Tending The Hearth

Lessons from last year and intentions for the ever-branching paths ahead

It’s been a little over a year since I started Studio Zosimos, and as I get started with a new year of art, RPGs, and analog alchemy, I want to set some new intentions for my creative practice. In many ways, this was a pretty hard year – my partner and I have dealt with family emergencies and several bouts of illness, some scary, most just slow and frustrating. I can say honestly that I had a lot of days where I didn’t accomplish what I hoped to, but week by week I chipped away at things as best I could, and looking back on the year as a whole I can say that I created things I never thought I would be able to create. 

I made Retrograde and ran and fulfilled a successful Kickstarter for it, proving my harebrained scheme for printing my own RPGs with letterpress and risograph was not only viable, but infused my games with a tactile analog quality that fits the form and the stories I’m telling with it perfectly. I’ve been immensely fortunate to receive recognition in the form of kind words and support from hundreds of folks online and at in-person events, as well as a Bannerless Games Grant. I also helped fellow creators physicalize their art and games with risograph – I created risograph prints of my partner’s lovely pigeon birdhouses, made marketing materials for my friends’ theatre company, and printed a sick RPG, Unworthy, by GomezWritesGames.

It’s twisty and turny, but I feel well on the path to building a career with games, art, and writing. I have a lot of new projects slated for this year, and before I dive headfirst into them, I want to take some time to identify some points in my creative practices I’m hoping to improve and some big things on my to-do list to tackle. Here’s some big pictures things I’m thinking about for this year:

Structure. I really do benefit from it, but consistently working with self-directed structure has proved difficult this past year. In some ways, that’s just how my process works – I have random magical days where I feel like I accomplish more than I would have in an average week – but I’m planning new projects with big timescales that demand some more thoughtful structure. I’ll be experimenting with different day-to-day and week-to-week schedules and creative habits, and the basic intention here is that I’ll keep experimenting until I find a structure that consistently works for me.

Balance. I had a pattern last year of having brief periods of immense productivity followed by looooong periods for recovery that basically just felt like empty time. I’m hoping to flatten that curve this year and, part and parcel with structure, find a sustainable pace of working that allows me to be productive while still being able to take care of myself and feel like a human. 

Putting myself out there. I have to acknowledge a good deal of anxiety comes with putting myself and my work in front of strangers on the internet. Like anything, it’s something that gets easier with practice, and I’m hoping to practice it more. 

In actionable, concrete terms, I want to actively solicit feedback for my work more and put in the effort that building and maintaining relationships with new people on the internet entails. 

Constructive Rest. Which, along with finding more time for socializing and no-stress play, means giving myself time for creativity that isn’t tied in any way to project work or art I’ll be offering for sale. 

It’s too easy for me to burn a weekend afternoon or an evening after a shift at my survival job just playing video games. I would like to read more, play more RPGs, and draw, paint, write, and make music just for the fun of it.  

I like these intentions, and many of them are straightforward enough to provide some clearly actionable next steps: 

– Starting a Studio Zosimos Discord: I’ve been holding off on starting one until I’ve had the bandwidth to properly be active and present on one, and I think I’m almost there. It’ll be a good venue to engage directly with people, share bite-sized development updates on Studio Zosimos projects, and generally get more of the behind-the-scenes of my work. 

– Revamping my website. studiozosimos.com has been a work in progress for a long time, but now that Retrograde’s Kickstarter campaign is completely fulfilled, I actually have some stock to post online, and in general I want my online presence to be more accessible, recognizable, and tell you more about the work I make. I’m aiming to have it newly polished by the end of the month. 

– Finding new print clients. I started doing some commissioned risograph printing last year and had such a blast with it. Risograph is insanely fun for me, but it takes some time for me to create work to actually print – it makes a ton of sense to use some of my downtime between printing my own projects to printing games, art, and writing for other folks, and I’m hoping to build new relationships with fellow creators and help people physicalize their work with the strange, beautiful alchemy of riso. 

So, if you’re looking to get some work of yours riso-printed, especially if you’re an RPG creator with a Zine Month project, hit me up!

– Printing more Retrograde. I’ve already run through my first print run of ~150 Retrograde Player’s Manuals – it’s time to print more!

– Properly getting my print/zine club up and running. Did y’all know I have a print club? It’s mostly been for sharing sneak peaks of projects in development up until this point, but this year I’m making it a mainline project in its own right. Every month, members get a zine or booklet, an art print, and a small piece of ephemera like a sticker, bookmark, or postcard.

This year, the main event for the club will be an illustrated short story each month, with the intention being that I’ll close out the year with a complete short story cycle. I’ll also post plaintext versions of the stories here on the blog. Join the club by January 15 to get the year’s first issue!

– I’ll also continue working on my current RPG project, Ephemeris: Omens of the Blood Comet, a vampire-hunting RPG in the world of Retrograde. Over the year I’ll be continuing to develop new rules modules, write new adventures, and dreaming up new worlds in Retrograde’s cosmos of alchemy and wonder.

I’m incredibly grateful to all of you for embarking on these projects with me, especially those of you who supported Retrograde and Ephemeris on Kickstarter – the support y’all have given makes it possible for me to turn these crazy ideas of mine into physical realities, and it’s a great gift to share my work with you. There’s an unending cosmos of adventures ahead, and I’m eager to share where these intentions and creations lead. Cheers y’all!

– Zosimos