My Creative & Gaming Resolutions for 2015
Welcome to 2015!
I’m just getting back and settled in from my road trip vacation, so I’m a little late in the well-wishing. But I still hope you had a great holiday and an uplifting new year!
Last year, I didn’t really write out any resolutions, so this year, I wanted to think about some new habits and directions I want to go in, creative and game wise. I tend to leave my personal goals and resolutions private, so I’ll just focus on the kind of things I want to do that are more related to this blog.
I do want to note that overall, I achieved a big goal last year in maintaining this blog and writing for it regularly. I think it was a huge help to widen out the type of topics I could blog about. Dubbing it a “geek blog” allowed me to write about games, webcomics, fantasy, writing and anything that fell under that umbrella.
It was also a big help to open the blog to co-bloggers who had a similar tone, interest and outlook on blogging. While we did have some authors who chose to contribute a few posts and go their own way, it was always neat to see posts magically “appearing” about games and topics I wouldn’t have tackled on my own. I’ve been nudging a few folks to join our blog (I’m looking at you Syn), but overall, I think this year will see us maintain a selective number of writers.
Some 2015 Goals
Continue Blogging Consistently – This has been my most successful run at blogging thus far. This blog will celebrate a year’s worth of posts this month! While I’ve always blogged on and off over the years, I feel most comfortable with the setup we have here, and look forward to seeing how we can further expand and learn.
Read and Respond to More Stuff – I want to read more stuff written by friends and fellow bloggers. I already started that last year as I set up my RSS feed with numerous blogger feeds from those I’ve met over the past year. I’ve definitely been reading more blog posts as a result. While I’m traditionally a lurker, I also pushed myself to respond to posts that interested me or prompted me to comment. This year, however, I really want to engage in the great community of gaming bloggers out there, as well as pay respects to fellow online fiction writers by becoming more involved in reading their series. I’ve been kinda lousy about that over the past few years, struggling with maintaining a balance between my own projects and support projects of other people.
Fiction writing I really want to catch up on includes:
- Almonihah’s Chronicles of Draezoln
- Tharash’s works at Fwynethwyr
Get Back Into the Groove With My Own Writing – Last year was somewhat a fail year for writing fiction for me. It helps that I blogged enough that I didn’t get totally rusty, however aside from the half NaNo I did at Camp NaNo last year for Shadows of Zot, I didn’t produce anything new. I was stuck on the plot of Runne so badly I didn’t even attempt to write for it, though I did try to produce a lot of chapter art at the beginning of last year. Brainstorming sessions over this holiday season have un-stuck me for Runne in a very good way. So I hope to tackle a few Camp NaNos this year and get back to producing art for the old chapters to bring the site up to date.
Finally Release the New Secret Project – Syn and I have been working on a new project for over two years now. The site is ready to go, the writing is in place. I’ve just stalled out due to being too lazy to tackle the last pieces of art that I need to complete the first chapter. Aside from that, it could have been released last March. Ugh! Might put this on priority and just get it out there!
Blog More about Writing – I really got tunnel vision last year when I found that blogging about games got a pretty strong response. This year, I’d like to expand on my blogging topics a bit more to include some non-gaming content. I’m glad Al was around to balance out all my gaming stuff with his great RP and tabletop posts!
Be More Involved in the Awesome Gaming Blogger Community – I started that when I joined the Newbie Blogging Initiative last year. While I wasn’t technically a newbie at blogging, it was a great way to meet other bloggers and introduce this blog to other folks. I also tried to participate with other events like Bloggy Christmas and Bragtober Fest. I hooked up with folks on Anook and started using my Twitter account more regularly. I want to keep doing these things, and maybe even push to interact more, especially on social networks.
Tackle my Steam Backlog – I started doing this last year with my Personal Steam Challenge, and I need to keep working on it this year. I think I might try to set more solid limits on this, such as try one new game every week for just a few hours.
Concentrate on Fewer MMOs – Last year, I was all over the place with trying new MMOs, with a varied response.
- I opted into Landmark‘s Alpha (which I still need to play more).
- I beta tested ESO and Wildstar, neither which hooked me.
- I piddled around in Trove Alpha (which I still need to play more).
- I almost tried Rift, but chose not to at the last moment.
- I delved into ArcheAge for a few months, much to my dismay.
- I tried out World of Warcraft while it was on sale just to experience the game in its newest incarnation.
- I was prompted to try to return to EverQuest 2 but… I don’t know. This latest expansion sounded like a mess.
- The GW2 living story season 2 remains unfinished for me – I really tried to like it, but I continue to find it hard to get into. I’m just logging in there to get the new daily log-in rewards now.
After all that, I saw a pattern emerging:
- I’m loathe to play another sub game because I’m already subbed to FFXIV.
- I keep trying all these random games, especially sandboxes, hoping to find something to hook me, but I keep going back to FFXIV.
I guess that means my main MMO remains FFXIV going into 2015. So I really need to…
Focus on End Game Progression in FFXIV – Before the expansion comes out! I have hardly scratched the surface of post-level-50 content on either of my characters. I kinda ran out of steam playing FFXIV last summer, and now I’m so behind on the main storyline I have no idea what’s going on. I have a ton of stuff to do before the new expansion comes out… and I’m looking forward to the pre-expansion updates. Especially the Gold Saucer!
Wow… this is a huge and daunting list. I think I better stop here before my inspiration turns to fear! ^^;