I have been doing this blog for some time now. I started it back in 2012 — today sort of kind of marks its 5th birthday, in fact. At the time I was unemployed, had a lot on my mind and needed a constructive outlet for it, which is why if you check the Archive you’ll see 2012 had a fair variety of posts ranging from explanations of black hole physics (as much for my own personal reference as anything else) to lengthy peans to the old manuals that used to come with Microprose games. There were also a lot more of them, since I had far more time to write.
That all changed in 2013 when I finally found myself my first post-PhD job, which is also currently still my only post-PhD job as I’m somehow still there. The unfortunate burden of actually having to do annoying life-essential things for the first time meant that non-review posts were almost immediately jettisoned; doing the research required for a science post took 6+ hours of my time, while it takes me two or three to bang out a review. It’s the difference between spending a Sunday evening writing, and spending an entire Sunday writing, so it made sense at the time to focus on chunks of writing that were actually going to be manageable given my drastically reduced free time.
I will admit, though, that as we enter the Glorious Space Year 2017 the idea of writing another 40 reviews is starting to pall slightly; I’ve done 201 of them so far and it’s beginning to get a little repetitive. I’ve never written them for any other reason than that I enjoy doing so (although I am immensely gratified that other people enjoy reading them and value my opinion, and I very much appreciate everyone who has stuck with me this far), so the looming prospect of the act of writing becoming a chore is a rather alarming one that I would like to avoid if I can.
With that in mind, I am going to make some or all of the following changes to my output this year:
- I am going to try and write 4-6 science posts this year. Doesn’t sound like much, but it’s the largest amount I think I can reasonably commit to.
- I am also going to do more In Praise Of-style retrospectives of old games and mechanics. Possibly a lot more, depending on how many ideas I can come up with.
- Consequently, the rate of full on review posts on here is probably going to become less regular – I may experiment with doing shorter-form reviews as I think condensing a cogent opinion into 1,000 words or so could be a challenging but useful exercise, but it’s more likely I’ll only crank out 25-30 reviews this year compared to the usual 40.
- Most importantly I’m only going to sit down and write a review of a game if I’ve actually got interesting things to say about it that I want to commit to text. There have been a few occasions this year when I’ve had to mentally force myself to write about whatever I’ve been playing recently when I didn’t really want to. It doesn’t happen that often as I usually have a lot of Opinions About Games, so I don’t expect this to affect my output all that much, but having that filter in place should stave off some of that looming ennui.
- Finally, and I know I’ve said this before, I will do my best to respond to most comments that merit one within a day, rather than the current turnaround time of a week. You guys are taking the time to write them, so I should prioritise taking time to respond to them.
Have a happy New Year, and one where you hopefully read more varied content on this blog.