“Reflect upon your present blessings — of which every man has many — not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings

As 2015 comes to a close, I reflect upon this past year as a freelancer. This is my second full year as a professional freelancer and my first full year of blogging. This year has been filled with new relationshiops, exciting new opportunities, and new challenges that stretched me. As I look back, what really stands out to me are…

  • Relationships
  • Celebrations
  • Stretching

I have really focused on building Relationships this year within the gaming community and gaming industry. This has strengthened existing friendships, led to new friendships, and developed new business partnerships. I need to take a moment to especially thank Chris Birch and his company Modiphius. I am so thankful for all of the opportunities and trust offered to me by them. I really feel a part of their company family. There are two new relationships I wish to share because they have had a huge impact on my year already and will for years to come, both of which began at Gen Con this year. Well, the first person I had known a little online, but Gen Con was the first time we got to meet face-to-face and spend some time together. That person is Mike Perna of InnRoads Ministries. Throughout Gen Con we kept having small times to sit together and chat, then once the convention was over, we continued that dialogue online. This led to me answering a call for writers and challenging myself to write a monthly article for InnRoads entitled Cyclopaedia. I really look forward to growing our friendship and seeing where else this might lead with InnRoads. Also while at Gen Con, I got to spend some time with Stephen Buonocore (Stronghold Games), which resulted in the opportunity for me to work on 504 with his team. In the midst of that project, some family challenges occurred for members of the team, and I was honored and blessed to be able to take on a larger role so others could focus on family. Stephen and his team were wonderful to work with, and I am excited for future projects. There were so many more great relationship stories I could share this year. My encouragement to you is make special efforts to meet with people one-on-one in person. Making that extra effort to connect with people on a personal level really jump starts and strengthens relationships.

So many wonderful Celebrations this year. First up was celebrating winning multiple ENnie Awards with the Modiphius team at Gen Con this year. Working on the Achtung! Cthulhu and Mutant: Year Zero product lines has been amazing, then to be able to stand on stage along with the creative teams for a book in each of those lines was breathtaking. You give all your heart and talents to your freelancing work, so to have your work recognized by your peers and the fans is very emotional. When Chris Birch then presented me with one of the ENnie Award medals to say thanks for my work on the creative team, I was speechless.  Next, I got to go on a road trip to New York City with my twin daughters to celebrate their sixteenth birthday. In truth, their birthday was in June so we got to celebrate their Sweet Sixteen this summer, with their first time working all week with me at Gen Con, and then with this Daddy & Daughters NYC Road Trip. Emily and Rachel are wonderful and such a blessing to me that they share their geekiness with their daddy. Being able to work Gen Con, travel, game, craft and discuss my freelancing with them is an amazing gift. And finally, I closed out this year celebrating the one year anniversary of this blog. I continue to learn to be more relational in my writing. Thanks for continuing to follow my musings and celebrate with me.

As this year has progressed, I have done a lot of Stretching, moving out of my comfort zone professionally and personally. I had an opportunity to work on two works of fiction and three board games as a proofreader, and do some writing on an RPG. Moving out of working exclusively on RPGs has really challenged and grown my talents, and stepping into more editing and now writing has been a maturing process. I am curious to see what new opportunities open up with these growing skills and experiences. As my freelance work becomes more readily known, other opportunities have opened up, including the development of the Game Studies course I will be co-teaching this spring. If you had asked me last year if this was really possible, I would have laughed. What was an inkling of an idea quickly grew into a reality which now I am working diligently to prepare for. The more I freelance, the more my passion for gaming has grown as well, which has led me to opportunities to share that passion. Being asked to teach 2nd and 3rd graders a game as part of the Lift program was both exciting and daunting at the same time. I learned a lot from the experience and had a wonderful time, and I plan to return to Lift again to teach more games. Where my first year of freelancing was focused on learning the process, this year was really focused on maturing and stretching myself.

Thanks for following this blog and being a part of my life. I cherish your friendship, the projects you offer, and the encouragement I feel.  I am so excited to see what 2016 will bring!

 

An overview of my freelance work in 2015 includes…

Publishers I worked with in 2015

Projects Published in 2015

Books

Board Games

  • 504
  • Thunderbirds
  • Times Square: The Zombies Are Multiplying

RPGs

 

Reflections on 2015

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