The idea has become an institution

The rules questions were a bit lighter this week, so I decided I would answer a couple of business and process type of questions that I receive from time to time. These are probably applicable to non-games projects as well. 

How much time do you spend writing per week?

I try to measure by daily word count and do at least 2000 words a day, usually spread over 2 larger projects. Realistically it ends up being more because there's also blog posts, Patreon work and so forth. As I discussed in a recent Upgrade Your Design post, one of the keys to getting a project done is to progress every day (or nearly so). 

Of course sometimes you end up rewriting or throwing out stuff too.

How much do you edit mid-project?

I don't do that a lot because it's easy to get caught up in some detail and I think it is more valuable to take the hatchet to your game once it is reasonably complete. However I do have a habit that every day I will open a project I am working on, go to a random rules section and re-read it, making any tweaks to wordings or make adjustments based on what I have written later. 

How do you avoid getting overwhelmed by a big project?

Break it into manageable portions. Rules writing kind of has this built in because games are presented in distinct chunks: Turn sequence, movement, combat and so forth. "I have to write an entire wargame" is a lot on your plate. "Today I have to write the movement rules" is pretty manageable. To help with this sort of approach, put in the chapter titles up front. 

This bite-sized approach is something I had started doing naturally, but a few books I read recently taught me that it is something a lot of writers use. 

How many projects are too many at once?

That probably just depends on you. For me if I am working on actively developing a game, I get in trouble if I am trying to do more than say 3 things at the same time and 2 is honestly better. Small side ideas don't interfere as much. 

I've tried doing things like scheduling specific days for specific projects and then cycling through in a week but that didn't work at all for me. I think trying to take on too many projects also leads to the issue where you bog down and then you feel terrible because you didn't complete anything.

I have seen you mention "The Suck". What is that?

The Suck is whatever part of a project you hate the most. It might be editing. It might be writing terrain rules. It might be something else. It's the part that is slow and irritating and you don't want to do it and it is where your project is at the most risk for getting abandoned.

It is also the part that you can't really deal with by clever tricks. The Suck is only vulnerable to brute force and discipline: You have to power through it and get it done. I will note that often thinking about The Suck makes it worse. 

Any productivity techniques that can be adapted to game writing?

If you take the stance that game writing is basically applied technical writing, I think there is yeah. Obviously a lot of techniques have to be slightly modified for our purposes, but I think most advice that is given by professional writers will have at least some value. I've personally got a lot of mileage out of Cal Newport's Deep Work.