Tuesday, January 1, 2013

On writing again, briefly

It's a new year. And so, I've determined it's time to make a conscious effort to write again.

I while back I realized I am not a particularly good writer. There are many reasons for this, but the big one is that I don't do nearly enough of it. I might expound on the smaller reasons later, but for now, this will do.

In order to improve, one needs to practice. And practice requires motivation. So, for 2013 I've decided to give myself a reason to write something every week.

As a coincidence, I've got another habit I've been failing to get into, which is playing all the video games I've accumulated over the years. According to the Lambent Stew Steam Analysis, I've only even played 48% of the games I've purchased. I've spent the majority of the past five years playing just 5-6 games - Team Fortress 2, Minecraft (which isn't tracked since it's not a Steam product but would probably rank #2 on the list if it were) Civ IV, The Binding of Isaac, Left 4 Dead 2 and Plants vs. Zombies. Over 50 percent of that time has been just TF2.

So, I've decided I'm going to sit down and start playing these games. And, I'm going to write about them. I made a handy Excel chart which lists all 181 games on my account (after deleting some DLCs, pre-orders and demos). Each Tuesday, I'm going to pick one using a random number generator and commit to playing that game for a minimum of two hours that week, then writing something about it the same week.

I have other things percolating I'd like to write about - business/workplace stuff, maybe a touch of politics and parenting. But I'm less confident in the credibility of any committment I might make to blogging on those subjects. Video games, on the other hand, are something I thoroughly enjoy while feeling like most video game writing out there is just awful, so why not?

The number generated for today is 91, which corresponds to Alan Wake on my list. I've downloaded it and will give it a run tonight.

Happy 2013.