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the main think I "make" at work is academic output, and in RPG space I have a podcast on games in different countries: either way it would be reading classics of the genre. and perhaps learn French for the RPGs (and perhaps even for academia)

Hand quilting. It takes about 700 hours for me to hand quilt a full king-sized blanket, so in a year I could do a couple of big projects or several smaller ones. If I can pick two, camping. Love a road trip camp

Write, write, and write some more. Truly refine our craft and do it out of the love of creating. Then, on the other side, read, and read, and read some more. Maybe pick up a new artistic or creative skill - experiment with other forms of art.

Pull off a highly elaborate heist

Get to proficiency in Finnish. Learn violin. Make a lot of sweaters. Travel to watch a game at every NHL arena in the league.

That would be awesome!

I would probably work on learning but it would be tough making art or music I couldn't show people so maybe I'd focus on the art that only exists in the moment of creation and spend a bunch of time training horses.

I would read so many books.

Travel, cross-stitch, read books, play more games.

Cry tears of joy then cook. I already see publicizing my art as more of an obligation than anything else. Like I'm just here to make shit bc it makes me happy. Only reason I'm publicizing it is to try my hand at making a living on it.

Rest long and hard enough to clear my fatigue and lay the ground work to come out of that year blazing

Sleep.

1.Spend 52 glorious weeks exploring other people's work in my medium (i.e. playing a shitload of games), reading novels, and watching plays - building a deep mound of creative compost. 2. Write 4 heartbreakers without worrying what the point of them is.

I'd do exactly as I am, making a ton of games, most of them I write for me anyways!

I would read a lot, journal, and teach myself various software things that I've been meaning to sit down with.

Fully funded? Three separate language immersion programs in France, Italy, and Japan. journal like hell. And organize at least one of those ttrpg campaigns deemed “too ambitious to be of use to me right now”

I would dedicate my full time to health. Hire a trainer/nutritionist. Buy only healthy foods. Workout twice daily. Write daily in a journal. Weekly Therapy. Full skin care regimen. Dental work/surgery. Spa trips. Go out dancing on the weekends. Regular doctor visits. Fully reset my body.

I suppose it depends, but if the funding was good enough I'd buy a house and fix it up.

Now I'd probably do sculpture. The tools and blanks are so expensive for big forms, and I'm drawn to big forms.

I would use it to make cross stitch a top priority in my life, primarily aimed at finishing pieces I designed/started for specific people for specific reasons but never finished because I don't feel that I can give them the time and focus they deserve. I'd love for those to be my main priority.

I'd also run games for all of my friends, as much as I could.

extremely intricate private larps

It's super boring but i know i'd just write for myself. I write not for public consumption all the time, so doing it for a year and still being paid would be juuust fine.

Provided education didn’t count, I’d love to get off the treadmill long enough to get deep on providing design mentoring and/or workshops etc. I always want to do more than I have time for while balancing a 9-5. If that _did_ count, I guess I’d do the opposite and spend a year learning more!

Music and small game design. I love doing both with friends far more than for the public anyway.

I would make a lot of personal crafts! Pick up knitting again and finally finish a few sweaters. Make intricate food. Read some books.

I would spend a year by the sea in Britain and Japan, travelling and looking and thinking and reading and doing a ton of private art. And at the end of that year the creative energy charge would enable me to go into overdrive in the next three.

Learn a new language. Read a ton. Do needlework. Swim more often. Have longer conversations with people. Make jewelry for myself. Stay on top of the laundry better.

Not allowed per terms of the deal: this is a thought experiment about a year where you cannot maximize productivity in your field, but have to take a pause.

I'm sick of how fatphobia + fast fashion have combined to make clothes not fit above right, then blame bodies for not conforming. Sick of weight fluctuations making my clothes not fit + look bad. My ancestors did much better & I want to learn at their feet, but also not deny my own culture & taste.

Construct a brutalist concrete labyrinth to imprison my best friend inside.

I don't think my, admittedly slightly heart-cracking, answer is anything other than study incredibly hard at my practice

Fill up my head with a whole world of new experiences, basically

Haha no not intended as sarcastic at all!

seven-part pact time then lmao

I am a comedian. I would write; and work with clown teachers on an hour with minimal language.

Research/ expand my knowledge and travel. I'd also finally try to use all the piles of fabric I have collected 😬

So glad I am not the only person who immediately went looking for loopholes! If I spent my time working out, would I never be allowed to dress in a way that showed off my new muscles? If I made clothes, could they never be worn around anyone else?

I can't wait to hear your thoughts!

I read that wrong the first time (and deleted my repost). I wouldn't. I couldn't leave my novel series project alone for a year.

Read, be outside, travel!

master one line dance every day

Finish the rules for my Moebius-inspired exploration-heavy solo ttrpg. Then spend the rest of the year playing it so I can finally walk the worlds hinted at in his art.

Oh and doing some silver smithing courses for my own enjoyment

AMAZING

Music theory and composition classes.

Woodworking - furniture for our home and carpentry work like a new deck. Game dev: master Unreal and Godot, learn the C#/C++ side of things.

Go through my to-be-read list (both fiction and non-fiction), go through my to-be-played game list, go through my to-be-watched list, travel and walk in many new places, try new food and drinks, and throughout all that journal and keep a diary of ideas and inspirations from all experiences.

Try really, really hard to get the hang of making things that serve no practical purpose.

I’d keep our small local LARP group alive, and finally run that Paranoia LARP I’ve dreamed of. Outside of that, I think I’d pursue a fully handmade wardrobe. Also, I’d hold lots of space for techniques and projects that in ordinary life don’t pursued because of time/money constraints.

Self improvement and rest. Working out consistently, reading my full TBR, daily meditation/prayer. Catching up on all the visual media (video games and movies) I've been missing. And playing a BUNCH of RPGs at home or with local organizations.

Mostly travel. Fill up my brain with places and people and all manner of new-to-me things.

Make a dent in my ‘to be read’ pile.

I’d make so much art, and experiment with all the materials I’ve ever wanted to try but couldn’t justify just to test. It would be an education of incredible proportions.

Paint, sew, sing, play instruments, read for pleasure, go out into nature everyday, listen to birdsong, swim, cook, call my parents, and hang out with my partner, our child, and our cat. Laugh all the time. Launch my work phone and work computer into the sun.

Start a fully-staffed, free call center for people who can’t read get tutored anonymously.

Open source home automation and Facebook clone.

That feels like academic research to me. Collected three years worth of data but my boss didn't feel they are important enough to publish. 🥲

Brendon Fraser didn't embarrass himself over and over to Elizabeth Hurley as the Devil for me to not know a demon deal when I see one. The Winchesters didn't die 59 times for me to miss those signs.

It feels so difficult to take this seriously because of how comically perverse it feels to even imagine spending time not being dedicated to productivity to survive. Even if I had the year, I'd likely spend it trying to learn a language or continuing to hone skills I want to use professionally.

Allowed!

Build the "infrastructure" that would make it easier to make my ideas public once the year is up. Be compelled to make notes or plans about ideas I'd had anyway ... which then I think means I'm figuring out how to hide that from the hypothetical funders, or how to usurp them ...

I would do so much travel. I would go everywhere, and spend actually long periods of time in each place.

I would do nothing but read. I love working with words so much that I often find myself spending more time writing than reading, and I totally understand how bad for me that is.

Build a solar-powered backyard cabin for my kiddo to grow into, and both learn and teach her how everything in it works.

I would be incredibly fine with it. The pressure to publish and be constantly and relentlessly productive sucks any possible joy from my life. I actually hate it. My worth being measured in what I can produce/sell/create makes me feel inadequate and desperate every day of my life

My son‘s special interest is language, so I’d take the year to learn as many as I could, just to try to catch up to him!

Probably craft and read and watch movies, but idk if I’d take the money in the first place. So much of my time is spent writing stories, and I want many of them to be published. I love writing to death. But the thought of no one being able to read my writing is physically painful to imagine.

Yes, but I reject it as a devil's bargain. I would go stir crazy, like being locked in a house (even a cozy house) for a year. I could give up the commercial part. Everything I create will be shared freely? Ok, that's just patronage, no problem. But nothing can ever be publicly shared? No.

I would learn as much as I could.

It's like considering the impact of UBI. To have your needs met only frees you up to then go do the thing you love uninhibited, even if that is actually something tough a gruelling because it's for the people and places you love.

I’d continue language learning: French and Italian. And there are just so many books I want to read. I’d travel. Also, I’d see my friends a lot more often It has not escaped me that this list is devoid of ideas for creating entirely

I'd spend half of it doing some big walks-- the full Camino Frances route, the West Highlands Way, and some of the Great Walks in New Zealand. Other than that, I'd read, throw dinner parties (not for the public), and hang with my nieces and nephews.

Fish

For a few years I've wondered what would happen if I took a year and only consumed art made by independent artists. Feels like funding would help make that possible. Travel to film festivals, pay someone to screen self-published books for me, stuff like that.

Improve my crafting, and work on my most impenetrable art ideas.

Harder to answer this than I thought as I realize I've monetized everything I've ever found joy doing. I think I'd finally learn to do all the home repairs I know I could figure out myself if I had the time. I'd run a LOT of TTRPG games for friends. I'd start painting again.

Tbh I would travel. Talk to people in different cultures, experience other ways of life.

I would read, journal, travel, and do a lot of self care (walking, cooking better food for myself, etc.). This is a deal I would absolutely take, knowing that by the time I was “free” to create again I would be raring to go.

Read. Read. Write (not all writing needs to be public). Show up for my community: host dinners, go to graduations, organize picnics, just spend time together in a way that we normally never have time for. Then go home and read.

I think what I’m trying to nudge is finding ways to perform/share/make that isn’t “public” (for example, I haven’t sung in public in a decade, but I’ve been in session groups, etc)

Learn graphic design, preferably for print.

Okay but honestly, I would pour myself into either an art or a craft fully outside my comfort zone. This would probably mean learning an instrument, woodworking, or agricultural exploration

Just me and my recorders!

Paint house. Tidy house. Read and research; come up with a few long-term projects as opposed to doing lots of bitty ones. Play a computer game or two.

Paint minis and build a Wharram catamaran to sail away at the end of the year. Probably discover several new hobbies that I would promptly lose interest in once marginally competent

Refurnish my house (woodworking) and probably build a couple guitars. This is assuming I can get off my procrastinating ass, but the funding sure would help

Play all the games I've bought but don't have the time to play

Absolutely!

Learn.

Research everything I have ever been interested in but never have time to pursue. Read a year's worth of articles and books on the Devonian period, the science behind pearl creation, the great vowel shift in English, how quantum computers work, the biography of Mary Shelley, oh shit the year is up

I'll learn. I have many ideas.

Treehouse

I think it would be the year of Media Consumption, and just packing my calendar with playing/running games. Also travel, experience culture, visit museums. Gather inspiration for making things in the future.

Write for myself, quilt for myself, learn to tat or work on basketry. Take pottery classes and figure out if thrown pottery still feels right to my hands. Learn to use a supported spindle or a charka. Get someone in to help level adequate space for proper raised beds and also set up a berry garden.