No, You Don’t Want AI To Write For You

You know what genuinely flummoxes me? Regular, ordinary, content-consuming human beings advocating for AI automation in writing.

I was watching a YouTube video just now, and the creator mentioned that people sometimes asked him why he didn’t use an AI to write his videos for him. And of course he had his own response as to why not, but it all went over my head because I was too flummoxed by the question to think of anything else.

Producers, publishers, people who don’t care about the art, I can see them advocating for AI because for them, it’s more efficient and less hassle. They have to pay one less person, they get their product made more quickly, they get to overlook people who question the quality of the writing or the originality of the ideas. In the short term, anyway. I don’t know why anyone thinks they can get away with this in the long term, but that’s a slightly different conversation.

But, Christ. “Why don’t you just get an AI to write your videos for you?” What do people think writing is? Why do people think anyone makes anything? Writing scripts for videos sure sounds like a lot of work, why don’t you just use an AI to do it for you and focus on the other parts of the video? Why? Because then it wouldn’t be worth making! It wouldn’t be your own ideas, your own opinions, it wouldn’t be anything of substance. Is anyone actually doing this? Is anyone soulless enough to be in it purely for efficiency and money? (Don’t answer that.) Why would anyone be interested in the opinion of an AI in place of a real human being? That’s not someone’s opinion, that’s a Reddit feed restructured into a video. And that’s a truly horrific prospect, let me tell you.

Of course, this is about AI within the context of YouTube content, but it’s an equally stupid idea across the board. I’ve always wondered why writers take such a backseat in movie and television show credits, and it’s starting to look like that’s because of how they’re valued in the creative process overall. I can guarantee you there are executives at the heads of some of the most successful story-telling companies right now throwing their weight around to get AI to replace writers for the obvious reasons, because they do not consider real human writers to be important in the creative process of their movies or shows. Which is so intensely absurd. Without writers, what the hell is a story? Special effects and actors parroting stolen dialogue?

AI might be able to create a facsimile of a story, but unless it achieves some level of actual sentience, it will never come up with any new ideas of its own. Why do we bother to enjoy stories? If you can’t answer that question, maybe you should look into automating that, too. We can have AI making movies and AI watching them, then AI reviewing them and AI making YouTube videos about the reviews. It’ll be a perfect world, and we can all get back to doing labour. Wouldn’t want to go automating that now, would we?

I don’t often make blog posts like this, because I feel like all of the above has already been said, and my take isn’t necessarily contributing anything new to the noise. But sometimes, something comes along which is so earth-shiftingly ignorant that I have to say something about it, just to know that I’m not going mad. Let’s take the story-tellers out of story-telling, let’s automate art! Why? So we can make more money!

Isn’t the pursuit of technology supposed to improve our lives?!

I’m Jealous Of Another Part Of My Brain

One of the other hobbies I have is creating YouTube videos out of videogame clips and various discussions based around nerd culture, and I’ve always done that for fun with very minimal success. In recent months, however, the channel has been gaining thousands of views and steadily climbing in subscribers, which has brought me no small amount of joy. I can do it! I can do the video thing. I can make people laugh.

I am jealous.

Of myself.

Which is so stupid and absurd, but ultimately nobody is just one person and two things can be true. On the one hand, something I’ve wanted since I was a teenager is finally coming to pass, and I legitimately could not be happier about it. On the other hand, I can’t help but recontextualise my writing efforts and compare it against the channel. While I may pour a lot of effort and time into one project, I pour equal measures of deep thought and vulnerability into the other on top of a similar amount of effort and time. Like yeah, I can make people laugh, but can I make people think? Can I make people read a life experience and relate it to their own and have a humdinger of a brain poking session?

I am an idiot because I see people read my stuff and I am as thankful for it as I have always been, and now I am comparing it to an entirely different medium with an entirely different tone and having a crisis because it doesn’t get as much attention.

I think the thing I struggle with, even still, is having attended university to find a bunch of likeminded deep thinking writey-folk to bounce ideas off and feel validated existing alongside, only to leave university and be thrust back into the isolated void that is writing for oneself in an uncaring universe. A writer’s journey is often a lonely one, as it’s just me and this sheet of virtual paper, hashing it out until I arbitrarily come to a stop. I’m my own editor, so I have no idea if my garbled thoughts make sense to the outside world or if I’m just amusing my own tangle of nerves in the meat soup inside my skull. And then when I do hit publish, having absolutely no idea how many people these words reach. There are analytics, sure, but what is a view? A cursory glance or a fully comprehended ten-minute sit-down with a coffee and an open mind?

Actually, I don’t really check the analytics because I’m sure I won’t like what I see. So that probably doesn’t help.

Whinging about views is cringe, I know! But the goal of this blog is to be as open and honest as possible about my journey through life, and in my continuing attempts to portray myself with accuracy I have to acknowledge the parts of me that you’re not supposed to have. Like being jealous of the other part of your brain that can make people laugh, and comparing yourself against more successful people who are doing what you want to be doing but better.

“Making things is like deciding to spend your life playing a rigged demented slot machine, except instead of quarters you’re gambling everything that’s ever made you feel something and like, your childhood trauma.” – Savannah Brown

For those of you that do read what I have to say, thank you so much. I hope you don’t feel overlooked by my self-obsessive neuroticism in this post. If you’re fellow writers then maybe you can simply relate.

My Own Kind Of Magic

To me, there’s nothing that feels quite as satisfying as writing, specifically fiction. I don’t personally believe in predestination, but more than anything else, writing feels like what I was made for. It’s why I get so frustrated at my inability to remain focused on one project long enough to write a novel. It’s the metric by which I measure my worth as a human being, although I probably shouldn’t.

It’s early days, far too early to pat myself on the back just yet, but with this Multifarious Mind project, I feel this innate sensation of reclaimed identity. It began when my friend asked me to go over a script they were writing with them. The simple act of offering a second perspective on their superb work was enough to reignite the creative fire within me, and so I created Excerpts From A Multifarious Mind with the knowledge of everything I’ve learned about myself over the last few years to help keep that fire alive.

I can’t quite explain what it feels like to write stories. When I have an idea that I need to get out, and I’m a thousand words deep with plenty left to tell, I feel like the universe clicks in a way which it rarely does. I’ve heard artists talk the same way about sketching or painting, and I’m sure musicians feel the same about songwriting. It’s the closest thing we’ve got to magic, I suppose.

Whenever I talk about this, people ask me if I’m going to take it further, write a novel, become world famous etc etc. Well last year, I tried to force my mind to remain focused on a novel. Chapter one went great. Chapter two, excellent. Chapter three was okay, but could use some work. Which I’d get back to, of course. Which I never did. (And I know not all novels are written sequentially, but that’s what made sense to me.)

Right now, I’m not writing for any reason other than for the love of it. I hope people read what I make, but even if my blog gets no hits and my videos get no views, I’ll be happy to keep going. Right now, writing just makes me feel alive. I hope I never lose that.

And if I stumble, and lose my grip on this part of my identity yet again, I can feel secure in knowing it’s within reach for when I want another try.

From Here Onwards

I used to write one of these at every turn of the year, but it got a little exhausting talking about the past and the future at intervals where my life saw little change. Last year, I… did nothing, and this year I shall… hopefully do things! It began to feel like empty words. So, as we’re twenty days into January, please feel free to take this as a hint that this is not a scheduled yearly blog post, but one that I’m writing because I actually have things to say.

I’ve spent a lot of my twenties beating myself up about the state of my life. I grew up with grandiose ideas about becoming a world famous story teller who’d change the way people thought about the world! Fast forward to last year, when I’m sitting through a faculty meeting at work, listening to my boss tell us that we wouldn’t realistically be working here if part of us didn’t enjoy the work. No, I think, I’m working here because I’m trapped within my own limitations and only my friends here keep me sane. I still work there. I recently had an attendance review meeting because I took four unpaid days off in four months for being curled up in bed with the flu. It’s going real well.

So how come I’m not a world famous story teller? Well, I have a few theories about that (sans the world famous part). And this year… well, starting from the end of last year, because I wasn’t waiting for an arbitrary New Year’s Resolution before changing my life… this year I’m following up on my theories. For starters, I’m seeing someone about ADHD. I have nothing to share yet, so don’t assume I have it – there are people in my life who certainly don’t think I do – but personally, it’d go a long way to explaining why I have such difficulty not just with sticking to a single idea long enough to see it through, but also with plenty of every day problems in real life. Speaking of which, I’m also starting an online CBT course thing for anxiety! I won’t get into oversharing, but I think that a lot of my issues in life come from a generalised variety of anxiety, and so far it would seem that doctors agree.

So I’m not promising to write a novel this year, because I tried brute forcing that last year and I got four chapters into my first draft before having a crisis of confidence and binning the thing. But I am promising to work on myself. If ADHD and anxiety aren’t the issue, something else is, I know that much by now. I’ve barely dipped my toe into figuring this stuff out but I already feel more confident for the small scraps of validation that my investigations have brought me so far. Maybe I’m not just shit. Maybe I’m facing some real obstacles. Maybe I always have.

On a lighter note, another thing I want to do in 2023 is read more books! I’ve become super engrossed in comic books these last few years, so it’s not that I’ve not been reading exactly, but on the novel front, I’ve been mired seven books into the Wheel of Time series for some months now. Unfortunately, this fantasy epic becomes a notorious slog for the middle three books, and in my stubbornness to not give up I’ve ended up forsaking almost everything else. Last year, I read four books, two of them Wheel of Time novels. (The other two were Good Omens and Sylvanas, a World of Warcraft tie-in novel. Both are excellent.) This year, my aim is to read 15 books by the end of the year, which may not sound difficult to you, but… remember the possible-ADHD thing? I use Audible nowadays to listen to books on the way to work, as I have a tough time keeping my attention on the real physical deal. Unfortunately, Audible only gives out 12 book tokens over the course of a year, so 15 books may actually be an issue! Ah well. I’ll figure it out.

Thanks for reading. I hope your 2023 proves as fruitful as mine is planning to be. I’m considering changing the name of this blog from Perpetually Perturbed to The Tombstone Project, after the real-time memoirs project that every blog post here contributes to. What do you think? Let me know!

Year to Year: A Journal Through Time #19 – Writing my Future (28/5/19)

Recent headlines

World: The UK’s European elections 2019 (Don’t blame me, I voted Green…)

Gaming: The next Call of Duty is just called Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (Woah, let’s not go breaking any wheels, guys)

I’m Playing: World of Warcraft (life is cyclical etc etc), Elder Scrolls Online: Elsweyr (cats are people too, you know), Mario Kart 8 (Crash Team Racing hype!)

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I’m sorry! I’m a day late on writing this one, and I’m also writing it a little late into said day. But I have an excuse – well, not an excuse, but a fact which might make this dreadful sin more forgivable. I’ve been writing! Not like, as in, writing blog posts or journal entries (obviously), but actual, fictional writing. Well, sort of. I’m not drafting the novel which will be my immediate breakout success and catapult me to an awards dinner with Stephen King. For now, I’m writing short stories and flash fiction. I am drinking from the water cooler at r/WritingPrompts. It tastes oddly metallic.

Writing is a muscle which needs to be stretched. Write every day, if you can, or so the writers tell me. And I’ve been hearing that advice since I graduated from university with my Creative Writing degree, and every time I’ve heard it I’ve sat and frowned a bit and done the mental equivalent of pulling my fingers backwards in punishment, or twisting my ears until they really hurt. I’ve been beating myself up! Because I grew up telling myself that my only talent was writing, and I’d given up the moment I realised that achieving my dreams wouldn’t be possible on base talent alone. I’d have to work for it! How unsightly! I’d just done three years of writing to deadlines and adjusting based on critical feedback. The world wanted me to do more of that?

Yes, Kristian. That’s how writing works.

So basing your self-worth around your only talent in the world isn’t something to be recommended, it turns out. This is because when you inevitably lose faith in your ability to do the one thing you’ve convinced yourself you can do, you no longer have value. Oops! And it doesn’t matter that you’ve graduated with upper second class honours, which is frankly fantastic. It doesn’t matter because the version of yourself which can sit at that awards dinner with Stephen King and all the rest is the version that got a First, made the Dean’s List, had already got a publishing deal lined up and had also cured cancer along the way, probably. And if I’m not that version of myself by the time I’ve graduated, when am I ever going to be?

Good lord. What a mess.

I linked to an article in an earlier Year to Year journal post which mentioned that when we think in a particular way for an extended period of time, it becomes easier for that method of thinking to be normal. They likened it to cutting a path through a forest, and returning through that way over and over. “I’m as good at writing as my peers” is, at first, a humbling thought. A healthy one. An important one. But when I retread that thought over and over it becomes tinged with fear. “I’m still not as good at writing as my peers.” “I’ll never be as good at writing as my peers.” “I’ll never be good at writing.” And as the thought morphs and I think it more often, it isn’t just something I think. It’s someone I’ve become. “I’ve lost faith in my ability to write. I’m a failure.”

Welcome to Kristian at 23. He has one thing he’s good at, and he doesn’t think he wants to do it anymore, because he’s not good enough at it.

So how do I get out of that thought pattern? Because it is, I think, a little worse than writer’s block. Well, the answer isn’t the easiest one, because the way I’ve arrived at my current state of being is through intense levels of discontent. Unhappiness which reaches deep enough for me to do some soul searching. What’s going in there? Every time I try to reach for some golden answer that helps it all make sense, I find nothing but this miasmic grey mire which is impossible to give shape to. But on the way there, I find indicators. Sources of unhappiness. Nothing I can cure all at once, but it’s time to start giving it a go. What’s this big, pulsing orb of negativity right here? Why, it says, “I’ve lost faith in my ability to write. I’m a failure.”

Getting back into writing wasn’t going to solve a lot of my discontentment. It hasn’t. In fact, it might cause more if I fall off the writing wagon, because that makes the discontented thought that much stronger. “I’ve lost my ability to write. I’m a failure.” How bad does that sound? God! So giving the Writing Prompts subreddit a go was terrifying. Not least because my original motivation to become a writer hinged on me having an outstanding gift that made me unique, in a sense, and that subreddit is full of writers who are better than me, all of which get quite a lot of attention for their work. Now, I’m quite accustomed to putting a lot of effort into creating content without much of an audience – look at my Youtube channel – but I’m okay with that, because the act of creating the content is a hobby. Writing is my calling, though. If I fail to grab people with it, that’s a bit different.

So there it is, I can’t. I can’t because, because, because. And that’s why I don’t. And I can’t because I don’t. So how do you break that cycle? You just do.

So I did.

I wrote a 700 word short story based on a writing prompt and I posted it in the thread along with the countless other stories. And I got one upvote, and nothing else.

And my world didn’t end.

So I did it again.

Writing is a muscle which needs to be stretched. It’s not a secret weapon to use when you feel like cashing in on your destiny. It’s not the solution to your myriad of other problems. It’s a talent, but without practice, it isn’t a discipline. So I’m practising. And if someone mocks my writing or tells me it’s awful, my world still might end, because that’s not an area I have thick skin for. But withdrawing from my calling because my world might end is redundancy of the highest order, as the possibility of my world ending is less destructive than refusing to start living in it.

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Further reading:

E.K Johnston: Your Brain is a Forest (This again – haven’t re-read it but this is where the forest analogy came from)

The Weekly Deathmatch #57 – Overwatch – On Writing (This post, but articulated differently)

Writing Prompt 001 – Deliverance (Oh god I’m posting them here too)

Writing Prompt 002 – Lonely Road (Oh man oh jeez pardon my rust)

The Tombstone Project and Monthly Updates

Hello there! Me again. Been some time, eh? Sorry about that. I have a six-month project going live at the start of next year to make up for it, though, so be on the lookout for that.

That’s in the past (well, future) though. Today I’m here to talk about The Tombstone Project! It’s a potentially megalomaniacal project that will, if successful, span the rest of my entire life. Basically, memoirs, but also, I’m including every self-centric piece of writing I’ve published over the years and putting them into this project too. As I write it’s currently over 64,000 words long and spans over 100 pages, but that sounds far more impressive before you consider the fact that this post is the first piece of original Tombstone Project writing to be included.

So, why am I doing this? Well, fear not, I’m not going to drop dead any time soon. I hope. But for some time now I’ve felt that everyday life, when captured, becomes more interesting further down the line; the mundane is transformed into something precious, a gateway to a past no longer tangible, more reliable than memory and more revealing than aged knowledge. And when I finally do pop my clogs at the age of 97, assuming that I haven’t achieved immortality by that point, it’d be nice to leave people with something to leaf through, not just to learn about me but to experience the average person’s experience living through these years, as we did. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to read a book about my father’s life story, about stories too painful to re-tell or times otherwise forgotten.

And besides, writing lasts so much longer than the life of those who penned it.

Of course, I wouldn’t expect anyone to read the entire thing. I may go back through it and edit out some of the more boring or irrelevant posts, some other time. For now, though… I’ve spent this week reading through 13 year old Kristian’s random and bizarre ramblings, to 22 year old Kristian’s depressing and somewhat cynical rants about the nature of lost motivation and being yet another brick in the wall. I am, somewhat understandably, sick to the pits of myself! But I also learned rather a lot in the process, so it wasn’t entirely an unhealthy exercise.

I learned that I have more in common with my teenage self than I remembered. I learned that despite believing in optimism, my thought processes wavered towards cynicism more often than I noticed, even within my own writing. I discovered that despite having a blog with my name attached to it for six years, I’ve written remarkably little about myself due to some aversion to publicly autobiographical writing. I’ve learned that I repeated the same discoveries about motivations and writing once every two years; that I am a person who is entirely too frustrated by the nature of things they cannot change, and that apparently, I had something against poets? Most importantly, I realised that the slump I entered post-uni was far deeper than I had realised, and that my mind was far darker than I would admit to myself. I’ve since found meaning in creative projects and everyday life, and whilst my lack of purpose is still an issue, I’m far less hollow as a person for it.

Monthly updates, then, are my plan to add to the Tombstone Project going forward. That way, I figure, I won’t be adding too much writing, and it should have a little substance to it. Crucially, I’m not going to force myself to write a monthly update if I can’t think of anything to write for it. But, most relevantly to you, dear reader, I will be posting these monthly updates here on Perpetually Perturbed, starting with this month. These posts should be slightly more autobiographical and less topical in nature, to fit in line with my Project Tombstone ambitions.

So check back soon!

My Creative Resurgence

Ever since graduating from university, I’ve found myself less motivated to create – whether it be fictional stories, nonfictional blog posts, or other means of creativity I’ve often enjoyed such as making videos on Youtube. I could never quite put my finger on what killed my motivation, and I’m still not entirely too sure what happened now, but in the last few months I’ve been stoking the fires of my creativity once more, and while I’ve not exactly been writing short stories or plotting a novel, I have been busy nonetheless.

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World of Warcraft Character Backstories

Inspired after reading through all three volumes of World of Warcraft: Chronicle, a book series documenting the lore of the popular MMO’s expansive world, I took a look at my own growing roster of characters within the game and decided to document their own stories. For some of them, these are stories that I’ve had in my mind from the second I created them; for others, I had to consider them as an individual within the world for the very first time. I set myself some rules: I wouldn’t interfere with the game’s pre-existing characters or plots, and I wouldn’t make any of my characters out to be more important than any other “adventurer” within the game’s lore. These were the stories of characters who had been influenced by the world, rather than influencing it themselves.

Both volumes can be found on my gaming blog, and I’m not far from completing my third, with a fourth to come after that. Alternatively, you can just follow the links below:

Volume 1: The Night Elf Brothers

Volume 2: Sisters of Light and Shadow

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Livestreaming

Surprise! I have an entire online persona that you’ve possibly never heard of.

When I created this blog, I did so with the knowledge that I’d be linking it to my Facebook and sharing my writing processes. I was using my name in the title of the blog. Therefore, I sought to remove it – as I did my Facebook – from the rest of my online profiles, although when I made my gaming blog you could probably follow the links from here to there. I essentially tried to segment my personality into two halves: Kristian, the aspiring author with an arts degree who’s contemplative of life, and Kritigri, a gaming enthusiast who uploads his gameplay with comedic commentary. In recent times, however, I’ve learned that without both halves to balance the other out, the first becomes pretentious whilst the second is somewhat hollow.

My livestreaming, then, is a fairly new project that I’ve very recently doubled down on. I’ve decided that I need to choose a game to be my main streaming subject, and as you could probably tell from earlier in this blog post, World of Warcraft is a game that I know almost as well as my own life. I do stream other games occassionally, too, but I’ve recently begun a WoW livestream playthrough which I’ve called “Story Mode”, in which I level a character from scratch and pay attention to the stories of each zone, discussing the lore as I go.

I still don’t have a streaming schedule that’s set in stone, but I try to stream at least once a week (typically more so), and if you’re interested you can follow my channel and recieve notifications when I go live. If you miss a stream, the project below has you covered. I have a decent microphone (but no webcam) and try to stream for no less than an hour each time, and have Twitch chat on my phone so I can monitor any messages I get.

Here is my Livestreaming channel.

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Youtube Videos

I’ve been making videos on Youtube for about a decade now, with various gaps of disinterest along the way. At my peak, I reached a whopping 600 subscribers. It’s safe to say that I do it for fun.

My channel consists of three parts: It’s one part Twitch VODS (archives of my livestreams), one part gaming videos and one part vlogs.

As far as gameplay capture goes, I run a series called The Daily Rogue, in which I play a roguelike (that is, a game genre where you typically have one life to delve as far into a dungeon as you can) until I die, and I can’t start over for the rest of the day – hence, ‘Daily’. In these videos I normally ramble about whatever is on my mind at the time. I’ve also started a series called The Weekly Deathmatch, which is weekly in the more traditional sense of coming out once a week, every week. In these videos, I record the commentary after I’ve recorded the video, so that I can actually focus on not dying every 5 seconds and losing my train of thought. These videos are also a backdrop for various ramblings, though these ramblings are typically more focused on a particular subject that I’ve decided on before the video begins.

My Bitesize Vlogs are short (5-10 mins), edited videos that document a day or particular outing in my life. This is obviously more of a personality-based genre of content, and is focused on my interactions with life as opposed to videogames, so this may be of interest to you if the rest is not. These vlogs began when I got my Google Pixel 2, and realised that I couldn’t waste such a good camera by not using it. I’ve also experimented with vlogs in my teens, so you’ll find I’m not entirely inexperienced with making them.

Here’s my Youtube channel

The Daily Rogue Playlist

The Weekly Deathmatch Playlist

Bitesize Vlogs Playlist

Miscellaneous Edited Videos

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Gameplay DVR Archive

Within the last few years, the ability to capture the last X seconds of gameplay in video form became possible, and I love it. I retrofitted my original Youtube channel (the one that hit 600 subs) as an archive for my gameplay clips, and I upload them in bulk. I schedule them to go public three days a week – Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays, though I currently have an extra one releasing on Mondays. This channel mostly exists as an archive for my own amusement, but one day I decided to organise the channel a bit and make playlists for each game. I also curated a ‘Best Of’ playlist, so you can get the gist of what to expect if you wish to subscribe to the channel.

Currently I have videos scheduled up to September, so if I die suddenly in a horrific walking accident, you’ll be hearing from me posthumously for a few months to come. Isn’t that a lovely thought?

My Public Archive Channel

Browse by Game

Best Of Playlist

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And That’s That

Please bear in mind that I’m juggling all this between two jobs and leisure time™, so a few things are bound to drop or change over the coming months. I just felt like writing this blog post to update everyone on what I’ve been up to!

I’ll get around to writing that book eventually.

One day.

Oh god.

Help me.

Kristian, Why Don’t You Write?

Alright. Let’s talk motivation.

This is not going to be a blog post about how I stay motivated, or about tips on motivation. It’s also not going to be a venting of frustration on how I’m not motivated. This blog post is going to be a deconstruction of my motivation structures with aims of explanation and self-exploration.

Why haven’t you written a book yet?

I finished my BA in Creative Writing over a year ago, and teenage Kristian’s timeline for life extended outwards from there into writing novels, having been armed with a wide array of creative inspirations and techniques. Almost a year on from graduation, I can count the number of writing projects I’ve begun – none completed – on one hand. That’s one short story, two introductory concept chapters and a map. Clearly, something didn’t go as planned along the mapped route of my life. It wasn’t a tragedy. It wasn’t finances. It was the same beast that’s stopped countless writers from budding; it was a lack of motivation.

A quote:

Discipline is reliable, motivation is fleeting. The question isn’t how to keep yourself motivated, it’s how to train yourself to work without it.

Whilst I haven’t heard this perspective articulated before, it’s one that I’ve attempted in the recent past. In September of 2015 I pledged to do weekly updates across my two blogs, and that lasted for the most part until the beginning of this year. It was one of the first times I devoted myself to completing a task without the drive of inspiration and motivation. At the beginning of 2016, I wrote a blog post declaring that I would attempt to write even if it felt more like work than enjoyment, stating that “You don’t need to feel motivated to continue trying.” And around that time I also began my Name A Day project, which I updated psuedo-daily for all 366 days of 2016.

The first half of 2017 has seen slowdown on all of those fronts. I gave up on this year’s Name-A-Day in March. Blog posts aren’t coming weekly any more. And any discipline I’ve built up around writing without motivation has trickled out of my ears.

How did this happen?

The easy answer is that I got lazy. But to be lazy you have to rationalise to yourself why it’s okay to be this way, and so I’ll present my rationalisations in an easy list.

Priorities.

I now work two jobs. Two jobs which, I might add, I enjoy! My ultimate goal in life is to be happy, and I’m happy working where I work, doing what I’m doing, for who I’m working for. But these jobs also have nothing to do with writing. This eats into the free time I previously had to update my blog and to fail at pursuing my writing. But I don’t work 30 hour weeks. I still have free time. Which brings us onto our next point.

Time management.

This is where the lack of discipline really comes into play. As much as I enjoy writing, it is hard work without motivation. My biggest non-productive joy in life is gaming. And don’t mistake me, it is a legitimate source of happiness. I’d be perfectly happy to devote my life to videogames if given the chance, which so few of us are. But in the meantime, my go-to activity in my free time is gaming, with friends or alone. Because it’s easy, and it makes me happy. And that would be fine if my short-term happiness played ball with my goals for lifetime fulfilment.

Lack of interest.

Motivation does come, though, and I don’t just write with the creativity that comes to me. Since childhood I’ve expressed creativity in other forms, from video-making to web-designing to, well, Minecraft, not that I’m any good at architecture there. And in all of my endeavours my creations have failed to garner interest. And I’m not talking woe-is-me I only have five thousand active viewers on my Youtube gaming channel. I’m talking flat-out barrens. And it’s hard to discuss this without sounding entitled, so let me dispel any notion that I feel like I’ve created anything worthy of renown. But… you know, the odd head-turn outside of people I know personally would be nice. I know that if I put a lot of time and discipline into something, I might create something that draws more attention, but to get there I need to create and to create I need to get past this barrier. The barrier of public disinterest.

And that’s pretty much that.

So now that we’re all up to date on how I’m a part-timer who plays too many videogames and whinges about how nobody acknowledges his talent, what am I going to do to rectify it? Well, for the present, nothing. No promises. I’m still in my protective cocoon with a sign on the front that says “my life is going through changes and I’ll be a creative butterfly when I’m familiar with the outside world again”. But I’ve had these ideas for worlds and characters knocking around at the back of my mind for months, and they’re getting harder and harder to ignore. But I want to justify the motivation to create these worlds and characters with the discipline to follow through with these promises of stories, and so I’ll start dipping my toe into the pools of discipline very soon. I’ve even been browsing to-do apps…

A Beginner’s World Crafting Woes

I like fantasy. It’s pretty much my go-to fiction. And what I like most about a good fantasy world is its lore, how its gods shaped the lands and the origin of magic, and all that good stuff. And so naturally, I’ve been drawn to the idea of creating my own fantasy world. But it really is no small feat.

I’ve had this idea for a fantasy world in my head since about December, but I’ve still not found myself capable of sitting down and fleshing out the world. Some would probably advise me to just write and see what happens from there, but I’ve tried that and I find myself hitting a wall every 5 minutes because I’ve not already established the laws and rules of the world. And yet, sitting down and trying to plot everything out and build the world from scratch, despite sounding like a super interesting and fun task, quickly devolves into boredom or an itching to write in a universe that’s already been made.

The general idea is to create a fantasy world that I’m going to be able to write new stories in for years to come, whether they be short stories, novels, or other forms of fiction. This would mean establishing a timeline of events and considering how much I want to shape and change the world with each storytelling event that happens within it. Some stories would inevitably feature heroes and villains on a scale of which would make history and be spoken of for generations. Other stories would be smaller, more focused on the lives of the everyday, perhaps those who stand in the shadows of these forerunning legends and have to live with the consequences of their actions. I’m actually more interested in writing the latter of those two possibilities. But every time I attempt to make a start or continue to build the world, I run into issues of attention span and motivation which I won’t bore you with in this blog post.

I’ve also considered the idea that I’m starting off too grand in my storytelling ventures. As a new writer, I should perhaps consider a standalone novel or something, unrelated to this world which I want to build. But my default genre and current direction of writing is fantasy, and I’ve found that fantasy always demands these grand worlds and extended universes, lest they be insubstantial, boring, or lacking in the sense of wonder and scale that attracts many to the genre.

Maybe I should just keep at it. Writing this blog post alone has somehow spurred me into considering making another attempt at the fiction for the first time in weeks. Lately I’ve been considering removing myself from the internet for one day of the week each week, in an attempt to spur myself into creativity as opposed to the mindless consumption that I so readily tap into. I don’t know. I’ll continue to work on methods of self-motivation. If you have any tips for me, I’d be more than willing to hear them.

UPDATE: After writing this blog post and before publishing it, I decided to try and write something within that fantasy universe mentioned in this blog post. I wrote 1,344 words, and it feels like the prologue of a longer narrative. Woo, go me!

A Year in Titles

At the beginning of the year, I was struck by an odd idea – what if I gave each day a title, as if it were a chapter in a book? This would open the way of an autobiographical project to last me throughout the year, pushing me creatively and ending up with something interesting to look back on. I don’t even recall what most of these titles are about. They could be describing events, emotions, be comedic or be references to my gaming habits. But you’ll discover this yourself. So, without further ado:

JANUARY

01.01.16 Day 1: Quarrel Between Friends

02.01.16 Day 2: Word Play

03.01.16 Day 3: Island Life

04.01.16 Day 4: Thief

05.01.16 Day 5: Unlikely Encounters

06.01.16 Day 6: Tudor Sandwich

07.01.16 Day 7: The Infuriating Redundancy of Battery-Powered Lamps

08.01.16 Day 8: Hail Sithis!

09.01.16 Day 9: The Architect of Distraction

10.01.16 Day 10: Advanced Prose Friction

11.01.16 Day 11: Poemology

12.01.16 Day 12: Rise of Parody

13.01.16 Day 13: U Dissin’ Me

14.01.16 Day 14: Retreating from Writers

15.01.16 Day 15: Watch

16.01.16 Day 16: Vampire Heresy

17.01.16 Day 17: Basement Dweller

18.01.16 Day 18: Astral Planes

19.01.16 Day 19: Fleeting Pizza

20.01.16 Day 20: Rainbow Flock

21.01.16 Day 21: Coldplay Bullets

22.01.16 Day 22: Politics in the Face of Humanity

23.01.16 Day 23: Dinosaur Head

24.01.16 Day 24: Rabbit Sandwich

25.01.16 Day 25: Marjon Movie Module Magic

26.01.16 Day 26: Tauren the World

27.01.16 Day 27: A Victory

28.01.16 Day 28: Categorisation

29.01.16 Day 29: The Final Stretch

30.01.16 Day 30: Rare Appearance of the Iridescent Zebra

31.01.16 Day 31: Parting Shot

FEBRUARY

01.02.16 Day 32: Scripted Event

02.02.16 Day 33: Nimble Fingers, Nimble Feet

03.02.16 Day 34: Hot and Cold

04.02.16 Day 35: Brick by Brick

05.02.16 Day 36: The Rhymey Novel

06.02.16 Day 37: Atomic Piss

07.02.16 Day 38: Sunny Days (I Named This One Whilst Half Asleep)

08.02.16 Day 39: Fifty Six

09.02.16 Day 40: Cargo Bros

10.02.16 Day 41: Hotseat Bros

11.02.16 Day 42: Watch Your Language

12.02.16 Day 43: Hidden Chess

13.02.16 Day 44: Sniperscythe

14.02.16 Day 45: Bloodshed

15.02.16 Day 46: Green Hood

16.02.16 Day 47: Crab Without Anemone

17.02.16 Day 48: Fangs

18.02.16 Day 49: The Native Farm Parcel

19.02.16 Day 50: Old Habits

20.02.16 Day 51: Dragon Harvest

21.02.16 Day 52: Worlds New and Old Alike

22.02.16 Day 53: Sleepless

23.02.16 Day 54: Dental Cat

24.02.16 Day 55: Imaginary Theatre

25.02.16 Day 56: The Anti-Apocalypse Archive

26.02.16 Day 57: Celestial Revelations

27.02.16 Day 58: Gotta Catch ‘Em All

28.02.16 Day 59: The Three Pillars

29.02.16 Day 60: Off-Step

MARCH

01.03.16 Day 61: Farmstead

02.03.16 Day 62: Living Ghosts

03.03.16 Day 63: Pen and Paper

04.03.16 Day 64: Nothing Here Was Built to Last

05.03.16 Day 65: World Warper

06.03.16 Day 66: Camera-Aided Telekinesis

07.03.16 Day 67: Moving On Up

08.03.16 Day 68: Mellow Slaughter

09.03.16 Day 69: Decadent Tales

10.03.16 Day 70: Between Storms

11.03.16 Day 71: Dave the Technician

12.03.16 Day 72: Masta the Pasta

13.03.16 Day 73: Convention Adventure

14.03.16 Day 74: A Song I’ve Heard Before

15.03.16 Day 75: Not Colin Firth

16.03.16 Day 76: Invasion of the Giant Hyper-Intelligent Bird-People

17.03.16 Day 77: To The Library!

18.03.16 Day 78: Walking Through the Plague

19.03.16 Day 79: Ill at Ease

20.03.16 Day 80: New York Ninjas

21.03.16 Day 81: Tome

22.03.16 Day 82: Small Talk

23.03.16 Day 83: Fictional Moons

24.03.16 Day 84: First Out The Gate

25.03.16 Day 85: Eggcelsior

26.03.16 Day 86: Leggo Supeggheroes

27.03.16 Day 87: Irreggularities

28.03.16 Day 88: Last Leggs

29.03.16 Day 89: Easter Tuesday

30.03.16 Day 90: A Galaxy Away

31.03.16 Day 91: Presumed Dead

APRIL

01.04.16 Day 92: Foolishness

02.04.16 Day 93: Super Excitable

03.04.16 Day 94: He Who Wields the Mighty Hammer

04.04.16 Day 95: Delicat

05.04.16 Day 96: Braindead

06.04.16 Day 97: Shooting Off

07.04.16 Day 98: Screw Loose

08.04.16 Day 99: Paper Dude

09.04.16 Day 100: Round Table

10.04.16 Day 101: I Don’t Choose You

11.04.16 Day 102: Mounting Tempo

12.04.16 Day 103: A Feasible Existence

13.04.16 Day 104: The Company of Friends

14.04.16 Day 105: Keep Rollin’

15.04.16 Day 106: Hired, Tired and Wired

16.04.16 Day 107: On the Cards

17.04.16 Day 108: Progression

18.04.16 Day 109: Near and Far Horizons

19.04.16 Day 110: Ergodynomics

20.04.16 Day 111: Slam Dunk’d

21.04.16 Day 112: Critical Criticisms

22.04.16 Day 113: Overestimating an Underachiever

23.04.16 Day 114: Hard Homes

24.04.16 Day 115: Taking Flight

25.04.16 Day 116: Release

26.04.16 Day 117: Blogurt

27.04.16 Day 118: Strategizers

28.04.16 Day 119: Penultimate Pub Lunch

29.04.16 Day 120: Class Dismissed

30.04.16 Day 121: Slow Chaos

MAY

01.05.16 Day 122: Making Room

02.05.16 Day 123: Off the Script

03.05.16 Day 124: What Uncles are For

04.05.16 Day 125: The Great Goblin Massacre

05.05.16 Day 126: He Shoots

06.05.16 Day 127: Treasure Hunters

07.05.16 Day 128: Solutions

08.05.16 Day 129: The Ultimate Pen

09.05.16 Day 130: 100 Extra Fiber Bran Flakes

10.05.16 Day 131: Crux

11.05.16 Day 132: The Long Journey’s End

12.05.16 Day 133: De-Hermitisation

13.05.16 Day 134: Civil War

14.05.16 Day 135: Ring-A-Ding Ding

15.05.16 Day 136: Middle-Man MVP

16.05.16 Day 137: The Jaffa-Coloured Cake Fiend

17.05.16 Day 138: Meaty Chunks

18.05.16 Day 139: Losses and Gains

19.05.16 Day 140: Supersonic Soccar Saves

20.05.16 Day 141: IRC Sick

21.05.16 Day 142: The Best

22.05.16 Day 143: Gotta Go Quick

23.05.16 Day 144: The Greatest Doorman the World Will Ever Know

24.05.16 Day 145: My New Favourite Kristian

25.05.16 Day 146: Hopeless

26.05.16 Day 147: Escapism

27.05.16 Day 148: Hidden Present

28.05.16 Day 149: Once Bitten

29.05.16 Day 150: Stuffed

30.05.16 Day 151: Zero

31.05.16 Day 152: Gone in a Flash

JUNE

01.06.16 Day 153: Nerd Up

02.06.16 Day 154: Half a Life

03.06.16 Day 155: All in a Year’s Work

04.06.16 Day 156: The Escape of Team Dynamite

05.06.16 Day 157: The Dungeon Delving Duo

06.06.16 Day 158: Killed Off

07.06.16 Day 159: Orcs and Humans

08.06.16 Day 160: Excess Capitalism

09.06.16 Day 161: Loved

10.06.16 Day 162: The Spoils

11.06.16 Day 163: Whale of a Time

12.06.16 Day 164: The Other Side of the Glass

13.06.16 Day 165: Marketing and Magic

14.06.16 Day 166: Orchestral Score

15.06.16 Day 167: At the Gates

16.06.16 Day 168: Total Maturity

17.06.16 Day 169: Assigned Roles

18.06.16 Day 170: Space Cruise

19.06.16 Day 171: Mon Pear

20.06.16 Day 172: Vampires and Werewolves and Ghosts, Oh My

21.06.16 Day 173: The Cardboard Spyglass

22.06.16 Day 174: The Wrong Opinions

23.06.16 Day 175: I Worry for Tomorrow

24.06.16 Day 176: I Pray for Yesterday

25.06.16 Day 177: Sibling Soccar

26.06.16 Day 178: Here Be Dragons

27.06.16 Day 179: Happy Families

28.06.16 Day 180: Off the Grid

29.06.16 Day 181: Our Masters

30.06.16 Day 182: The Adorable Psychopath

JULY

01.07.16 Day 183: Stranded

02.07.16 Day 184: Out Back

03.07.16 Day 185: Dead Ends

04.07.16 Day 186: Temporary Solutions

05.07.16 Day 187: The Final Day of Exile

06.07.16 Day 188: Much the Same as Always

07.07.16 Day 189: Selective Allocation of Resources

08.07.16 Day 190: Sestra

09.07.16 Day 191: Post-Show

10.07.16 Day 192: Captain’s Log

11.07.16 Day 193: Death in Comedy

12.07.16 Day 194: Just Like Old Times

13.07.16 Day 195: Darth Theresa

14.07.16 Day 196: Roaming Far and Wide

15.07.16 Day 197: My Very Own Pokemon Adventure

16.07.16 Day 198: Almost Human

17.07.16 Day 199: Curse of the Glowing Yellow Orb

18.07.16 Day 200: Enflamed

19.07.16 Day 201: Losing Solidity

20.07.16 Day 202: The Plunge

21.07.16 Day 203: Paignton the Town Red

22.07.16 Day 204: Digging What’s To Come

23.07.16 Day 205: The Supporting Role

24.07.16 Day 206: I Choose You

25.07.16 Day 207: Close, But No Cigar

26.07.16 Day 208: Patience is a Virtue

27.07.16 Day 209: Retro Novice

28.07.16 Day 210: DCAU

29.07.16 Day 211: Prolepsis

30.07.16 Day 212: Maximum Power

31.07.16 Day 213: Picmikki

AUGUST

01.08.16 Day 214: Resolving Displays

02.08.16 Day 215: Triple Output

03.08.16 Day 216: Target Elimination

04.08.16 Day 217: Sol’s Seeking

05.08.16 Day 218: Becoming Another

06.08.16 Day 219: Inducing Nerves

07.08.16 Day 220: Unbound

08.08.16 Day 221: A Worldly Embrace

09.08.16 Day 222: Getting to Grips

10.08.16 Day 223: Birth of an Avenger

11.08.16 Day 224: Of Two Worlds

12.08.16 Day 225: The Endless Invasion

13.08.16 Day 226: Murder Time, Fun Time!

14.08.16 Day 227: Count Your Chickens

15.08.16 Day 228: Mundane Monday

16.08.16 Day 229: Misconstruesday

17.08.16 Day 230: Spendsday (Or: The Kindness of Guildies)

18.08.16 Day 231: Spurnsday (Or: Day of the Week Puns were a Bad Idea)

19.08.16 Day 232: Fri Not (Or: Seriously What Was I Thinking)

20.08.16 Day 233: Sat On My Arse Day (That was Predictable)

21.08.16 Day 234: The Sun ain’t out this Sunday (I Regret Everything)

22.08.16 Day 235: New Shift

23.08.16 Day 236: Ancient Technology

24.08.16 Day 237: Chilling in the Deep End

25.08.16 Day 238: Turbo Monk

26.08.16 Day 239: Round Two

27.08.16 Day 240: Painting the Town Blue

28.08.16 Day 241: All Is Not Well

29.08.16 Day 242: Fall of the Warlords

30.08.16 Day 243: Rise of the Legion

31.08.16 Day 244: Reanimation

SEPTEMBER

01.09.16 Day 245: When the Bell Tolls

02.09.16 Day 246: A Christmas Come Early

03.09.16 Day 247: King Kablooey

04.09.16 Day 248: Earning Access

05.09.16 Day 249: Make Believe

06.09.16 Day 250: Endlessly

07.09.16 Day 251: Unfamiliar Interface

08.09.16 Day 252: Preparations

09.09.16 Day 253: Under the Sea

10.09.16 Day 254: Lost to Time

11.09.16 Day 255: Birthdeque

12.09.16 Day 256: A Reputation to Build

13.09.16 Day 257: Hitting Every Branch

14.09.16 Day 258: Bricking It

15.09.16 Day 259: Double Lunch

16.09.16 Day 260: In the Winds

17.09.16 Day 261: Of Elves and Customers

18.09.16 Day 262: A Lengthy Prelude

19.09.16 Day 263: Hall of Vampires

20.09.16 Day 264: Hobbitual

21.09.16 Day 265: Bearing Into It

22.09.16 Day 266: Solitary Refinement

23.09.16 Day 267: Best Laid Plans

24.09.16 Day 268: Power

25.09.16 Day 269: Relenting to Temptation

26.09.16 Day 270: Rise and Shine

27.09.16 Day 271: Mudflingers

28.09.16 Day 272: Wizards on a Spaceship

29.09.16 Day 273: Mystery of the Unclaimed Gift

30.09.16 Day 274: Against a Brick Wall

OCTOBER

01.10.16 Day 275: Ill-Afforded Luxuries

02.10.16 Day 276: Under the Roof

03.10.16 Day 277: Bulletproof

04.10.16 Day 278: Button It

05.10.16 Day 279: Not So Bad

06.10.16 Day 280: Jab

07.10.16 Day 281: 100% Accurate Transcript

08.10.16 Day 282: Swearing is Caring

09.10.16 Day 283: Organised Chaos

10.10.16 Day 284: In Other Worlds

11.10.16 Day 285: Bubble

12.10.16 Day 286: Knowledge Unwanted

13.10.16 Day 287: The Long Decision

14.10.16 Day 288: The Grand Nothing

15.10.16 Day 289: The Void In-Between

16.10.16 Day 290: Rhyme Without Reason

17.10.16 Day 291: Nest of Sharks

18.10.16 Day 292: The Gaping Mellow

19.10.16 Day 293: Vigilante in a Fire Truck

20.10.16 Day 294: Unexpected Brilliance

21.10.16 Day 295: Subject to Approval

22.10.16 Day 296: Deadly Hijinks

23.10.16 Day 297: Sneak Thief

24.10.16 Day 298: Leave Her Alone

25.10.16 Day 299: Miscommunication

26.10.16 Day 300: Dusk of the Final Era

27.10.16 Day 301: Graduation Day

28.10.16 Day 302: Remastered

29.10.16 Day 303: Cunning Stunts

30.10.16 Day 304: Adorable Terror

31.10.16 Day 305: Bending Minds

NOVEMBER

01.11.16 Day 306: Faltering Forwards

02.11.16 Day 307: Sea of Leaves

03.11.16 Day 308: Awaiting Anything

04.11.16 Day 309: Best Mates

05.11.16 Day 310: Today’s Youth

06.11.16 Day 311: Hidden Potential

07.11.16 Day 312: Doubling Up

08.11.16 Day 313: The World Waits with Baited Breath

09.11.16 Day 314: Doomsday

10.11.16 Day 315: Fallout

11.11.16 Day 316: Naming Games

12.11.16 Day 317: Royal Dirt

13.11.16 Day 318: Elite Squad

14.11.16 Day 319: Blood

15.11.16 Day 320: Those Who Came Before Us

16.11.16 Day 321: Extreme NASCAR

17.11.16 Day 322: A Stroke of Luck

18.11.16 Day 323: Calamities

19.11.16 Day 324: The Detection Detective

20.11.16 Day 325: God of the Insignificant

21.11.16 Day 326: The Golden Day of Gaming History

22.11.16 Day 327: Static

23.11.16 Day 328: A Pleasant Visit

24.11.16 Day 329: Fledgling Legends

25.11.16 Day 330: Full Dive

26.11.16 Day 331: Bane of the Newforged Craftsman

27.11.16 Day 332: Gentle Push

28.11.16 Day 333: Respite’s End

29.11.16 Day 334: A Knave in Every Throne

30.11.16 Day 335: The Onset

DECEMBER

01.12.16 Day 336: The Plague

02.12.16 Day 337: The Ghoul

03.12.16 Day 338: The Exodus

04.12.16 Day 339: Stagnant Suspense

05.12.16 Day 340: Remembrance

06.12.16 Day 341: Fragmented

07.12.16 Day 342: Well Placed Luck

08.12.16 Day 343: Celebrations

09.12.16 Day 344: Half

10.12.16 Day 345: Into Dust

11.12.16 Day 346: The Cause

12.12.16 Day 347: Busy Is Best

13.12.16 Day 348: Coming Up Short

14.12.16 Day 349: Flight of the Rebellion

15.12.16 Day 350: New Life Festival

16.12.16 Day 351: Fighting Fate

17.12.16 Day 352: An Imbecile’s Indecision

18.12.16 Day 353: Tea For Two

19.12.16 Day 354: Lava Plume

20.12.16 Day 355: Fluffy the Destroyer

21.12.16 Day 356: The Starving Artist

22.12.16 Day 357: Catalogue

23.12.16 Day 358: Safe Travels

24.12.16 Day 359: Dancing In My Chair

25.12.16 Day 360: Festive Chaos Fun

26.12.16 Day 361: Leftovers

27.12.16 Day 362: Becalmed

28.12.16 Day 363: Accursed Curse Claimers

29.12.16 Day 364: Thdunk

30.12.16 Day 365: The Unfaltering March

31.12.16 Day 366: Consolidation

Well, did you make it this far? If you did, I’d love to know what you thought, and if I should continue in 2017. If so, I hope to see you back here next year!