Bad News: Just as I was finally able to work near full capacity again and I was plowing through material at a really high pace, the developer — senior patron Jack Hale — had an epic collapse almost as bad as mine after Gen Con. Like me, he has some significant mental health issues that can seriously impact his work, and he has even more serious physical problems on top of that.

I didn’t even realize how much trouble he was having until a couple of weeks ago (when more and more of my work was having to be put off because I needed the sections he was working on to do them), and it quickly became apparent that we couldn’t hit our current deadline. I put off announcing a new deadline, though, because for a while I thought we might be able to at least finish the PDF by Christmas; even that turned out to be wishful thinking.

Jack has actually been doing better for the past few days, but we agreed that it’s probably best to work from the assumption that any such productive periods will be the exception, not the rule. Jack is still going to help where he can, but I’m shifting his assignment to things that won’t slow down other pieces of the book if he falls behind again.

So, I’ve now taken stock of the work that needs to be done and figured out how long it will take me to do them completely on my own. Unfortunately, it looks like I can’t possibly finish the whole book myself before the end of February 2012. Patrons and pre-orders would receive their PDFs at this time, and the printed books wouldn’t be delivered until somewhere around mid-March 2012.

I hate seeing the deadline pushed out that far, but at this point I don’t see anything else as realistic. Since I have medication for the time being, I think my work output can be fairly reliable at least through the end of February, and recent history tells me that I have to assume that Jack won’t be able to contribute much. (As I said, he’s been better for the past few days and he might pleasantly surprise us, but it’s better to be happy to get something early than to be disappointed to get it late.)

Good News: Since things are taking so long, I’m trying to think of ways to make it up to everyone who graciously provided so much support so early on. One of the first things I thought of was re-integrating the last two chapters of the book, which detail the settings of Fallen Gods (dark fantasy) and The Hollow Sky (space opera with a horror twist). Given that I won’t be doing the final editing pass until the start of February or so, there’s now time for me to get in touch with those chapters’ authors and see if they’d be willing to do some revisions & expansions to flesh out the chapters a bit. With any luck, we’ll be able to have two working campaign settings in the Universal Rulebook, and these settings can be more fully fleshed out in a future e20 System product.

I have some other ideas to hook up my patrons with a little extra — some bonus PDFs, most likely — and I’m hoping to make an announcement about that in the next several days. At the very least, patrons will get an early look at some of the laid-out chapters of the Universal Rulebook before the final PDF is assembled.

Thanks again to everyone for being so understanding about this and for your kind words about my last post on the subject. Any game publisher would be blessed to have such a devoted and supportive fan base, and it means even more for a small indie publisher like GMSarli Games.

Enjoy the rest of the holidays!

Short version: The Universal Rulebook will be published no later than mid-December. Book printing will take a couple of weeks longer once the PDF is sent out to patrons and all who have pre-ordered, and my goal is to get the physical books in your hands before Christmas.

Want more details, explanation, and a little too much personal information? Keep reading. I apologize in advance if anything I share is a bit uncomfortable to read, but I feel that all of you who have supported this project have a right to full disclosure; I’ve tried to put as much of this as possible at the end of this post. (You can skip it entirely if you wish.)

Long version: After the disappointment of not finishing the book in time for Gen Con, I had what could best be called a complete nervous breakdown.

I have long been diagnosed with major depressive disorder, panic disorder (a type of anxiety disorder), and (the real kicker) severe attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. When I was laid off from my full-time job in December 2008 (I did online customer service for Wizards of the Coast), I lost my health insurance as well; COBRA was too expensive to maintain on unemployment, and it would have long since expired by now, anyway. I was able to afford to see a doctor and get the necessary medications for a while, but even that became too much too afford when I ran out of unemployment in 2010.

Once unemployment was exhausted, things started to become truly desperate. Freelance writing and editing jobs alone are rarely consistent enough to provide a stable income; even worse, these jobs were becoming harder to find because a lot of very talented and experienced game designers had been laid off by some of the larger game companies around this time. My only remaining lifeline was insufficient and getting weaker. This is part of the reason I started the e20 System project in the first place; I figured that if I couldn’t find enough freelance work to keep the lights on, maybe I could create my own work, publish it, and perhaps make enough to stay afloat.

Starting in December 2010, I no longer had any medication for depression, panic attacks, or ADHD. From that point on, my ability to work on this project was seriously impaired. When appropriately medicated, I can consistently produce 3,000 to 5,000 words a day, and when under deadline pressure I can manage up to 10,000 words a day for a short period before mental and physical exhaustion takes its toll.

Without medication, I’m lucky to manage 1,000 words on a good day, and on a bad day I might spend eight hours staring at and re-editing the same paragraph without even realizing how much time I’m wasting. On a really bad day, I have trouble even opening the manuscript, checking my email, or visiting my own forums without having a panic attack and sinking into a major depressive episode.

Unfortunately, without any medication at all, I’ve been having more really bad days than good days for most of this year.

Pretty early on, I figured out that I would have a lot of trouble finishing things on my own given how much my production had slowed, so I started lining up patrons who were interested in doing freelance work to do portions of the book. Editing is much faster than writing, so I thought this would get a complete manuscript done in the least time. Two of the most important chapters (Chapter 3: Classes and Chapter 4: Skills) were assigned a couple of months before the rest of the book was opened up to freelance work, and I hoped that this would provide a solid enough backbone to the rules system that everyone would be able to complete their assignments on schedule.

As I mentioned in this post, I overestimated how easily first-time freelancers would be able to adapt to the job. My perspective on this was obviously biased by how easily I took to my first writing and editing jobs; with very little instruction and guided primarily by my gut, I did well enough that I continued receiving freelance gigs for years. Certainly, there’s a big difference between working on an existing game system (as I was my first time out) and the core rulebook for something new, but I thought that the most recent e20 Lite PDF would provide more than enough guidance to keep people on track. Clearly, I was wrong.

Between that and how much I underestimated the difficulty of learning how to do layout for a complete book, things got way behind schedule pretty quickly. Deadlines passed, freelancers dropped out or turned in woefully incomplete assignments, and even those items turned in on time often needed substantial development and editing to get them up to par. A few patrons really went above and beyond, turning in exceptional work, but they were a small minority.

I feel horrible for not realizing how much trouble people were having earlier and for not figuring out how to provide the kind of guidance they needed; one of the things I most wanted out of this project was to help would-be freelancers get a shot at doing real game design work so they could learn the ropes. With my skewed perspective on how much help they’d need and my inexperience with managing a whole project (as opposed to “merely” designing, developing, or editing), I came up woefully short on guiding them through the process.

As Gen Con approached, the only thing that kept me going was a single-minded dedication to finishing the book on time. I was working 12 or more hours a day, every day, to try bring it in for a landing, and I was pushing myself right up to my breaking point. When Gen Con arrived and it still wasn’t done, I even stayed up all night in the hotel room to try to finish it off so I could burn CDs with copies of the PDF to sell in my exhibit hall booth. It was so tantalizingly close, but the list of items I’d have to cut and save for a later project was growing longer and longer.

In the end, it wasn’t enough, and the bitter, soul-crushing despair of failing to reach that goal made all the physical & mental exhaustion I’d been pushing down come over me all at once. I completely collapsed after getting home, and I sunk into a major depressive episode where I couldn’t do much of anything. I spent weeks trying to recover and get my bearings again, but even looking at the manuscript was triggering massive panic attacks. My depression- and anxiety-flooded mind was telling me that I would never work again, that my whole life had just ended and this book would be my tombstone: “Here lies a colossal failure who couldn’t finish what he started.”

I’d reached a point where I could hardly open my email without a panic attack: I saw one too many messages asking politely about the status of the book, but in my mental state a pleasant and friendly inquiry felt like an angry denunciation. I don’t think I really managed to start recovering until the middle of September, when I received a very touching and concerned email from one of our patrons who I’d met just once in late 2010; given that I was having so much trouble even looking at my inbox, let alone reading actual emails, it was rather remarkable that I saw it at all.

It was the first line in the email preview that caught my eye: “Are you doing OK?”

Yes, he talked about the project and the need to post an update, but the part that really stood out was that he was asking me how I’m feeling. Many of my own friends couldn’t tell how bad a place I was in because I, like most people with severe depression, had learned to hide it under a mask of false pleasantness for a few hours at a time. (I’ll discuss this more below.) Somehow, it reached me, and knowing at least some people were worried more about me than the book started to pull me out of it.

It took a few weeks to recover and start to really do inventory on the manuscript, figure out what was wrong with it, and plan exactly how to fix it. In retrospect, I’m very happy that I didn’t manage to “finish” the book in time for Gen Con; in my delirious haze of nonstop work and little sleep, I had been overlooking far too many details that would have made the game a hideous wreck.

More importantly, I just managed to get about two months’ supply of medication for the first time in almost a year, so I’m finally feeling like myself again and tearing through manuscript pages at a furious pace. The medication isn’t quite what worked best for me, but it’s a huge step up after going so long without anything at all.

Now, the end looks like it’s really in sight, and I can see all the intermediate steps to get there. It looks like I’ll even be able to squeeze in a last-minute round of playtesting online with our patrons to find and squash any remaining mechanical bugs before sending out the final PDF to patrons and the printers.

So, for the first time in far too long, things are looking up.

* * *

The following isn’t directly related to the above, and you can skip it entirely if you don’t want to read anything unrelated to gaming. It’s just a bunch of stuff I’ve always felt the need to say about some of the disorders I’ve had to deal with; it’s cathartic for me, and I hope that it will help someone, someday.

* * *

A Brief Discussion of Depression, Anxiety, and ADHD: If you don’t have any of these disorders, count yourself as very lucky; they can have an absolutely crippling effect on your ability to manage your day-to-day life. They have a high rate of co-morbidity (i.e. someone with one of them is fairly likely to have another) and their symptoms often overlap, mask, or feed into one another, so at times it can be difficult to diagnose them correctly. Many people have them but have never been diagnosed; they’re particularly common among creative types (writers, artists, etc.), and to some extent they seem to actually contribute to creativity. Seeing the world in a foggy haze of overlapping thoughts, random moments of blood-curdling terror, or the shattered fragments of dripping sadness apparently means you’ll have some unique ideas floating around in your head.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is probably one of the most misunderstood; lots of people think it only affects children, and many of them think that hyperactivity and inattentiveness are just bad behaviors that would go away if you discipline the child (“Sit down, shut up, and pay attention!”). That simply is not the case.

ADHD is caused by a general lack of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which plays a critical role in the “reward center” of your brain. Essentially, your brain is wired to give you a reward when you perform biologically important activities (e.g. eating, mating, etc.), and it’s the reason that food tastes good and orgasms feel even better. (It’s not a coincidence that people might compare a particularly decadent slice of chocolate cake to sex; they both use the same reward mechanism.)

Dopamine ultimately reinforces behaviors that become tangentially associated with these basic biological needs. For example, you learn to seek attention, praise, and approval very early on because you associate that with your parents taking care of your most basic needs; it’s no different than Pavlov’s dogs learning to associate the sound of a bell with food. Over time, you begin to receive dopamine rewards for doing activities that are related to attention, praise, etc., even when the primary (biological) stimulus is not present, and otherwise boring tasks unrelated to biology start to become their own reward. This function is how you reinforce behaviors to learn new things and motivate yourself to perform tasks that don’t relate directly to survival of the species. It’s also how many addictive drugs work, stimulating your brain with the same reward normally reserved for meaningful activities.

Now, try to imagine that this fundamental reward function doesn’t work correctly. Your reinforcement is always less than it should be, so you’re essentially constantly lacking the dopamine that your brain is wired to seek. Food, sex, and even the most stimulating diversions feel only a fraction as good to you as they should, and everything else feels like the most boring thing you can imagine, like being trapped alone in a featureless room for hours doing nothing but watching paint dry.

So what does your brain do? It wants more of everything that’s even remotely stimulating. It will make you pursue the tiniest diversions to get just another tiny hit of dopamine, whether that’s by overeating, engaging in promiscuous sex, using illicit narcotics, or even seemingly minor things such as subconsciously fidgeting in your chair for the extra sensory input or latching on to any passing thought or ambient sound just to fill the happiness void inside you.

These last two things are self-stimulating behaviors, and they are why hyperactivity and inattentiveness occur in people with ADHD. They’re the brain’s desperate attempt to find something — anything — that provides a split-second of that sweet, sweet dopamine fix. As you can imagine, an inability to sit still, listen to a single voice, or focus on a single train of thought can cause serious problems with learning and developing life skills. Your brain grabbing onto every tiny passing stimulus is like being in a room with a hundred TVs covering every wall, each on a different channel and at maximum volume.

Many people with ADHD don’t know they have it and they self-medicate; overeating, promiscuous sex, and drug abuse are very common coping mechanisms. Drug abuse, by the way, isn’t just illicit narcotics; it can include tobacco (nicotine) and caffeine, both of which are mild stimulants, and this is what I did before I was diagnosed. (Going through an entire 12-pack of soda in a day was usually the minimum I had.)

In fact, the best treatment for ADHD is a stimulant medication that fills the gap left by insufficient dopamine; the best ones use some extended-release mechanism to keep its levels steady for a long period, allowing you to function like a normal person while they’re on. (The same effect can be achieved if you drink a ridiculously unhealthy amount of caffeine, but it’s such a high amount that it will usually cause nausea, rapid heartbeat, etc., which I found out the hard way.)

If you think someone might have ADHD — constant fidgeting, interrupting, forgetting details, extreme procrastination, often “zoning out” when you’re talking to them, especially if a TV or other distraction is in sight, etc. — medication is really the only way to fix it. Yes, there are some cognitive behavioral approaches that can help, but in my experience they don’t quite get through that mental fog; ultimately, the problem is a lack of dopamine, and it needs to be addressed directly.

Get help for them earlier rather than later; a very smart child might be able to make up for ADHD and still get good grades for quite some time, but eventually it will catch up with them and start to cause problems. (In my case, this didn’t happen until I was working on a Ph.D., and every day I wish it had been caught when I was in elementary school.)

Panic Disorder: I think the best way to explain a panic attack is to tell you to imagine what it feels like in that split-second before a car wreck, that gut-wrenching fear that floods your brain as you realize that something horrible is about to happen.

Now, try to imagine that this feeling hits you frequently and unpredictably; sometimes you can figure out a stimulus that triggers it, but sometimes they seem to come out of nowhere. Suddenly, your brain is screaming over and over at you, “You’re dying! You’re dying! You’re dying!” The fight-or-flight response kicks in, but there’s nothing to run from.

Personally, I suspect that this has high co-morbidity with ADHD and depression because of that “happiness void” I mentioned; if you’re not getting enough stimulation that tells your brain that everything is OK (plenty of food, well-rested, etc.) so it will release dopamine, eventually your amygdala gets the idea that something is horribly wrong. I’ve never seen research to back this up, but it does seem to fit with my experience; I’ve never had one while fully occupied and entertained, but they come on very easily in quiet moments. At the very least, I think that this chronic under-stimulation can condition the amygdala to be on a hair trigger, like with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Even worse than the panic attacks themselves is that you eventually become terrified of the idea of having one; you avoid anything that seems to trigger them, and it’s even possible for your fear of having a panic attack to actually cause a panic attack. Once this sets in, you have very significant trouble functioning until you get medication (e.g. Clonezapam) to control it.

Major Depressive Disorder: Like ADHD, this one is definitely based in neurotransmitter deficiencies (including dopamine), so it makes sense that they often occur together. Some people mistakenly think that major depression is just sadness, but it’s much more than that. I’m going to try my very best to describe what it feels like.

Depression is feeling your soul rotting inside an animated corpse. It’s drowning in a bottomless pit of sorrow as a mountain of ice-cold water crushes the breath out of your chest. It’s such an utter, overwhelming despair that you can’t even cry. It’s absolute emptiness, a hollow inside your being, a hole so deep you can never fill it — and sometimes you look into that abyss and you long to throw yourself in, just to escape, just to feel something, anything, other than pain, regret, and sorrow in that moment as you disappear into oblivion.

Depression is when your brain tries to kill you.

Please, please take depression seriously. About 3.4% of people with major depression ultimately commit suicide (accounting for up to 60% of all suicides). You can’t be talked out of depression, and you can’t just cheer yourself up. In fact, people with major depression often do a very good job of hiding it from friends and family, and the shame of the social stigma of depression just feeds into it, making it worse.

Obviously, you don’t want to be dismissive and tell someone with depression to get over it, but you also don’t want to start handling that person with kid gloves and walking around on eggshells. Though meaning well, it feels like condescending pity and it reinforces feelings of shame and worthlessness.

Just talk with them. Be there for them. A lot of the time, just a voice reaching out can pierce the wall of darkness around them. (It’s what an email from someone I’ve met only once did for me.)

If you’re afraid they might have suicidal thoughts, keep them talking and it will usually pass. If it feels like they’re actively planning to kill themselves, keep them talking but get help (911) as soon as possible. It’s good to keep the number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline — (800) 273-8255 — in your phone in case you’re having trouble getting through or thinking of what to say.

If you’re depressed, seek help. Go to a doctor who specializes in this; it does get better — sometimes completely! — with the right medication and/or therapy. Spend more time with friends and family, and don’t be afraid to open up.

Most importantly, keep that suicide hotline number in your phone just in case you need it someday. Everyone you know will be happy you did.

The single biggest factor in this was me overestimating how quickly I could get through the layout process. I’ve done layout on smaller projects (such as the Revenge of the Sith Collection, some other Star Wars web enhancements, and e20 Lite), and I tried to extrapolate from that to figure out the time I’d need to complete the job. Unfortunately, it seems that the length-to-time relationship isn’t linear. For example, if something is twice as long, you not only have twice as many page references to insert but also twice as many distinct places those page references can point to; in other words, this particular task would probably be closer to four times as much work even though it’s only twice as many pages. (Since the e20 Universal Rulebook is over four times longer than anything I’d done layout on before, you can probably imagine how these things add up.)

Complicating this was the fact that a couple of sections of the book were still getting some final development and editing to reflect the final changes we’d made in response to playtesting. When you have first-time freelancers contributing to a project, they really have no way to anticipate what sorts of problems they might encounter; some did exceptionally well, but others needed a lot of extra help. I had thought I’d have enough extra time to pick up the slack and help them finish their assignments, but my error on estimating the time required for layout meant that I could help out far less than I thought I would be able to. The result is that these assignments took a lot longer to finish, and that in turn kept me from being able even to start their layout until much, much later than anticipated.

In the end, those sorts of things added up and required more time than I had. Right up until the very end, I thought I could still squeeze enough time out to manage it, but it just wasn’t possible. We worked really hard to try to finish before the end of Gen Con, but there was just too much going on at the convention to be able to achieve the level of production we really needed to tie up all the loose ends.

So, to everyone who had come to my booth at Gen Con wanting to pick up a copy of the e20 Universal Rulebook, I sincerely apologize for letting you down. I will have everything finished and sent to everyone who has pre-ordered a copy (including all patrons who contributed up front) as soon as possible, and I’ll post another update to let you know when I know the exact date that will happen.

Unfortunately, I realized several days ago that I had misunderstood one of the printing deadlines to have the book printed in time for Gen Con. I had thought the number they gave me was the total turnaround time, but it was actually just the printing time for the books themselves. It didn’t include their initial file approval time (1 to 2 business days), the time to print a proof copy of the book for me to evaluate (1 to 3 business days), the time to ship the proof copy (minimum 1 business day), and the time to ship the actual print run (minimum 1 business day).

Once I realized my error, I knew I had roughly 12 hours to try to finish all the layout if I still wanted it printed by Gen Con — and, frankly, 12 hours wasn’t enough time to do it right. (I had thought the cut-off point wasn’t for another 4 to 7 business days.)

Rather than compromise on the quality when it was so close to finished, I called an audible and decided that I’d just have PDF copies of the book for sale on CD ($10) at Gen Con. Anyone who isn’t a patron can also pre-order a copy of the book (softcover for $25 or hardcover for $40) at Gen Con to be shipped to you as soon as they come in; if you do, you’ll get the PDF on CD immediately (for free) and free shipping for the book itself.

This plan gives a few extra days to make sure the book is as good as it can possibly be, and I would receive the book’s print run very shortly after getting back from Gen Con. Once they arrive, I’ll start mailing them out to every patron who contributed at the $50+ level as well as anyone who pre-ordered a copy at Gen Con. (They’ll also be available for purchase on our website at that time.)

Also, all patrons will be able to download their copy of the PDF as soon as I have everything finished (before Gen Con starts).

To everyone who was looking forward to receiving their copy in person at Gen Con, I’m really sorry about this; I do hope you still drop by the GMSarli Games booth (#2242 in the exhibit hall) and the e20 System seminar (Thursday, 8/4 at 6 PM in Marriott: Indiana Ballroom D) to chat about the project.

Thanks again for all your patience!

The convention staff has finally posted the schedule for the Guest of Honor panels, and I wanted to highlight those that I will be attending.

A Guide to Game Design (SEM1128743)
Thursday, 8/4 from 5 PM to 6 PM
Indianapolis Convention Center room 212
Description: In this high-level overview of game design, our Industry panelists discuss the basic principles, from concept to playtesting. Is it art? science? mathematics? If you have a game idea but aren’t sure what you should do next, let the panelists give you some ins and outs to help guide you.
Panelists: Greg Stolze, Will Hindmarch, Gary M. Sarli, Matt Forbeck, Jeff Neil Bellinger, Stan!

Patronage & Kickstarter: How to Get Paid Up Front (SEM1128827)
Friday, 8/5 from 9 AM to 10 AM
Indianapolis Convention Center room 212
Description: Insights from Industry Insider Guests of Honor Wolfgang Baur, Gary M. Sarli, Daniel Solis, and Greg Stolze on how they funded projects by convincing patrons to donate early in exchange for exclusive access, rewards, and even input into the project.
Panelists: Gary M. Sarli, Wolfgang Baur, Daniel Solis, Greg Stolze

GMing: Techniques & Tips (SEM1128759)
Friday, 8/5 from 5 PM to 6 PM
Indianapolis Convention Center room 212
Description: GMing is a skill, it can be learned & with practice you can get better! Join our guests as they offer ideas on how to improve your existing campaigns, improvise a plot in response to the player’s action, talk about story-oriented roleplaying … “role” playing instead of “roll” playing, & how to bring new life to old campaigns. The best way is to learn & improve is to talk shop with fellow GMs & exchange solutions for common & uncommon problems.
Panelists: Jonathan Tweet, Will Hindmarch, Gary M. Sarli

Freelancing: A Challenging & Exciting Career Path (SEM1128725)
Saturday, 8/6 from 5 PM to 6 PM
Indianapolis Convention Center room 212
Description: Being a freelancer in today’s industry is challenging but rewarding! Join our Industry Insider guests as they share their know-how and discuss how to naviagate through the ins and outs of this exciting career path. These experts will pass along their knowledge to the next generation of freelancers.
Panelists: Will Hindmarch, Matt Forbeck, Greg Stolze, Gary M. Sarli

Given the above panels along with my own e20 System Evolved events and running the GMSarli Games booth in the exhibit hall, here’s what my Gen Con schedule looks like:

Thursday, 8/4

• 9 AM – 12 PM: GMSarli Games booth #2242 in exhibit hall (early access for Very Important Gamer attendees from 9 AM to 10 AM)
• 12 PM – 4 PM: GMing “Graveyard of the Hollow Sky” e20 System adventure (JW Marriott: 209, table 3)
• 4 PM – 5 PM: GMSarli Games booth #2242 in exhibit hall
• 5 PM – 6 PM: Panelist, “A Guide to Game Design” (ICC: 212)
• 6 PM – 7 PM: Panelist, “What’s New in the e20 System?” (Marriott: Indiana Ballroom D)
• 7 PM – 11 PM: GMing “Graveyard of the Hollow Sky” e20 System adventure (JW Marriott: 209, table 4)
• 11 PM – 1 AM: True Dungeon with GMSarli Games staff

Friday, 8/5

• 9 AM – 10 AM: Panelist, “Patronage & Kickstarter: How to Get Paid Up Front” (ICC: 212)
• 10 AM – 12 PM: GMSarli Games booth #2242 in exhibit hall
• 12 PM – 4 PM: GMing “Graveyard of the Hollow Sky” e20 System adventure (JW Marriott: 209, table 4)
• 4 PM – 5 PM: GMSarli Games booth #2242 in exhibit hall
• 5 PM – 6 PM: Panelist, “GMing: Techniques & Tips” (ICC: 212)
• 7 PM – 11 PM: GMing “Graveyard of the Hollow Sky” e20 System adventure (JW Marriott: 209, table 2)
• 11:26 PM – 1:26 AM: True Dungeon with Owen K. C. Stephens (@Owen_Stephens), @ChattyDM, @NewbieDM, @Rolling20s, and GMSarli Games staff

Saturday, 8/6

• 10 AM – 12 PM: GMSarli Games booth #2242 in exhibit hall
• 12 PM – 4 PM: GMing “Graveyard of the Hollow Sky” e20 System adventure (JW Marriott: 209, table 1)
• 4 PM – 5 PM: GMSarli Games booth #2242 in exhibit hall
• 5 PM – 6 PM: Panelist, “Freelancing: A Challenging & Exciting Career Path” (ICC: 212)
• 7 PM – 11 PM: GMing “Graveyard of the Hollow Sky” e20 System adventure (JW Marriott: 209, table 2)

Sunday, 8/7

• 10 AM – 12 PM: GMSarli Games booth #2242 in exhibit hall
• 2 PM – 4 PM: GMSarli Games booth #2242 in exhibit hall (closes at 4 PM)

On most days, I’m literally scheduled from the time I get up until I finally stagger back to the hotel room and collapse. Please excuse me if I seem a little fuzzy and bleary eyed when you run into me.

If you want to meet me and chat about games, get an autograph, or otherwise just hang out for a bit, your best times to do so are when I’m in the GMSarli Games booth (#2242) or immediately after a panel I’m attending. (In the latter case, we might need to “walk and talk” if I have another event immediately afterward.) I might briefly step out of the booth from time to time to grab a bite to eat or address other basic biological needs, but I should be there at least 90% of the time listed above.

I absolutely love attending Gen Con every year and getting to meet the fans, and I’m really looking forward to it this year as a reward for all the work we’re doing to finish the e20 System Evolved Core Rulebook on time to release it at the convention. I hope to see you all there!

The exhibit hall is not in the same place it has been in years past. Instead of being in Halls A – D (i.e. across from the Marriott Downtown Indianapolis), it has been moved to the larger space of Halls H – K (i.e. where the old Indianapolis Colts dome was located before it was replaced by the RCA Dome). This will be something of an adjustment to those of us who have been to the convention before, but I’m sure we can adapt.

GMSarli Games is in booth #2242. If you’re coming into the exhibit hall through the main doors, we’re close to the back-right corner of the exhibit hall, just around the corner from Wizards of the Coast. If you’re coming into the exhibit hall from Hall G (miniatures and card gaming area), you should be able to see us just off to your left as you walk through the doors.

Since we’re kind of in an out-of-the-way location this year, I’ve highlighted our booth on this map of the exhibit hall (click to enlarge):

You can use this exhibitors list (PDF) to find specific booths. Personally, I like to know the relative layout of the exhibit hall before it opens so I get a chance to get those highly sought (and quick to sell out) items that premiere at the convention.

As I mentioned, the exhibit hall is in a new location this year, so the kind folks at Gen Con put together a video to help you get oriented to the new setting:

Gen Con is going to be insanely busy for me this year. In addition to all the e20 System Evolved events I’m hosting at Gen Con, I’ve been selected to be an industry insider Guest of Honor at the convention as well — and that means I’ll be joining a few more panels. When I have the final schedule, I’ll post it here so you’ll know where to find me at any given time: when I’m in the GMSarli Games booth, when I’m on a panel, when I’m GMing one of the “Graveyard of the Hollow Sky” adventures … pretty much everything.

I hope to see you all there — drop by and say hello when you get a chance!

Phase I: Preparation

(1) Create a detailed outline for the final product; you won’t necessarily be sharing all these details at the beginning, but it will give you enough information that you will be able to answer questions and give potential backers a firm idea of where the project is headed. More importantly, this will help you decide what parts of the project (if any) are negotiable and open to input and feedback from backers.

Insider access and input are the most important things you’re selling to your backers, so give this very careful thought. You absolutely have to be up front and clear about which decisions have already been made and which are open to negotiation. The more input backers get, the more interest you’ll be able to drum up for the project — but don’t promise more than you’re willing to deliver.

(2) Figure out a reasonable production schedule, complete with benchmarks for starting and ending major phases of the project. Be warned that the more access and input your backers have, the more drawn out the schedule will become; a good rule of thumb is that any stage where they have input will take approximately twice as long as it normally would. (Seriously, my single biggest mistake was underestimating how much this could stretch out the process; the phrase “herding cats” comes to mind, especially at the earliest stages.)

Ideally, you’ll set your schedule with enough padding that you can consistently stay ahead of deadlines; if you under-promise and over-deliver, you keep your backers happy.

(3) Calculate a comprehensive budget, including fair payment for freelancers (yourself included!), printing and shipping costs, overhead for your website, etc. Once complete, figure out how much of that budget you can afford to put up yourself and how much you’ll need to raise on Kickstarter.

In a recent post, Daniel Solis (@DanielSolis) suggested that you should plan to put up approximately half of the total costs yourself with a Kickstarter project; I agree, but I would add the caveat that “half the total costs” might include your own unpaid labor in addition to or instead of actual up-front capital.

The reason you should plan to put up half the costs yourself is that you want the fundraising goal to be as low as possible; Kickstarter’s statistics show that 90% of projects that reach 30% of their goal are successful (i.e. reaching 100% or more by the deadline). Given this, you want to do everything possible to hit that 30% “tipping point” as early as possible, and the lower you can set the final fundraising goal, the better your odds of doing so. (Obviously, there is a trade-off here: You absolutely cannot set your fundraising goal even one cent less than you really need to complete the project as promised and on schedule.)

There is one critical component of your budget that you can’t plan with 100% accuracy ahead of time: the cost of rewards for your backers. Hypothetically, let’s say you have a goal of $5,000 and four reward levels: $10 for a PDF of a rulebook, $25 for a printed softcover copy of the rulebook, $50 for an autographed, limited-edition hardcover along with special insider access (i.e. more input into the process, such as voting on items), and $100 for “senior patron” status (i.e. as $50 but with even more access, such as getting to join in exclusive chats with you on Skype, having the right to nominate items for voting, “naming rights” for characters and such, etc.).

• If you get 500 patrons at the $10 (PDF) level, you have no real cost to deliver your rewards.
• If you instead have 200 patrons at the $25 (softcover) level, you’re going to have to pay to print and ship 200 copies of the rulebook. CreateSpace is one of the most affordable options for print-on-demand books, making it ideal for a short run like this; even with them, a softcover rulebook might cost you $4.50 to $6.00 each (depending on length), and when you add shipping (both from the printers to you and from you to your backers), you could be spending up to $10 (or more!) for each copy of the rulebook. So, for this scenario, you’re out $2,000 just to give rewards to your backers.
• If you instead have 50 “senior patrons” (autographed hardcover + mega-insider access), you’re printing and shipping hardcover books but only 50 of them. CreateSpace actually has a hardcover option; it’s not available for print-on-demand orders, but you can have them printed and sold directly to you. In this case, your cost per book (including shipping) is probably around $15 or so, so your total expense is $750 to fulfill your backers’ rewards.

See how that works? Depending on what reward levels people choose, your ultimate costs can fluctuate dramatically. Plan and budget for the worst-case scenario (just to be on the safe side); realistically, you’ll probably find that a very high percentage of your backers will choose the higher reward levels (whose rewards are abstract and free for you to provide), but it’s hard to predict exact ratios and you shouldn’t try to count on it.

This, by the way, is one reason why a project needs to be as focused as possible. If you try to bundle multiple projects together — a rulebook, web tools, and a novel — and then give backers the option to pick individual pieces a la carte, you might end up with a very lopsided set of rewards that you have to provide. For example, if you have just one person opt for the novel, you have to write the whole thing for a single customer.

It’s usually best to do these as separate Kickstarter projects; if nothing else, it lets you gauge interest in a given project (and be sure that there are enough customers wiling to buy it) before you commit to starting it.

(4) Figure out your marketing campaign to sell the idea. This needs to be every bit as developed as you would do for a finished product:

• Think of what you would write on the back cover (basically a one-sentence hook that leads into a 75- to 100-word elevator pitch).
• Use the opening pitch to lead into a 500- to 1000-word detailed description of the project, its goals, and what a backer gets in exchange for their early pledge. Find a good place (near the top) to sell yourself as well; potential backers need to have confidence in your abilities, and highlighting your experience can help make this happen.
• You’ll need a good logo and artwork to really sell the professionalism of the project. (This is one place you have to sink in some significant time and/or money ahead of time.)
• On your website, you’ll also need more detailed information, a FAQ, and (ideally) message boards. Elsewhere, get all your social media stuff (Facebook fan page, Twitter, etc.) set up. You want everything in place to allow for you to actively engage with potential backers from the very beginning; early and consistent engagement is the single most important thing you can do.
• Finally — and I can’t emphasize this enough — you need an introductory video. It needs to be short and to the point, and it should establish a personal connection that helps potential backers get to know you. Look at the video I made for the e20 System Project or Daniel Solis’s video for Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple to see some good examples; you should also look at some successful or high-profile projects on Kickstarter to see what has worked for others.

Phase II: Determine Kickstarter Project Details

(5) Decide on the start and end dates for the fundraising drive. Last year, I recall reading on the Kickstarter blog that projects with a duration of around 30 days seem to have the highest success rate. If you go too short, some potential backers might not be able to pledge because they don’t happen to have enough free money (and they don’t have enough time to save up for it). If you go too long, you risk the project losing momentum; discussions might fade out, people might put it off for next month and then forget about it, and so forth. A length between 30 and 45 days is probably best.

When you pick your ending date, give some thought to how much people have available at a given time of the month or day of the week. Personally, I would recommend having the project end in the second half of the month, preferably on a Friday or Saturday night. Lots of people get paid twice a month (e.g. the 1st and 15th), and the first paycheck is often earmarked for major bills such as paying the mortgage or rent. People who get paid every week or every two weeks very commonly get paid on a Friday (not all the time, but often), so you want to have the deadline come at a time when they’re more likely to have a little extra money.

I recommend setting the deadline on a Friday or Saturday night for another reason as well: You will get a lot of last-minute pledges, so you want to make sure the deadline is at a time when the majority of potential backers have the opportunity to do so (i.e. awake and not working) just before the project ends. Some don’t want to get emotionally invested in the project until they know it’s going to be successful, and some might just want to sit on the idea until the last minute. (This comes largely from my experience running an online store and auctions; on eBay, auctions that end on a Friday or Saturday night usually have the highest final bids, and in my store I always get more business on weekend nights than on other days.)

(6) Decide on your reward levels for backers. This is a critical phase, and it’s probably the easiest to mess up; take your time to consider things as holistically as possible.

(a) Your lowest-level rewards should require a pledge of no more than $20 (and preferably no more than $10). For example, a PDF copy of a large rulebook will usually fall into this range.

(b) The lowest tiers should have minimum pledges equivalent to the purchase price of pre-ordering the finished product. For example, you might have a $10 pledge for the PDF and a $25 pledge for a softcover rulebook (via print-on-demand). In addition, they should get some basic insider information during the project, such as frequent updates, sneak peeks, and the opportunity to do playtesting. Finally, it’s nice for these early backers to get their copies before the product goes on sale to the general public; it doesn’t have to be much earlier (e.g. maybe a week), but a little bit goes a long way toward making backers feel that they’re getting special treatment and that their early support is appreciated.

(c) The mid-level tiers should begin to focus on exclusives (e.g. a hardcover edition only for backers, autographed copies, etc.) and greater degrees of access. As you go up to higher minimum pledges, try to think of intangible rewards that are relatively easy for you to provide but that give the backers special treatment that makes it worth the extra money. For example, autographing the book is free and it’s a nice touch. Similarly, rewarding these backers with a vote on major items doesn’t cost any extra money on your part (but it does take time, so plan your schedule accordingly).

(d) The higher-level tiers should offer particularly special exclusives such as the right to name or design iconic characters, pitch whole sections of the book (possibly even getting to write them for normal freelancer pay), and nominate ideas that they’d like to put up for a general vote. These tiers should usually be limited in number; first, you don’t want to end up with a “too many chefs in the kitchen” situation, and second, the fact that they are exclusive and limited will encourage people to make these higher pledges early.

High-level rewards also have a secondary function: They provide contrast that shows how good a bargain you get at the lower- and mid-level tiers. Sometimes, all someone needs to talk themselves into making a purchase is to see a more expensive option that they can reject, allowing them to feel like they’re being frugal and not wasting money on unnecessary extravagance.

Of course, a lot of people want to feel like they’re buying the best of the best, and they don’t mind putting up a little extra in exchange for special treatment. For them, the lower-level tiers provide a nice contrast that shows how special the higher-level tiers are.

(e) Consider including at least a few ultra-high-level reward levels that are very limited in number. For example, in the e20 System project I had a single $1,500 VIP level; it had everything that was in the $200 level plus a trip to Gen Con (including a badge, travel, and sharing a hotel with me and my booth staff). I honestly didn’t expect anyone to take me up on it, but someone did! It turned out to be a fun experience, and even after paying for his trip I still netted several hundred extra dollars in exchange for hosting him during the convention.

There are lots of variations you can play with here. For example, one idea I saw was to have the designer personally deliver the product to the VIP backer and even run a complete adventure for the backer’s gaming group. Obviously, you have to set this pledge high enough to pay for your travel and lodging plus enough extra for it to be worth the extra time on your part, but I’m sure that this idea could sell.

(f) Finally, give lower-level backers the option of pledging above the minimum to buy extra copies of the final product. On Kickstarter, anyone can pledge higher than the minimum for the reward level they choose, so all you need to do to implement this option is to write it into the description. For example, the $25 pledge (softcover rulebook) might include the option to buy an additional copy for every extra $25 you pledge; if you want to really encourage this and you’re able to afford it, you might even give a discount for extra copies (e.g. $20 for each extra copy).

Phase III: Soft Launch

(7) Do a soft launch for the project on your website and via social media at least 30 days before you start the actual Kickstarter project. You want to get the word out and get people interested and talking before you start the fundraising drive itself. At this stage, you’ll need to be able to tell people firm dates for the start and end of the Kickstarter drive, reward levels for backers, and so forth; use your own website as the central location for this because you won’t have a Kickstarter page to send people to until later.

Go to any message boards you frequent to post about the project (but don’t be spammy — if you don’t regularly post somewhere, don’t announce in that forum). Include links to the project in your message board profile and signature.

There are plenty of other websites and blogs that might be interested, so don’t be shy about getting in touch with them to tell them about the project (perhaps as a formal press release). For example, if doing a roleplaying game project, you might submit a short press release to ENWorld to see if they’ll include it in their news feed for the day.

Get all your friends and colleagues on board; the more voices you can get talking about the project, the better your odds will be.

(8) Do frequent Google searches (or set up a Google alert) to find people talking about the project; you’d be surprised how many different places you’ll find. When you find blogs or forums discussing your project, always post a reply. Be exceedingly polite and patient in answering questions, addressing concerns, and — most importantly — being understanding and complementary toward people who don’t like the project or aren’t interested.

A little graciousness goes a long way; I managed to turn several people who were initially openly critical of my project into actual backers. Sometimes, a person’s natural reaction is one of disdain (“Who the hell is this guy?”), especially if they don’t immediately recognize you and your work. Once they get to know you and they see how polite, patient, and professional you are in answering questions, the majority of these early critics will either become neutral (i.e. no longer loudly criticizing the idea), well-wishers (i.e. they’re not interested in being backers, but they’ll mention it to friends who might be interested and perhaps even buy it when it is published), supporters (i.e. they make a pledge on Kickstarter), or — in a few cases — “evangelists” who go out of their way to spread the word about your project and actively promote it among friends.

Bookmark every message board thread, blog, or other location where you find your project being discussed; you’ll need this later on.

(9) When using social media, make sure you don’t ever come across as spammy. Facebook fan page updates shouldn’t be more than 1-2 times per day at the very most; similarly, make sure no more than 20-30% of your Twitter activity is devoted to promoting or discussing the project.

Make sure you have something new to say each time; don’t just remind people over and over again about the project. As you engage with potential backers, you’ll get some good discussions going; when this happens, use social media to get other people in on the conversation. This keeps it fresh and gets more people engaged.

The only times you should risk posting more frequently are just as the Kickstarter phase is starting and in the last 2-3 days before it ends. At this point, a few extra reminders about the project are understandable and expected, so your fans and followers will forgive you for the extra posts at these critical points.

(10) Based on feedback you receive during the soft launch, be prepared to tweak your sales pitch; you’ll find a lot of things that don’t quite get the idea across, and this is a good chance to make adjustments and find good material for your FAQ.

In addition, you might want to add some additional reward levels, shorten or extend your fundraising period, and so forth. A lot of these details can’t be changed once you launch the Kickstarter project, so this might be your last chance to make any final adjustments.

IV: Kickstarter Launch

(11) Stay engaged. Continue everything you were doing during the soft launch, but make sure you direct people to the Kickstarter project page directly instead of sending them only to your website. The fewer clicks someone has to do to make a pledge, the higher your conversion rate will be.

Remember how I said to bookmark every place the project was being discussed during the soft launch? Go back to every single one of them and make a post pointing out that the Kickstarter project has started and is now taking pledges.

Be careful with stale message board threads and comment threads, though. If there have been no posts at all for weeks, you don’t want to be perceived as “necro-posting” to a long-dead thread. In these cases, it’s better to start a new thread; link to the old thread and point out that you didn’t want to annoy anyone by bumping such an old topic. That forum’s patrons (and moderators) will appreciate this.

(12) Add a Kickstarter widget to your website and any message board posts where you have announced the project. Once the project is live, this widget can be used to provide a direct link to the project along with its current status (number of pledges, funding level, % of goal achieved, and number of days remaining).

This is a very useful tool — don’t overlook it.

(13) Post frequent updates on Kickstarter itself, following all the same rules as for social media (i.e. make sure you have something new to say, preferably a topic or question that will get people more engaged). An update 1-2 times a week usually seems about right.

You also have the option to post updates that are visible only to people that have already made a pledge; use it when needed (especially when you’re making the final push as the deadline approaches), but don’t overdo it.

Keep a close watch on comments and questions posted by potential and current backers on the Kickstarter project; I don’t think you automatically receive notifications of these, so you need to stay on top of it yourself.

(14) DON’T PANIC.

Seriously, don’t worry too much about the pledges (or the lack thereof) on any given day. In my experience, the fundraising breaks down into four distinct phases:

(a) During the first quarter of the fundraising period, you’ll see a nice initial burst of activity (especially in the first few days). These earliest backers will often be your most important supporters, and many of them will actively promote your project to others. Show them your gratitude in as many ways as you can.

Ideally, you’ll reach that 30% tipping point (making you 90% likely to be successful ultimately) during this stage, but don’t worry too much if you don’t.

(b) During the second and third quarters of the fundraising period, things will slow down. The early adopters have already made pledges, and during this long middle you should get a slow but steady trickle of new pledges. Your biggest challenge during this period is keeping people excited and engaged; stay active, pitch ideas, and get them talking as much as you can.

(c) During the final quarter of the fundraising period, things will pick up again. A lot of people get their last paycheck before the deadline within this last week, so this is their first chance to make a pledge (and to be certain that they won’t have to back out of it). As the number of pledges increases in the final quarter, the activity will begin snowballing as people become more and more sure that the project is going to make it to its goal.

(d) Somewhere along the way — maybe early, maybe late — you will be right on the threshold of reaching your goal. When this happens, be prepared for another surge of new pledges; it’s something of a bandwagon effect. I suspect that many people don’t want to get their hopes up for the project, and once it crosses this line (or gets very close), they’re willing to emotionally invest in it and make a pledge.

In fact, many of your earlier backers will even increase their original pledge as you get close to the goal; once it’s that close, they decide to help push it over the top because they really want to see it succeed.

(15) Once the deadline hits, you’ll be busy for a few days doing stuff like sending out information requests via Kickstarter (e.g. so you know where to send the final product), but make sure you take the time to thank everyone for their support. They deserve the credit for making it happen, so be humble, gracious, and thankful to them for all their hard work.

As the project goes forward, obviously, you’ll need to keep them engaged as the real work begins; try to update Kickstarter with the latest news every now and then. This ensures that all of your backers receive the update because not everyone will check your website regularly.

Don’t be surprised if a large number of your backers turn out to be relatively quiet during the post-fundraising period; a fairly small portion of them (maybe 20%) will turn out to be the most active and vocal, but don’t misinterpret the relative quietness of the other 80% as an indication of disinterest or disapproval. They’ll speak up when they need to, so make sure they always know how to get in touch with you when necessary (e.g. using the messaging feature on Kickstarter if nothing else).

There you go — 15 tips to get you on your way to a successful Kickstarter project. As you can see, there are a few of these I didn’t know when I did the e20 System project, and I’m sure things would have turned out even better if I did. Here’s hoping that these lessons, learned the hard way, can save you a little grief.

Questions? Suggestions? Something really simple and obvious I forgot to mention? Leave a comment below!

If you’re attending, Gen Con event registration opens today at 12 pm Eastern. GMSarli Games is running some e20 System events and we’d love for you to join us!

First, there’s our seminar, “What’s New in the e20 System?”

Find out the latest news about the e20 System and upcoming projects from Gary M. Sarli. Other patrons and members of the design and development team for the e20 System are invited to join the panel as well.

SEM1124159: Thu 8/4, 6-7 pm, Marriott: Indiana Ballroom D

Cost: Free to attend

Be sure to drop by to learn how you can be a part of our next patronage projects. Once the e20 System Core Rulebook is out, I’d like to publish an average of four expansions every year, and this is a chance to find out what’s in the pipeline and provide some input.

Second, we have an all-new e20 System adventure, “The Graveyard of the Hollow Sky,” set in one of the campaign settings provided in the e20 System Core Rulebook:

The heroes are sent to a remote medical ship whose staff have reported unusually high mortality rates among the wounded soldiers who arrive. Is it a plague? The lingering effects of an enemy weapon? Tainted medicine? Or something more sinister?

RPG1124152: Thu 8/4, 12-4 pm, JW Marriott: 209, table 3

RPG1124160: Thu 8/4, 7-11pm, JW Marriott: 209, table 4

RPG1124154: Fri 8/5, 12-4pm, JW Marriott: 209, table 4

RPG1124162: Fri 8/5, 7-11pm, JW Marriott: 209, table 2

RPG1124155: Sat 8/6, 12-4pm, JW Marriott: 209, table 1

RPG1124164: Sat 8/6, 7-11pm, JW Marriott: 209, table 2

Cost: $4 (or two generic tickets)

This adventure is a combination of action and mystery, providing a good introduction to the game for new players and demonstrating the versatility of the e20 System in a wide variety of situations. I’m currently listed as the Gamemaster for these adventures, but I’m going to see if any of the other e20 System designers want to run any of the evening games. (Even if I’m not Gamemastering a given session, I’ll definitely drop by for at least part of the adventure to meet everyone and watch the game in action.)

In addition, I’m planning to have a “Try Before You Buy” promotion linked to this adventure: Since you have to pay Gen Con $4 to play in one of these adventures, we’ll give every player a coupon for $4 off on a purchase of the e20 System Core Rulebook at our booth in the exhibit hall during the convention. In other words, if you like the game enough to buy a copy, the coupon is just like being reimbursed for your ticket purchase.

Don’t forget: Before you can buy event tickets, you need a Gen Con badge (either a 4-day badge or a 1-day badge for the day of the event). Gen Con event registration opens in just a few hours, so don’t delay!

Well, I finally found the time.

I decided to go with a simpler, less-cluttered design; in addition to providing links to our products, I wanted to put a greater emphasis on posts. One change I’d like to make is shifting gears to provide more regular and varied content, whether it’s discussing the current design work in the e20 System, commenting on the big gaming news of the day, giving a behind-the-scenes look at the process of writing and game design, or providing general gaming advice.

Why the shift? To be honest, I miss writing the “Jedi Counseling” column for the Star Wars Roleplaying Game, so I’d like to use this as a creative outlet — and, with any luck, some of you might find it helpful (or at least distracting as you try to avoid doing real work). Besides, I’ve been having a great time reading other gaming blogs such as Gnome Stew, Critical Hits, Newbie DM, and tons of others, and I’m determined not to let them have all the fun.

As of right now, the store is open and you can order things such as our custom map-printing service, t-shirts, and so forth; I’m still working the kinks out of the new set-up, so if you encounter any problems during checkout don’t hesitate to let me know about it.

Thanks, and happy gaming!

(Everyone who has been shocked to find that they’ve been playing until 4 am, raise your hand. Thought so!)

The idea is that even purely symbolic rewards (even the flash of experience points on the screen) triggers the part of your brain that rewards you for good work, and it releases dopamine to give you an immediate sense of satisfaction as a reward. This works on people the same way it works on lab rats.

This got me thinking about something I’ve been meaning to write a blog entry about for some time now: How to get yourself addicted to writing.

Behavioral psychology shows that the best way to get “addicted” to being productive is to get that dopamine rush on a variable-ratio schedule. The way this works is that once you complete a task, there’s some probability of getting a reward; the more often you complete it, the more often you get rewarded … but you never know for sure when that will happen. It might be after 10 more times, or it might be the very next one.

Sound familiar? It should. It’s the principle that keeps people sitting at slot machines, mechanically pulling the lever as often as the machine will let them. It’s also what makes some video games (especially MMOs) so addictive, when you think about it; many opponents randomly “drop” special items, and sometimes they’re really, really good — so you’ll sit there, plowing through opponents for hours if necessary, to get that super-special +5 Überslayer Sword of Doom.

How do you get this to work for yourself when writing? Well, I’m not a programmer so I can’t do anything that special, but almost every one of us has a nice randomization device available all the time: an iPod, iPhone, mp3 player, etc. set on shuffle.

Start by making yourself some audio files; make one that’s blank (no sound) and about 60 minutes long. Make a few others that have some sort of rewarding sound (a sample of a crowd cheering, or maybe the nostalgia-stirring sound of a power-up or 1UP in the old Super Mario Bros.), follow by a recording of yourself telling you what prize you won. There are plenty of free programs that allow you to make audio files of any length you require; I’ve had good results with WavePad and Audacity, but there are many others you might try.

The prizes should range from the really mundane and simple (coffee break, cigarette break, Angry Birds break, or whatever your personal demon might be) to events that should come up once a day (break for lunch, or call it a day if you’ve already had lunch once) to periodic treats for yourself (“Nice job! Let’s call it a day and order a pizza!”) to rare, special prizes you buy for yourself (“Congratulations! You just bought yourself an iPad 2!” or “Wooooooo! Time to hit the strip clubs!”).

It doesn’t matter what the rewards are as long as they work for you, you can commit to actually buying them for yourself (e.g. don’t promise yourself a new car unless you can actually afford it), and your roommate, spouse, kids, etc. won’t object too strenuously to you buying it.

Assemble a playlist with a whole bunch of copies of the “blank” audio file, about 1/2 as many of the “short break” rewards, 1/4 as many of the “long break” (lunch/end of day) rewards, and then progressively fewer of the really special rewards (say, 1/20 for something as minor as getting food delivered to maybe 1/100 to 1/1000 or less for the high-end super-special rewards). This playlist will be freaking huge, but don’t let that scare you.

When you’re working, put the playlist on random and repeat, and start it on one of the blank, hour-long tracks. Write, write, write. Every time you finish a full page (or whatever short-term but easy-to-identify benchmark you want … make it worth about 30 to 60 minutes of work for you, on average), skip to the next track — maybe it will be another blank track and you go back to work. Maybe it will be a short break. Maybe it will be a night of debauchery with strippers and booze. Maybe — very rarely! — you’ll hit the jackpot and get multiple rewards in a row: Cigarettes, pizza, new iPad, and strippers.

If you really, honestly hit a terrible stretch of writer’s block, you’ll still go to the next track after an hour — just promise yourself that you’ll pause immediately if you’re away from the keyboard or doing anything but writing. Force yourself to keep going — and the more you write, the more often you get a chance to buy yourself something really cool. Soon, the rewards for writing faster will get you over your writer’s block, and your writing speed will increase dramatically.

Over time, as you get to higher and higher levels of production, you can increase the number of blank tracks in the playlist. Do this gradually to hold yourself to an ever-increasing standard, but reward yourself by adding another high-end reward to the list every time you do. Just make sure you’re adding a lot more blank tracks than reward tracks.

As long as you can employ two really minor bits of discipline — always work when the playlist is running, and always buy yourself what you’ve earned — you’ll be getting a nice hot injection of dopamine with enough regularity that you’ll quite literally become addicted to writing. Try it for your next long-term writing project.