Reader Question- Creative Process

I've noticed that you always seem to be coming up with new creative projects. Which is your favorite, and where do your ideas come from?- Aidan
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Oh, Aidan. I could never pick a favorite project. My creative projects are like my children. My illegitimately conceived, oft-neglected children.

The other day, when I was depressed over the death of Terry Pratchett, I looked up his books and got a bit blown away. I knew he was prolific but jeez. It's something to the tune of 50 books. I made the comment that I could never hope to get so many books written, when my wife made the comment that if I finished half the projects I've started, I'd be there already.

Your truths, they hurt us, woman.

Of all the projects I have bubbling somewhere in my skull, my favorite (of the moment) is probably my card game, Night of the Living Daycare, because of all my projects, it isn't the one you'd think would make it as far to completion as it has.

The card game was conceived when I was working at a Daycare in San Antonio, Texas. I had the afterschool group... kids who were in school but still needed somewhere to go between when they got out of school and when their parents got off of work. It wasn't the greatest situation ever for them. Being a daycare, the toys and games available were not age appropriate save for a handful of board and card games which quickly got played out.

So this one day my kids were sitting around wondering what we were going to do next. There was a day to day curriculum to follow but my kids had knocked it out in about an hour and so I had three more to fill. So I had them each get construction paper and divide it up so they could make 8 cards, and had a brainstorm.

On their cards, I had each of them draw two of the daycare teachers as monsters, and then four places to hide in the Daycare, and then a picture of the front door and the guardian who usually picked them up. While they were drawing and coloring I made up the rules in my head, and then BOOM, we started playing.

The idea behind the game was that the teachers had been turned into monsters, and the kids needed to hide and ultimately escape. That first version was horribly balanced, a bloodbath.

But the kids loved it, they played it all the time. So I got started rebalancing it so it could be won, and ultimately got the cards printed and had a real deck... a real game. It was so much fun.

That's why I create... from the random ideas that crash into my brain when needed, or when I'm bored. And sometimes they go all the way to completion.

Now I just need to learn how to complete the ones that don't.