The State of Things

In my pre-arthritis/neuropathy days I usually put in 25-30 hours or so a week working on Purple Sorcerer stuff, spread across the website, adventures, tools, and social media. And I enjoyed every minute of it. Unfortunately, a total of 25-30 hours of solid work in a week is now often a bit of a stretch. ;)

And though my capacity has diminished, my commitments have not. As a result, I've been researching task-management strategies to try and squeeze out as much productivity with the hours/strength I have. My initial evaluation of all outstanding tasks has made it abundantly clear that too many things are stacked up, making it particularly troublesome to deal with emotionally nasty things like the recent blog security problem that popped up out of nowhere. Things I can't effectively manage need to be set aside, so here's my high-altitude view of how things will be changing:

Adventures

No changes. I'm actually hoping that streamlining other areas will speed up my work here. I've got a nice stream of upcoming titles, and I love publishing new stuff!

Website

I currently have the Purple Sorcerer site, the blog, my Facebook page, my twitter account, a storefront, two store back ends, RPGNow, and my presence on Google+. I'm thinking there just might be something I can streamline in this mix. ;)

The insecure Wordpress blog on my site is gone, moved to Blogger. I'll let you know what else I decide to axe. :)

Web Tools

I don't see many changes here. The generators and Grimoire are easy to update, and I can even do lots of the work from my iPad. I'll probably be a bit slower about adding occupation lists and specialty character sheets, but I've already scheduled time to evaluate what the next tool will be once I'm caught up with all the planned updates for existing tools.

The Crawler's Companion

I've made no secret how deeply I loathe publishing to the Apple App Store: it literally gives me heart-burn, and updating the app in 3 different Android stores and on the web is no small endeavor. I've decided that the next update to the Crawler will be the last to add new features. Of course, the app already has more gizmos than I ever envisioned, and I will keep my eyes open and jump into the breach if a future iOS or Android update breaks the app. But as far as new features go, we're reaching the final stop.

Because the user party/encounter system used the old blog as its authentication system, I'm replacing it with a much simpler copy/paste method that doesn't require any outside data storage/access. Maintaining the database is just too big a cloud to have hanging over me at the moment, and the change will in part future-proof the app as a stand alone tool.

Can you do this...?

I'll continue to be happy to hear everyone's bug reports and ideas about what they'd like to see, but for the foreseeable future my plate is full and most new stuff/requests will have to wait until my current queue is empty.

Summing Up

I wish I had the verve I once had... I really do. I love communicating with everyone, and the interactions I've had wearing my Purple Sorcerer hat have truly eased the burden of this rotten health stretch. But I look forward to moving the crystal ball forward for years to come... only a bit slower and with a slightly more realistic scrying range. ;)

As always, thanks to everyone for your amazing support.