I have been considering for a couple of weeks now, and have finally decided to follow through with, a fairly significant shift in the structure of this blog. I hate to dash any hopes, but the change will not involve writing any less. In fact, I will now be writing even more. For those who feel I already write far more than anyone is actually interested in reading, I apologize.
The basic change is that in addition to my theory posts on Thursdays, I will now also be posting on Mondays. However, Monday is for musings, not theory. I plan to use Monday posts to do any of a number of things:
- Look back at a previous theory article and discuss actual design/play/analysis uses.
- Talk about my own actual designs, and how I arrive at specific design decisions.
- Discuss theory in general, and possibly theory from other fields such as discourse analysis, linguistics, communications theory, sociology, and narratology.
- Review and discuss non-fiction works in any field I feel is related to game design, or my thoughts on game design.
- Review and discuss any piece of fiction I feel like writing about.
- Talk about marketting topics such as picking an audience, selling to niches, and back-list based business models.
- Discuss theory stuff that is being discussed around the ‘net now, rather than later.
- Do all my administrata posts.
I have three hopes for this reorganization. First, I am hoping that by keeping post types separated by days, people who have interest in one type, but not the other, can avoid reading my ridiculously long posts when they are not going to find them interesting. Second, I will be a bit more nimble in my ideas. Right now I schedule articles for weeks or months after the discussion of the topic dies down (the surge in push/pull talk last week was purely coincidental). By having a non-scheduled post slot, I can contribute to those discussions as they are happening (which may, ultimately, be a bad idea). Finally, by posting things that are a bit more personal, I hope that those who are interested will be able to get a better idea for my personal assumptions in theory work.
Everyone has personal assumptions, and I think that the stuff I talk about makes a lot more sense in the context of “inside Thomas’ crazy head-space” than without that context. If this works out as I hope, then reading Monday posts will give people a better idea of how I think, and thus make my Thursday posts a bit more comprehensible.
More than comprehension though, I would love for people to see why I consider various topics important. I have made a couple of posts that I thought were massively important that no one responded to. My assumption, since I am a bit (ha!) arrogant and think that I am something of a genius, is that people just do not realize why those posts were important. It is a bit easier on the ego than considering the possibility that what I have to say is… less than relevant.
So, that is the plan. At the end of the month (or maybe at the end of June) I will review things and see if it has been an overall benefit, or if the extra verbiage is distracting to all involved. We shall see.
Tags: Administrata
Why does it seem unbecoming for you to publicly fret over reader response? Is it for the same reason I take it to be less than the best to preemptively self deprecate when I play basketball, so no one else feels the urge to rag me (whether or not they would have)? Is it that I’m accultured to perceive other’s (or possibly just men’s) exposing their need or revealing their weakness as degrading*?
Because I choose to honor you (implied) request for praise. Your work here is useful. If nothing else it will offer you a history of the evolution of your thought, which is interesting in the “look what new hair I have sense” that you get when you’re fifteen or so. But it’s clear that some few people are interested, and it’s definitely the case that you’ve chosen a heretofore unfilled niche within the subculture in question. That means you’ll have some early adopter kinds of challenges, but it also means there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit out there.
Best,
*Reason has led me to think that this is really silly unless you’re typically surrounded by enemies.
your, dangit, not you request for praise