A to Z 2013: Gearing Up

Oy. Where did March go?

I'd intended to do so much more with the month, but it seems like it just got away from me. At least I've been able to do a bit more prep work for April's A to Z challenge than I did last year, which was more than I did the year before. So, at least I'm progressing.

Last year I was able to map out about one-half of the month's topics before the month started. This year, I not only have all 26 topics already named, I actually used some random generation to fill out my calendar to do so. Let me try and explain just how anal-retentive I was this year.

I started with the WordPerfect calendar I used last year. Each day already had a section for the topic (Item, Spell, NPC, Monster, Locale) and a place for the name ("A is for ____ ") filled out. It was simply a matter of changing the dates to fit 2013.

Then I opened up a spreadsheet page. Not having a d5 in my collection (yet), I remembered I had "Beverage" last year on my list of topics. Then I grabbed my handful of office d6s. I can already hear the sound of many palms slapping many faces. But this is how I wanted to determine my topics this year. I rolled a total of 30d6 assigning each roll to a topic heading as well as a date on the calendar. (I'd randomly assigned each of the six topics a number.) This gave me the following aggregate results:

Topics	Quantity
NPCs	5
Spells	2
Monsters	5
Beverages	6
Items	5
Locales	6

I looked at those numbers for a long while. I really didn't want to do five monsters. Neither did I want to do six beverages. And then I thought: Maps. I haven't posted any maps in a while. This might motivate me into making some maps.

But I don't have a d7 in my collection either. Yet. So I grabbed my office d8 and assigned two more numbers: "Random" and "Map." On a "Random" I would then re-roll the d8. I stuck these randomly in my already-prepared list. This gave me the following results:

Topics	Quantity
NPCs	3
Spells	3
Maps	3
Monsters	2
Beverages	2
Random	6
Items	5
Locales	3

And would you believe the "Randoms" rolled out to be one each of NPCs, Spells, Maps, and Monsters, and two Beverages? So my final tally looks like this:

Topics	Quantity
NPCs	4
Spells	4
Maps	4
Monsters	3
Beverages	3
Items	5
Locales	3

I think I'm O.K. with these numbers. I think I can do this. However...I also reserve the right to change my mind mid-month. Occasionally something will spring up in my brain that I didn't consider at the first of April--something that just HAS to see the light of day. I'm going to endeavor to keep the totals the same; if something new crops up, I'll swap it out with an existing topic. Granted, this may require some re-naming to happen as well. But that's all wrapped up in creativity, right? And the ability to be flexible even while on a pre-ordered plan.

So, I think I'm ready for April. As much as I can be, anyway.

So bring it on. Let's get writing.

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