This was inevitable, actually. I’ve actually run out of stuff to blog about – again. I mean, I do have ideas for upcoming posts and writing projects, but that’s for the future. I find myself today without any topic to turn my head towards. Hey – I have been keeping up with my resolutions. I’ve been freewriting my 750 words a day daily, okay? That’s how I usually come up with stuff to blog about. Sometimes, I find a topic that I’m raring to share with you all along the way, and I just elaborate. Boom, a random thoughts and musings post. But, well, for the past two days, what I’ve been writing has been…well, gibberish.
Check it out:
There, there! Do you see it? The phantom coming in from the rain? Holding a cold brioche and styling himself master of the opossum camp leaping about in the puddles, head untouched by water, brows unfazed by lightning, nape of his neck unbothered by thunder? Feel his ice stare at your face from under the brim of his fedora. Inches away from him a cyclist passes, and falls to the ground, moaning and groaning holding his knee, face contorted into a mask of pain of untold severity, and make no mistake the phantom caused it. I tell you, I know it.
On the bright side, it seems like my creativity is jump started and raring to go. I don’t know how I came up with that shit. It’s surreal, to tell the truth. It felt…good, it felt weird, it felt both at the same time. How do I describe how writing the above passage felt? It felt like…well, have you heard of Nouveau Shamanic? I was watching this interview by Nicolas Cage and he mentioned something about actors channeling spirits in the same way shamans of old used to channel spirits. I thought it was a weird (and creative) way of describing his method acting (which is magnificent, by the way) but now I think it described how I felt. I felt like I was riding a garuda, one hand on a Holy Trident and the other grasping a bolt of lightning. It felt awesome. It’s a bit hokey and weird, but writing that passage felt like having electricity for blood pumping through my heart and my veins.
On the downside though, it also means that I haven’t got anything proper to share with you all in terms of a new blog post. Sure, I could just post that and call it a day, but if all I did was share my freewriting then this wouldn’t be a blog, but a journal of the most random stuff imaginable (and I already think that the blog doesn’t have a good direction at the moment).
Actually, let me share some concerns about the blog with you. As I’ve said, I’ve been considering the direction in which to take this blog. Reviewing the stats of the readership, it’s clear that everyone prefers when I write about Books I Read in 2022, which makes me glad actually. I’m glad there’s interest in me writing about my interests. But the thing is, I don’t have a lot of time to read, and if I kept the same pace there’d only be a new post every month, hence why I decided to continue with posting journal stuff like this one right here. I did consider that I’d just blog about books once a month, but as I mentioned if I don’t have a deadline I don’t feel motivated to write, so this three posts a week schedule is pretty much perfect – except for the days in which I find myself struggling to find a topic to write about.
Part of my plans for this blog is to obviously post some of my own writing, stuff like poems or short stories separate from the book blogging and the regular journaling. But again, I don’t really have any story ideas to write about right now. It’s a bit of a double edged sword; I try to get my life together so that I can do more of what I like, but because I’m too used to slacking off it tires me out so that I don’t have the energy or spark to do what I like. It’s more than a bit frustrating, to tell you the truth.
One of the blogs I follow (a fellow writer from our NaNoWriMo discord) gave me a great idea; game reports. He posts solo RPG game reports, and in my opinion plays up the fiction part of his games quite nicely. I started with his series on the game Long Haul 1983, which is mainly what inspired this idea. I have a few of these kinds of games myself. Maybe I could start posting my own reports. This is part of the posts I had planned for the future that I mentioned earlier. I’ve selected some games and am about to start playing, all that’s left is to compose something coherent out of the notes. Which is why I couldn’t use my future ideas now – they’re not done yet.
So I figure that each time I run out of ideas like this, it would be best if I had a backup idea. Something I can quickly bash out 1,500 words and post and reassure everyone that I haven’t fallen off the blogging wagon. I decided…that I needed a repository of journaling prompts. A quick google shows that the prompts are stuff that I’d rather not blog publicly about, or topics that just don’t resonate with me. For example: Doodle things that remind you of fall. Unfortunately I live in an evergreen tropical climate, and fall isn’t a thing here. Also I’d like to avoid doodling, if that’s all right with everyone.
And immediately a new idea pops up. Boy, that creativity is really cranked up (I just wish I could do more with it). One of my most recent posts, the one about sex and worldbuilding, was one of the non – book posts to gain the popularity of such posts. The other is the discussion on Kishotenketsu. What I’m getting here, is that maybe I don’t have to blog as if I have Live, Laugh, Love tattooed on my ass as a backup plan. What I could do, if I can’t start writing, would be to talk about writing. Or at least the parts of writing that I can get prompted about – in this case, worldbuilding.
I don’t remember when I bought this, but I have myself a copy of The Worldbuilder’s Journal, from Wizards of the Coast under their Dungeons and Dragons license. It’s basically an empty journal, but hidden at the top of the pages are what I want – worldbuilding prompts. Now, I am by no stretch of the imagination an expert in worldbuilding. But I love doing it – with every work of fiction I write, actually, I try to consider the world in which the characters live in. It could be as simple as ‘vampires are real’ to totally complex alternate histories and geopolitical implications. And this is the internet – you don’t have to be an expert on something to talk about something. Witness my post on Kishotenketsu. I am as much of an expert on that as I am an expert on worldbuilding and truffle finding. It’s still one of the most popular posts on this blog.
To recap, because this post is a mess just like where my head is at: I have plans for this blog to feature not only book reviews, my own writing (like poems and stories), and ideas I feel like sharing, but also musings on worldbuilding and maybe even solo RPG game reports. The book reviews, writing and game reports will take a long time though, so in between I expect to post more of the musings on world building and other ideas (like this post about skeletons or this one about working from home). I already have a book of world building prompts, so if I ever run dry of new ideas I feel like sharing, I can always fall back on that.
Now we have a direction for this blog going forward. Finally, I can have a proper answer when somebody asks ‘What’s your blog about?’ Previously I just said ‘it’s just a journal of whatever I was thinking of at the time’, but now I can say ‘I post book reviews, solo RPG reports, and my own writing.’ I mean, the writer of the blog above outright says he posts tabletop RPG game reports. I can’t just wave my hands in the air and hope someone is interested. Having a direction for what you want to do is important, I feel, not just to maintain a sense of cohesion but also to help with planning. Right now, I know I need to keep that worldbuilding journal handy, I need to get to playing those RPGs and write up reports, and somewhere in between I need to find a story to write. Oh yeah and I need to get to reading, too. But I’m not too anxious now about missing deadlines as I was previously. I have a backup plan now. My blog, started spontaneously without any planning, is now a proper thing I am doing now.
I’m still a bit anxious, but it’s the good kind. Call it…excitement.
Teejay's Blog 
2 responses to “Plans for The Blog, Moving Forward”
I enjoy solo RPG turned into fiction
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Then hopefully what I have in store will be up your alley!
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