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The following exert was written a few days ago. To be honest, it was more of a personal journal type of entry rather than a full fledged blog post. For those that know me, sharing something like this is extremely out of character for me. I ask you to bear with me - pointed insights are forthcoming.
This afternoon I experienced the rare occasion where the appointment with my local physician started promptly and ended earlier than expected. This extra free time that has been afforded to me was a pleasant surprise to be honest - professional demands on me have been intense as of late. What will I do with this unexpected windfall?
There is really not enough snow for skiing so that is not an option for the new opening on my schedule. This is a probably a godsend in disguise since my slaloming (tumbling) down a snow-mud mountain (hill) would do little to help evict the killer cold currently residing within my lungs. With that alternative off the table, I turn my attention to my true passion - video gaming. The decision is made. I brew up a steaming hot pot of lemonade-infused tea (I am currently out of the 'Real' lemon juice) and sit down at my PC to write a gaming blog. I am all set and ready to go!
Except...
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The blank page and blinking cursor of Microsoft Word now stares back at me without mercy, expecting some sort of creative genius to emerge from my fingers and appear on its empty canvas. "Darn... it has been a while." I say to myself while being directly confronted with the fact that I had not written anything in quite a while. This 'vacation' of sorts has left me feeling a bit empty in a way I can not fully explain nor identify. Most of my 'hobby' time has been devoted to coding web pages - writing articles and blog posts unfortunately has almost become a distant memory.
What have I become?
At the time of the experience described above, I was struggling quite a bit while composing a new system review with the unexpected free time I had on that day. Let me beat you to the punch: "You experienced writer's block when trying to compile your standard hardware reviews that are rather technical and not necessarily creative??" Believe it or not, yes I did. Though not entirely artistic in a literary sense, they do take a great deal of planning and thought (at least for me). I reread this introspection and thought that sharing it as part of an article might provide some beneficial insight of a website administrator - me being the protagonist in this case.
As some of you may know, I have recently created and developed a fledgling website. Though I am extremely happy with the progress that has been made, I need to be directly candid with you - being a webmaster is not an easy task and does take a tremendous amount of time. The maintenance and developmental aspects of a website is very time consuming, especially with the limited technical resources that I possess. From my first hand perspective, the amount of focus on coding has taken precedence over what truly makes me happy - video game hardware and sharing my experiences with my fellow gaming aficionados (you).
A friend of mine, whom I respect a great deal, stated the following in a completely unrelated email: "...it's much more satisfying to step back and appraise one's own work and be proud of it when it has a certain formality and thoroughness about it." This rang eerily true and caused me to take a step back and reflect.
My true love is for gaming hardware and sharing the knowledge that I have acquired through the years (40 year old gamer here). My hope is that you find the articles that result from this passion of mine to be informative, beneficial and somewhat entertaining. I do not profess to be the greatest writer in the world - a public rating of 'mediocre' would be welcomed at this point in my 'pseudo' career. But as my friend pointed out, it is critical to be personally happy with the finished product, and what you are doing.
I think I have answered the internal question that I initially posed to myself in the prologue of this article - "What have I become?"
I am an average joe that loves video games - hardware and software. The sharing of information and communicating with others on our mutual passion makes me happy. I know the coding and technical aspects of running a video gaming site are necessary to accomplish this. I need to be a better juggler at times and not stray from my true love and personal callings. This brings me to my main point.
What I have learned through the writing of this editorial of mine is that I truly enjoy communicating to you as a reader - this is my true goal a webmaster. I feel safe in saying all site administrators feel the same but at times the technical demands of running our respective websites can be overwhelming. Rest assured that all are committed to providing the best platform to deliver relevant information and 'good reads' to our communities. The graitude that is felt for you as a community member can not be expressed in words - your patience, understanding and continued loyalty is the best gift one could ever receive. Santa truly delivered - the pleasant surpise of your unexpected gift.
Best regards during this holiday season to you and your families.
Recent Entries In Which I Describe Pizza Tower at an Exhaustingly Long Length (7/31/2024)
Remasters, Remakes, Rereleases, and Remembering the Past (3/30/2024)
The Top 5 Survival Horror Games for the Sega Dreamcast (2/20/2024)
Trombone Champ Is a Good Game (12/30/2023)
Thoughts on the Nintendo Switch OLED Model (11/21/2023)
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I started on this site as a blogger but as my position has evolved over time so has the demands for my attention. Unfortunately I don't get to write nearly as much as I used to and many ideas come and go, many forgotten. Then again I'm a slow writer who painstakingly takes hours sometimes just to write one article as I re-read, rewrite and criticize my work before I hit the submit button so a lot of my blogging comes from spontaneous excesses of free time as you've experienced yourself.
I think it's similar to what a coach would feel. Although your trying to help the team by assuming a leadership role, sometimes you wish you were still out there on the ice in the midst of the action doing what you love most or think you do best. "Heavy hangs the head that wears the crown" is something that I'm sure many webmasters and admins can relate to, even more so when a project is in it's infancy and the support structure is still being put into place for a well oiled machine of autonomy that doesn't require micromanagement.
To come full circle to where you started creatively requires a lot of sacrifice and patience. A lot of gazing into the future of one's ambition as well as occasional reminders of what one hopes to accomplish with their sacrifice. By then hopefully the idea bank will be overflowing so much that writers block won't rear it's ugly head for a long, long time as a torrent of unpublished ideas comes rushing out!
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I can relate to what both you and Tan are saying. I have no writing talent whatsoever myself, so it takes a while to get something written down, especially since English isn't my first language.
I find myself not having the time anymore to write reviews like I did during the summer holiday. If I'd time my schoolwork better I'd probably manage to squeeze in a few reviews per month but I just can't seem to get on with it. Even when I have the time to write a review, I won't do it when I have the feeling I have to "rush" through it - because I think it'll affect the review in a bad way.
I'm not sure of how others write reviews but mine take quite a while. Beforehand, there's atleast 2 hours of playing the game I'm about to review, to refresh my memory on all the aspects that I'll be writing about. That may be followed by a brief search for some more specific details on wikipedia or another source. Then I write down a couple of keywords/sentences that I want to have in the review. This is also the time I think about an "intro" for the review. Then comes the actual writing which takes about 2 hours. So that's almost 5 hours spent one review.
Maybe I work slower than most but there is no way I'd be able to write down a coherent text in an hour or so, without doing the research first. I'm saddened I can't seem to find those 5 hours during schooltime to write a review, nor the correct "state of mind" to do so. That's just the way it is.
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Thanks for the support and understanding guys - it is greatly appreciated.
I apologize for tweaking the article since I was unaware that my lady friend hit the 'Submit' button on RFG instead of the 'Save' button on MS Word when I asked her to save my work while I hit the bath room.
You both make very good points. Though my article in the end took a turn in it's ending/purpose, your feedback is always appreciated and respected and still applies.
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