Last time I talked about working within the requirements, limitations, and advantages of one's own brain (using my own neurodivergent brain as an example). Every brain is different, from neurotypical to neurodivergent, and so figuring out your own strengths and weaknesses is key to creative work.
Here's what I've learned over the years that helps me with my issues and has allowed me to survive and even thrive in my work life. If what I've written about my challenges speaks to you, perhaps some of these approaches might help you too.
The Spark of the New
Novelty drives me. I am a huge neophile. I've no interest in working on "just another book." I hate returning to old things and updating them. When people tell me that I should revisit a prior creation and update it to a new rules system, I really have no interest in that. And the truth is, I shouldn't do it. If what I'm working on doesn't have a continuous flow of new ideas, it will become drudgery to me. And, good lord, no one wants to read or use a product that was drudgery for the writer or designer to create because, to be blunt, that product is going to suck.
Thankfully, I work with a team of hardworking and talented people so that when there is a need to return to something from the past, one or more of them can take that ball and run with it. Because they have different needs and different talents when it comes to writing and design. So for example, Bruce and Sean on my team did a fantastic job of converting Ptolus to 5e and Cypher System. Likewise, Shanna, Ray, Teri, and others did a great job of editing and developing the manuscripts. Those books wouldn't exist without those folks.
Meanwhile, my strength comes in designing a product with a bunch of new concepts. And if they're new to me, a designer of 30+ and a gamer of 40+ years, they're going to be new to most people. Some people love that, and others don't, but typically game fans have learned to know generally what to expect if a product has my name on it.
Time to Work
To get good work done, I need to carefully manage both work time and space. Let's consider time first. When it comes to the project as a whole, I usually can't just sit down the first day and start writing, and feel it would be counterproductive from a quality perspective to even try. I need a lot of time to think and experiment. Literally the first two months of my work on say, Invisible Sun, wouldn't have looked like work to most people at all. It was entirely spent reading (or in many cases rereading) occult books, researching weird topics online, and laying on the floor listening to experimental music at a high volume.
The core of what I'm working on is developed in this way. It’s where most (though maybe not 100%) of the ideas come from. While I won't argue that it would be possible to create a game without this time, I will argue that it wouldn’t be possible to write something truly fresh, well developed, and, well, good, without it. This is true because a designer's first idea or initial instinct isn't always the best one. It's likely the simplest one, or the most familiar one, and while sometimes those qualities can be good, other times—most times, if you value innovation—they probably aren't.
Even if we look at work time on a smaller scale—a work day (or night) as opposed to the work on an entire project—there are certain parameters that work best. Deep work is key to getting my job done. If I can achieve a flow state, I can not only produce more, but I produce better work. Three one-hour periods of work are nowhere near as productive as one three-hour period.
I want to get into that same state as when I would run a game session. Total loss of time and awareness of the world around me. Because in that state, the words and ideas flow out of me onto the page (the screen, actually). The sentences become clearer and more engaging to read. The work is simply better.
Deep work, however, isn't a state that can be achieved with the push of a button. It's not wrong to visualize this flow state as a separate room that you metaphorically enter. I like to think of there being a hallway that leads to that room that I pass through, slowly gathering my thoughts, clearing away the small tasks and obligations, and looking for inspiration. Physically, part of this process might mean sitting or laying on the old couch I have in my office and daydreaming, going for a walk with the dog, reading, or even watching something on television. More often than not, it's some combination of such activities and might take an hour. And so, after all that, allowing myself only one hour to work is a waste, like a baseball pitcher spending all their time warming up and never getting to actually play.
And of course, thanks to my DSPD, this work time needs to be on my own personal schedule. For me, most of the time, that means at night. I'm at my most alert and creative from about 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. For me, those hours are probably like a typical person's 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (Or, for a hardcore early bird, 7 a.m. to 1 p.m.) As you can imagine, that schedule doesn't work very well when interacting with the rest of the world. Thankfully, I have the freedom with my work to create my own hours and can tailor them to when I'm at my best. It feels great to work when the world is quiet and asleep. I feel like there's little chance for interruption, and just generally less "noise" to keep me from achieving my focus.
Space to Work
But just like this imaginary deep work room, I work best when I'm able to do it in the right physical space as well. I need real privacy while I work. When I worked in a corporate office with an open floor plan, I really struggled. Not only do places like that require employees to come into work at a conventionally reasonable hour, but they encourage employees to be in frequent contact. If you need to ask so-and-so a question just pop over to their cubicle and ask. Or just lean over the cube wall. Or whatever. But those intrusions are precisely what I don't need.
To really thrive as a creator, I need long periods without interruption. Or, more importantly, I need the understanding that I am safe from interruption. In other words, working in a wide open space with a lot of others is hard for me even if no one interrupts me, because in the back of my brain there's a part of me that knows that I could get interrupted, and so I won't allow myself to sink down into that deep work space. So I thrive most in a space that is closed off from everything and everyone.
This isn't about being a prima donna—it's about understanding myself and how I operate best. My brain is a tool and I know how to wield it the right way. In the same way that you wouldn't force a left handed carpenter to use their right hand to hammer or drill, I don't try to force myself to work in unsuitable environments. I close the door to my home office when I work and ask my partner not to disturb me if possible. Knowing what works best for you and doing it doesn't make you a prima donna, and if anyone disagrees, I can live with that.
Deadlines Long and Short
One of the weird things about neurodivergence is that it's easy to procrastinate but difficult to miss deadlines. In school, that meant I was the guy writing his entire paper the night before it was due, even though it was supposed to take all semester. This was stressful, and unhealthy, but I did it. And because I'd still get a good grade, school rewarded this behavior rather than discouraged it. But if I'd started working on it earlier, would it have been a great paper rather than just a good one? Maybe.
This means that as a professional, I've learned that long-term deadlines aren't great for me, but short-term ones are good. In other words, rather than saying, "This product needs to be done in two months," I give myself the deadline of having my current chapter done by the end of the week. This means that if I do procrastinate a little, I'm not left with an entire project due in its entirety, but rather just a small section that's due. And this is achievable within the time and space to reach a deep work state.
Permission to Fail
It took me a very long time to learn, but I have to be able to tell myself it's okay if a work session is unproductive. If my flow state takes me down a wiki wormhole rather than into a period of great work, that's okay. And it's okay because it's probably still useful. Maybe that reading about black holes and neutron stars will be useful in a future product. Or maybe I'm just giving my subconscious a chance to work.
When I was at the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, one of the instructors was sci-fi novelist Greg Bear. He talked about the metaphorical workers toiling away in the back of your mind, solving problems and building new things even when "you" (your conscious mind) was doing something else. Or maybe even better, when you are seemingly doing nothing. It's why you can run into a problem, step away from it for a while, and when you come back, you immediately see the solution. Those little folks in the background of your brain have been hard at work even if you have not.
So even a failed work session isn't necessarily a bad thing. It might look to an outside observer that I'm doing anything when I am actually working. Or at least that's what I tell people. Seriously, though, giving myself permission to do nothing, to take the time that is necessary to move into the creative space in which I'll thrive, and structuring my work life have enabled me to make a 30+ year career out of this, despite the fact that my brain doesn't always make it easy. To be really clear, though, these are my personal solutions. They work for me and my brain, but I'm not saying they'll work for you and yours.
The takeaway that I hope you gain is that you need to figure out what works for you, and do that, despite what others tell you. Whether it's your friends, your partner, or some famous writer who shares their writing secrets with the world, only you know how you work best. Experiment with various schedules, spaces, techniques, and tricks, and learn to thrive in your own brain space.
Next time, we'll return to our regularly scheduled program (theories behind game design).
Thank you for sharing these personal details, Monte. It's inspiring me to think about how often I've forced my square peg into a round hole. Too many people fail to recognize what their brains are telling them, or maybe aren't privileged enough to get the chance to do so, to do their best work, and live their best lives. I'm so very glad that you have gotten there so that we all get to enjoy the fruit of your labors.
Particularly helpful. Being disciplined about the creative process may feel contradictory. But it is sort of a meta discipline: a method to keep yourself stepping outside the limits of your previous solutions. It's easy to get sucked in by the safety of your own experience. Still, I feel like deadlines and budgets are quite challenging monsters inside the creative work dungeon.