Wednesday, December 5, 2018

comparing rpg and poetry workflows

Was talking with my friends last night about how my workflow for rpgs is so much better than my workflow for poetry ever was.

Image result for workflow
that's a workflow.

trpg workflow:

1. draw on the osr/diy dnd community for good texts like books and blogposts
2. schedule gaming with any interested friends
3. generate fragmentary prep. post some of this on blog
4. run the game with resources from step 1 and 3 and improvise.
5. depending on what players did, set some prep goals. goto 1

steps 1, 3, and 4 will generate a constantly growing pile of resources which can be published via blog or used in future games, step 5 will generate weekly creative goals

example:
1. read patrick stuart's "veins of the earth"
2. over like a month period got a group together
3. wrote up a bunch of veins stuff inspired by the book, mainly a starting locale
4. during our first game the players buzzed past the starting locale into some unknown tunnels, I used the veins random tables to fill these in
5. write up the tunnels proper for next week

I'm doing research, writing my own stuff, organizing it, sharing it with my friends, and contributing to the community; and I have little weekly goals.

my workflow for poetry is more like:

1. see someone else's shitty poetry
2. think "I can do better"
3. get on a writing kick and produce some stuff
4. potentially share the poetry at a pittsburgh reading
5. try to edit the poems a little. either produce a finished piece or move on

comparing the two, the biggest missing elements from my poetry workflow are:
1. a constant stream of writing that I actually like
2. a regular space and time to share the writing with friends, irl
3. regular writing goals
4. a welcoming community I can self-publish to (he has several of these, they just don't produce work he likes all that often -ed)
5. an organized space to amass all my writing
(6. the poetry workflow is completely meanspirited. -e)

#1 and #4 are pretty hard to find, I've been looking for years. #2 can be more readily arranged and like as I wrote this I put out feelers on facebook for a poetry group. but I know just like you know that knowing where to find good writing is pretty essential for an artist of any kind...

the other thing to immediately note is how important social media is. it can provide a constant stream of good writing to read, a community to self-publish to, and like google hangouts edges into a regular space/time to share the writing with friends.

there's also a lot of synergy with social media: sharing is the same thing as organizing and documenting. A constant stream of writing that I actually like is (in many cases -ed) the welcoming community I can self-publish to. etc

it would be good to find a social media community that did poetry I liked. but maybe I just don't like (other people's) poetry that much! who knows

2 comments:

  1. Is this why I can drop hours into RPG writing/dungeon designing/session prep without blinking but every moment spent writing something "properly" feels like removing my own teeth?

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