Blogging in 2016

I’m taking a new approach to blogging this year, one that should fit both my schedule and my goals for the blog. I’ve already mentioned some of the reasons why I stopped last year and what would need to change for me to incorporate it back into my schedule this year and since then I’ve been able to follow through with those changes (mostly). So here’s how I plan to approach blogging for 2016:

1. Most of my writing for the week will be done in a single block, about 2 hours. When I’m out of town for a day or two for work (something that will be happening more frequently this year) I’ll take advantage of that time on the road to write. When I’m in town I’ll keep it to the weekends. Part of what makes this work is that I’m taking detailed notes while I game so that some of the work is done before I actually sit down to write. That’s what I’ve done the last couple of weeks and it’s worked well so far.
2. Topics will be simple, focusing on day to day MMO experiences or other gaming related shenanigans. Last year I tried to write on the “big issues” or exhaustive guides both of which ended up too wordy and ultimately time consuming. This year I’ll keep topics simple, something that can be written in about 500 words or so. That makes the writing, editing, and the reading more manageable.
3. I’ll save my Word documents more frequently… okay, this wasn’t exactly a goal until this past Friday when I had a half-day off work and decided to write a little during the free afternoon. I still have no idea how, but two separate documents disappeared after I went through the motions of saving them. I might have been able to prevent the disappearance of the second had I realized the first was missing but instead I lost everything (that would be one of the downsides of writing a week’s worth of posts in one sitting).

That’s it— a set schedule, shorter posts, simpler topics, and paranoia-induced levels of document saving frequency. I’m hoping the end result will be 4-5 posts a week every week with about 2-3 hours spent writing. Have any of you tried writing and scheduling a week’s worth of posts in advance? Or do you prefer to write daily?

State of the Rez: Blogging, the NBI, SWTOR, and Trove

It’s been a busy writing week for me despite my lack of posts here on Waiting For Rez. In addition to the article I published on Thursday— the latest installment in the Dual Wielding series— I have also had to work on a piece for a church newsletter. The topic was on applying biblical principles in the workplace and it turned out well after several drafts and a lot of feedback. However writing the article took quite a few hours over several days and I didn’t have time for much else until it was finished. I hope to publish it at least in part on this blog in the next week.

That’s not the only thing I’m looking to publish either, I have quite a few ideas I’m eager to write about. To begin with, I would like to participate more in the Newbie Blogger Initiative. I didn’t have anything worth saying on the first talk back challenge on gamer gate and I fear that the topic for this second week— kickstarter and early access— is not of interest to me either. However I would like to contribute another screen shot for Murf’s #NBI2015Safari. I have no idea which prompt or screenshot I will share but I love the idea and I’m really glad he initiated it. I What I will be contributing to the NBI is a piece with suggestions on how to edit content for clarity. Although I’m participating as a newbie this is something that I would like to write and I feel I have enough experience on the subject that I can be helpful to other new bloggers like myself.

As for my gaming sessions, I haven’t written about them much as of late and there’s a lot that I would like to share. For starters, Star Wars: The Old Republic is still my MMO of choice and has been taking up the bulk of my time over the last two weeks. With the 12x XP buff I have gained eleven levels—my Sawbones Scoundrel is now 46—and I would like to comment on the whole experience but that will have to wait for the next Dual Wielding installment on May 28^th. What I can say is that the boost has had both positive and negative effects on my enjoyment of the game. I like the accelerated pace because it fits well with my play schedule however it has inadvertently decreased content variety while leveling because at 12x XP I keep playing class story quests and neglecting all the other types of gameplay I enjoy like Warzones and Flashpoints and Galactic Starfighter. As a result I find myself less motivated to log in. However my decreased interest in SWTOR may simply stem from the fact that I have reached that 6-8 week mark when the honeymoon phase with an MMO ends and I have to decide whether I’m going to stick with it or come back later. For SWTOR the plan is to stay but to take little mini-vacations by playing Marvel Heroes and Trove.

While SWTOR is still at the top of my MMO list, this past week I have also spent a lot of time leveling a Dracolyte (now level 16) and a few other classes in Trove. On that note, another article I plan on writing soon will cover the reasons why I’m playing it (and why I think you should be too!) All in all, there’s something relaxing about Trove. I log on and immediately begin to roam around exploring, gathering, stumbling upon random lairs and dungeons, and learning the various crafting and progression systems. With the release of the golden thread patch on Tuesday which added several quests that provide new players with a little more direction I ended up with an abundance of Cubits with which I purchased a couple of new classes. Trove is one of the most generous free to play games when it comes to purchasing classes with in-game currency. Everyone raves about Marvel Heroes (including me) but in this regard Trove wins. By the time I complete all the quests I should be able to purchase at least one more.

Basically I have the desirable problem of too many great writing ideas and too many great games to play. The hard part is having the self-discipline to forego both when there are more important things going on in my life, which there almost always is. That said, things are quieting down a little and I should have some extra time to write and game this week. I look forward to doing both and sharing the outcome here.