just going to sit there unless I feel like a binge. Which I actually do right now. So messages from before Jan 7 that I don’t answer in the next twenty minutes are probably going to sit there.

Desperate Measures!

As most of you can probably tell by my haphazard update schedule of late, and my lack of responses to messages on tumblr, I’m drowning in the sheer number of projects I have going on, as well as other things in life as well.

So I’m going to do something about that.

Here’s the current status of things, so we’re all on the level:

-Harry Potter and the Save-or-Die: The next chapter, chapter 19, hasn’t been started, and its already late. However, the rest of year 3 has been plotted out. I’ve noticed after the last two books, and it’s happening again, that the closer the story gets to conclusion, the harder it is to write quickly. There are more plots going on, more characters, more things to account for, and less room for error as things get more dramatic.

-Death or Glory: The only obstacles between me and release right now are technical ones. I have no experience whatsoever in hosting, running, or making websites. I would like a forum, a place to download the game, and other accessories like character sheets, and probably a way to make donations. There are probably people out there who can crank that out in an afternoon, but I’m not one of them, so this is a slow and involved process.

-Tumblr Inbox: I have well over two hundred unread messages gathering dust. I want to read and reply to them all, but an hour spent on that is an hour not cranking out zany hijinks for Milo to escape from. As a result, you can expect significant delays in responses from me to your messages.

-Fanfiction Inbox: Let’s just say my unread fanfic messages make my Tumblr inbox look like, well, something several hundred messages smaller. Which it is. FF’s interface makes it harder and slower to respond to messages than Tumblr (twenty seconds or so of clicking around between each message adds up fast), so replying to FF messages takes lower priority than Tumblr ones.

-Character Sheets: It’s been ages since I’ve last updated Milo’s character sheet, despite pretty significant changes in his build, but again—its all about time prioritization. Updating the sheet is time-consuming, and that’s time I’m not getting the DoG website up, replying to your messages on Tumblr or FF, or, heaven help me, actually writing.

-Misc. Tumblr Posts: I never did finish that D&D 5e review, or the third part of my guide to being a good, tactful munchkin. There are also a bunch of RPGs I’ve played lately (Aces and Eights, Silver Age Sentinels, Dresden Files RPG) that I’d love to talk about.

So. All that said, here’s my current set of priorities:

1. My top priority right now is the Death or Glory release. It’s so close that I just want to knock that one right out of the park and move along. Working on this provides the greatest time-to-benefit ratio currently.

2. Harry Potter and the Save-or-Die is second-highest currently. While it’s the project I’m most invested in, it’s also furthest from completion, so I can’t just focus on it for a few weeks and move along.

3. Character Sheet: I hope to find a couple hours sometime soon and put the mess of notes I have on Milo’s stats and stuff into a newly-updated character sheet.

4. Tumblr Inbox: As the messages are quicker to respond to, Tumblr messages take higher priority over FF ones.

5. FF Inbox: Honestly, the mountain of FF messages I have (most of which are, to be totally honest, not super confidence-boosting to read, if you get my meaning) is probably only going to get bigger for the time being.

?. Misc. Tumblr Posts: I mostly write these when I’m burnt out on whatever I’m working on, but still feel like being vaguely productive. So I’m not going to commit myself to any kind of schedule with them. They’ll happen when I feel like it, and won’t when I don’t. They fall outside the priorities list, because it’s not really a tradeoff when I work on them—it doesn’t come at the cost of “writing time.”

What’s this going to look like?

In the short-term, I’m taking a break from Save-or-Die. Expect this to last until at least April. (If you need something to read, I’m told Methods of Rationality is up and running again. I’m waaaaay behind, though, and haven’t been paying close attention. Also, if you like my writing, you’ll probably enjoy Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair, as it’s blend of comedy, weirdness, and drama was a major inspiration. Just make sure you get a version printed in Britain, not North America.) From there, I might switch to an every other week release schedule until I catch up in other areas. I’m learning, however, that it’s almost impossible to predict how long it will take to write something (as seen by my firm belief that Death or Glory would be ready by Christmas, for example), so this prediction is flexible.

In the long-term, things will bounce back to usual—I aim for a chapter every week, and hit that goal… sometimes. However, there will also be a forum for fans to talk about the story, RPGs, Death or Glory, make suggestions and ask questions in a more structured environment. As you will be able to talk to each other and answer each others’ questions, I will have a less monumental volume of incoming messages to answer. I think this will be best for everyone.

Chapter 18 Posted!

Harry Potter and the Save-or-Die: Chapter 18: “A Better Story,” can be found here.

Back to Writing!

Heyyyyy everybody. So I kinda did it again, and disappeared from the face of the internet for a week and a bit. Sorry.

Anyway, I’m back to it! The next chapter is coming along well. Well-ish. I’ll probably release it short tomorrow (Feb 26), as I past experience tells me that getting back on schedule is more important than releasing a full-length chapter.

Anyway, apologies! I’ll get back to answering my ever-growing backlog of messages when this chapter is done.

So will Milo's xp return over time in much the same way that Potterverse wizards regain their happy memories after being away from a Dementor and getting some chocolate or are you trying to nerf him before he gets back to Hogwarts? I can see arguements fo

It’s not about nerfing him so much as it is about thinking “what’s the logical conclusion of X happening?”

In my opinion, draining happy memories pretty thoroughly equals draining XP from an adventurer.

I think giving him chocolate would cheer him up, but it wouldn’t bring his XP back. He has to do some combat and/or roleplaying and/or questing to do that.

So will Milo's xp return over time in much the same way that Potterverse wizards regain their happy memories after being away from a Dementor and getting some chocolate or are you trying to nerf him before he gets back to Hogwarts? I can see arguements fo

It’s not about nerfing him so much as it is about thinking “what’s the logical conclusion of X happening?”

In my opinion, draining happy memories pretty thoroughly equals draining XP from an adventurer.

I think giving him chocolate would cheer him up, but it wouldn’t bring his XP back. He has to do some combat and/or roleplaying and/or questing to do that.

So will Milo's xp return over time in much the same way that Potterverse wizards regain their happy memories after being away from a Dementor and getting some chocolate or are you trying to nerf him before he gets back to Hogwarts? I can see arguements fo

It’s not about nerfing him so much as it is about thinking “what’s the logical conclusion of X happening?”

In my opinion, draining happy memories pretty thoroughly equals draining XP from an adventurer.

I think giving him chocolate would cheer him up, but it wouldn’t bring his XP back. He has to do some combat and/or roleplaying and/or questing to do that.