Setting Goals

As previously discussed at length, I get a lot of ideas. So many that I have to be selective about which ones I choose to work on. There just isn't time for all of them (and honestly some of the things I come up with are better off left as ideas). So it's important to set reasonable goals for what I'll focus on and have an initial plan of what I want to do in a project to keep me on track. My criteria for what gets my attention is simple:

1 Is it interesting?
Writing is a hobby for me so I can be picky about which projects I decide to take on. I'm not going to spend my free time working on something that's not fun, so anything I put effort into has to be an idea I'm excited about. If it doesn't grab me from the start I don't put it on my to-write list.

2 Can I actually do anything with it?
Sometimes an idea is interesting but too small, niche, or otherwise limited to stand on its own. In order for me to start working on something there has to be at least enough potential material to make a blogpost that feels like an intentional complete piece and not like I tried to pad out a tweet. If an idea's too small I'll keep it aside as something that could be worked into another idea or project later.

3 Will it be useful?
This point's not as stringent as the other two. I definitely write things that are silly or unlikely to ever see use at a table (hi, infinite cookie generator) but I do try to mostly make things that someone could use in a game. The majority of what I write is for me, either because I needed something and couldn't find it or just thought it'd be neat to have. I'll also make things that I see folks talking about or looking for. Knowing that a project would be useful/helpful to someone bumps it up in priority in my queue.

Once I've decided what to work on I set a scope for the project. I think over the potential things I could do with an idea, see if there are other ideas that might compliment it and get added in, and be realistic about how much there is to work with. Projects tend to fall into one of four size/complexity categories: blogpost, blogpost series, zine, or a full book. It's usually easy to tell which of the four an idea will suit so I choose, make an outline of the parts/components I'll need, and try to stick to that scale once I start. (Ex: For a Troika! sphere book I'd set a ballpark goal of how many backgrounds, enemies, spells, items, locations, etc. I'd want before I get started writing it.) I don't set a target word or page count, instead I aim for what feels like enough. It's not an exact science.

Every now and then I'll find I misjudged and an idea will be smaller than I initially thought or (much more often) that I can expand the project into something more involved. When that happens I'll change my plan and adapt the project's scope to the more suitable size. The important thing is that the final finished work feels like it fits the presentation and the ideas neatly fill the space they've been given, not too crowded to breathe and not overly padded or stretched.

I also commit. Once I've started on a project I generally keep working on it until it's done. My work queue is FIFO and it's rare for me to have more than one major thing in progress at at time. I also tend not to abandon projects if they've made it through the gauntlet to the point where I've started work. If I need to take a break I'll set a project aside for a while and focus on other things, but I'll eventually come back to it and finish it. There's no quitting or scrapping projects that I've taken on. If it takes a while to get them up to my standards so be it, but they will get done.