With all the recent commotion over the Perfect Strangers flash game, I’ve been listening to the theme song for the show and as I was listening, thoughts about blogging came to mind.

After a few seconds, my mind just clicked, and it was like I learned more about my time blogging from listening to the Perfect Strangers theme song.

Sometimes the world looks perfect. There’s nothing to rearrange.

This is I felt when I started blogging and had my blog organized and my first post introducing myself to the public set up.

Sometimes you just get a feeling like you need some kind of change.

Eventually, I began to feel like something was missing. Writing about just one game (for me it was WoW at first) felt constricting, so I kept trying other games and writing about non MMO things. Everything felt like fair game to me to write.

No matter what the odds are this time, nothing’s going to stand in my way.

Originally, I thought about various minutiae and statistical information. I wanted to know if people were reading my writings. I felt determined to make it as a writer for a video game website, or to make a living through writing. This was a rather depressing point of view to take, because I write in a way that is very non-confrontational, and I kept getting disheartened by my situation.

This flame in my heart, and a long lost friend gives every dark street a light at the end.

I kept writing, and I stayed in touch with friends, and it was with the help of many twitter friends that I realized, I enjoyed it whether I was being paid or not. Strangely enough, it was also a twitter friends who helped me to take a risk on myself, and eventually I got a part time job writing professionally.

I realized, if I wanted to write as an outlet, it should not matter too much how many people were reading it if I could simply get my thoughts out in a way that felt right for me and showed it to people open to what I had to say. It was gratifying to realize that.

Standing tall, on the wings of my dream. Rise and fall, on the wings of my dream. 

You will have good days and bad days writing.

People may read you and like or hate what you say (as it happened throughout my nearly 10 years of personal, professional and leisurely blogging), but you have to be a good sport about it and stand above the muck they might want to throw at you and respond in a dignified manner to show that you aren’t going to stoop to their level.

The rain and thunder, the wind and haze, I’m bound for better days. 

You have to be optimistic about your writing. Even if you’re not optimistic about everything else, you have to look forward thinking that you support what you write and your words have value. This keeps you going on the bad days, and keeps you from taking a break from writing that becomes an abandonment of your hobby.

Just remember, if that rain, thunder, wind, and haze is a storm, do not use your computer.

It’s my life and my dream, and nothing’s going to stop me now.

That’s definitely what I tell myself these days, and it’s a great life-affirming statement to keep in mind.

GO LARRY AND BALKI! GO WRITERS GO!

Before I post any advice regarding writing and maintaing a blog, I thought it would be a good idea if I first discussed the reasons why you, dear reader, should blog.

Many people find reasons not to do something. A good number of people choose to do something because despite all those myriad reasons to not do a particular action, they find one redeeming reason to go ahead and try anyway.

Sometimes, you may feel scared that you’d get rejected by fellow bloggers or maybe even trolled by people. Other times, you may not like the lack of attention on your blog, or you may not be confident in your ability to write anything. Worse still, you might feel like your opinions shouldn’t matter, and so for any and all of the above reasons, you choose not to blog.

Well I’m here to tell you that there isn’t just one good reason to blog: there’s a couple of excellent reasons to go onto a blogging platform and write about your experiences playing games.

For one thing, there is scientific evidence that points to blogging being mentally healthy for people. It allows people to feel less isolated and more confident in the strength of their friendships when they’re able to blog.

Related to this, another good reason to blog is that it lets flex your mental (and possibly your emotional) muscles a bit. By writing things down, you’re learning to organize your thoughts, which in itself is an excellent exercise to keep your brain active. It also lets you improve your writing abilities. Best of all, you can also use blogging to destress from particular events, good or bad.

One of the other wonderful benefits behind blogging is the interactivity you get when blogging. If people read your work, they can comment on it and provide their own take on your writings, or offer advice and insight as needed. As mentioned earlier, blogging is as much as socializing force as it is an introspective output.

Perhaps my favorite reason for starting and continuing blogging is its worth in allowing for visible retrospection. Over a long period of blogging, I have amassed hundreds (probably more than a thousand) posts, be they personal, professional, or leisure-related. I sometimes keep copies of my favorite posts and look at them once in a while to see the way I used to think about things before, compared to how I think about them now. In a nutshell, blogging allows you to chart your growth as a person, and can even help you see warning signs if you’re starting to feel burnt out or depressed about certain things in your life.

All these being said, those are four pretty good reasons to blog. I encourage you to take up the mantle of a blogger (whether for games or personal blogging), join us at the Newbie Blogger Initiative forums, introduce yourself so we can help you along the path of writing.

Cheers!

I’ve been away from my regular computer for nearly a month now, so I haven’t had the chance to really write anything other than work posts as I’ve been spending time with family in San Francisco.

That said, I do have something important I’d like to share with the readers here.

Justin, otherwise known as Syp from Bio Break, contacted a lot of folks last month to prepare a concerted effort to get readers and interested parties to start and maintain a blog (about games, but heck, if you want to start a personal blog too, I think that’s excellent). It’s called the Newbie Blogger Initiative, and it aims to introduce folks to blogging by getting established bloggers to provide commentary, insights, and general help regarding the blogging process.

More than 70 bloggers have pledged their support to write posts for this month to help new or interested parties along in blogging. I will also be participating in this initiative, and I hope folks out there reading entries from myself or other participants will join the Newbie Blogger Initiative forums, sign up, and consider asking folks for help or advice in the appropriate places.

Cheers to all, and I’ll have another post up in a few hours when I have the chance.