The Temple of Lesser Evils – Week 3

With week three completed, I want to summarise my learnings so far quickly:

• Getting started and not so much worrying about the results was helpful
• The analog way of hand-writing things made me care less about pixel-perfect design and publishable writing (I’m a sucker for the latter).
• It also feels like good practice for non-business English. I mostly work in English at work, but it’s quite different from writing an adventure. When a certain word didn’t come to me at once, I sometimes just put the German word in so I don’t get slowed down.

• Creating a conceptual rock band album cover at the very beginning helped me to get into the mood and start living in the setting
• Having something physical in my hands of my own making, as amateurish as it is, has an exceptional feel. Just twenty-something pages in, the journal already feels very precious to me.

• I love small doodles on the margins. For a person who has no practice drawing, it opened a way to do so without feeling bad about it. With my drawings, you can’t tell a dwarf from an ape, but that’s okay. ;-)
• After a while, my seven-year-old joined in and did some drawing and coloring. It was a lot of fun collaborating with her on this. She also contributed some cool ideas for small vignettes, e.g., the catfish waking up a sleepy Pukwudgie guard by spraying it with water.

• Mesopotamian, Babylonian, and Akkadian mythology have greatly influenced this so far. Researching some gods, old rituals, and tablet inscriptions, I got lost in quite a few rabbit holes. But I don’t mind at all and see it as part of the fun. The archaeologist in me rejoices.

• It was equally fun to use ChatGTP to get inspired. E.g., I fed the machine some early draft of what I wanted and asked it to come back with a “more D&D flavored version” or “a poem mixed with Habermasian politics.” The results have been hilarious; some of them found their way into the journal in a curated form. I can see the value of a tool like this at your fingertips and will continue to use it.
• I also made the machine create some art for me, e.g., the album cover art (thanks, Canva.com!). The undead harpy is one of my favorites.

• Looking at my work rhythm, I had more and less productive days. I worked a bit ahead sometimes, especially knowing I won’t have much time in the next few days. So some days clock in with maybe 10 minutes of working on it; on others, I spent one hour or more in the evening with a nice mix of daydreaming, research, doodling, and writing. It works for me.
• I got into the habit of writing down ideas quickly on a separate sheet of paper so I could remember and use them in the following days. Of course, I have more content than can fit into seven days of work, but some might also be usable for the following levels.
• Looking at what I have for now, I’m pleased. To run this, which I’m keen on doing, it would take a bit of prep still, e.g., for stating monsters, but it shouldn’t be too much work.
• Overall, I’m thrilled to work on this creative challenge. Onwards!