Author: Ryan

We all want to pretend that when we set a goal, no matter how large or small, we’ll put in our best effort, but what does that really mean? On a recent run, I was feeling pretty worn down and was ready to call it quits, but decided I’d go just a bit further. I then remembered an old philosophy from my collegiate athlete days, the importance of “just two more”.

The Most Difficult Interval

Back in college, when my exercise routine was far more regimented, speed training always arrived towards the end of the season. There was a common mantra as the workout was coming to a close. On the second to last sprint, someone was nearly guaranteed to say, “this is the hardest one.”

The idea behind this was the mental barrier of knowing after a tough rep, there was still another. The final interval, however, it was far easier to put everything aside for a brief time and push through any barriers. After this, the workout was over.

On my recent trip, the best route for running was the private drive that led up to my Airbnb. Not having a fancy watch, I estimated the loop to the nearby highway and back was a short ¾ of a mile. With a little over five minute loops, the runs were pretty monotonous.

During one of the runs, I was feeling exhausted, but felt I could continue for a few more minutes. I thought, “I’ll just do one more,” and then the memories of all those intervals came to mind. I decided two more would do just fine.

I’d actually made it a little past my initial expectation for the day, after feeling sick earlier that week. Still, I wanted to maximize the miles I got in, after all I do have a marathon I need to run in a few months.

Applying this Elsewhere

Physical activity is the easiest to apply this, but it can be applied to mental practices as well.

In all practice, we’ll inevitably hit a wall, or the dip as Seth Godin puts it in his book of the same name. As we begin to feel resistance, it becomes harder and harder to see the practice through. Once that resistance begins, break down the practice into smaller pieces and complete just two more. Maybe it’s pages in a book, lessons in a course, or problems to solve, all of these provide tangible progress that offers a stopping point for a given practice session.

Now, it might be easy to think, “Well, can’t we try to keep pushing until we hit a goal or are truly forced to stop?” Sometimes avoiding injury or other problems is more important than a single run.

It’s also important to keep the promise to yourself. If you constantly lie to yourself, it will be easier to fight off in the future. When it comes to battles with the self, it’s best to stick to the truth.

Thinking more on the idea, it’s not only something that can be used to fight through barriers, but to also mark a stopping point. For example, the slippery slope of the “one more turn” trap. Rather than trying to fight the urge to quit a game or other experience as soon as possible, embrace that the slope is ahead and come to terms with ending soon.

In the end, two more isn’t some magic number that unlocks a secret lifehack to accomplish more. It’s just a tool I used in the past, and have begun looking for new ways to apply it to improve my life.

Last week, I spent an entire week alone in a rental on Airbnb. It was a pretty comfortable stay with electricity and even running water. However, its minimal space and limited activities helped me put aside the many distractions of the every day and focus on reading and writing.

Attempts of the Past

This wasn’t the first of the so-called vision quests I’ve had in my life. A couple times in the past few years, I’ve set aside some time for solitude and thinking. My current journal dates all the way back to November of 2017, in which I attempted a brief backpacking trip with next to no gear.

Last year, I tried to make a trip out of Fourth of July weekend, again in the woods backpacking. I was able to get a decent amount of journaling and thinking done, but there are a number of lines ranting about the conditions of the bugs and heat.

These experiences have definitely helped me to think about what I am looking for in a trip like this: isolation, limited comforts, and shelter.

This Time Around

I’m happy to say this year went much better. The accommodations were pretty nice. The building was maybe 30×15 ft with a kitchen and bathroom. Having electricity allowed me to use my tablet for writing and reading ebooks and my phone for listening to music and podcasts. Running water meant I could shower, wash dishes, and stay hydrated. The one utility I didn’t want to have was the internet, and luckily there was none.

The building was out on a pretty large set of shared properties out in rural Missouri. The front door actually faced a large overgrown field with a small path of woods nearby. One of the only downsides was the nearby road into town was a very narrow highway, and so my running route was out and back along the driveway, a roughly five minute loop.

Even with this excellent balance of comfort and limitation, I still struggled to focus. I was easily distracted from the intention of the trip, to think about where I wanted to direct my time and energy for the foreseeable future. In the first few days, I looked at vastly different activities to keep myself busy. One day, I spent an hour organizing old papers that I probably shouldn’t have brought in the first place.

I wanted to use this trip as an opportunity to explore plans for a project to really throw my weight behind. With my interest in trials dwindling, I want to put a stronger push behind a single idea or project.

Make Three, Share Two

The discovery I made wasn’t exactly new, but I definitely needed the reminder. Instead of fighting my flowing interests, I should use that as a strength. I  am going to attempt a weekly production schedule of “make three, share two.” The plan is to complete three creations a week, be that a blog post, short story, or perhaps the chapter of something bigger. Then, publish two of those online somewhere, like this site or elsewhere.

I wanted to start with this standard and adjust going forward. My hope is that I can build up a backlog of blog posts, stories, and other projects that I can release over time. This may not be the ideal method of producing content, but battling against my tendency to spark interest in a given area at any time.

The inspiration for this came about when I started planning out the week into themes and projects, but decided I should just let my inspiration at a given time guide what I read, write, or listen to at a given time.

Rather than have a day dedicated to Dungeons and Dragons prep and another for reading different philosophy books, I spent a day finishing Ben Franklin’s autobiography, watching some DnD YouTube videos I saved, and then read books on the World of Warcraft lore. I also wrote a few paragraphs on takeaways I had on Franklin’s autobiography that I hope to make into a post soon.

I don’t know if this method is the optimal or ideal, but for a long time I’ve tried to focus on a single idea and failed to make substantial ground as interest shifted elsewhere. All I know is when I’m working on something I have serious passion for, even if only for a single day, working on it is effortless. I think of this earlier post on DnD in which the words poured out without much thought. I know it’s a subject I still have much more to write on, and there will likely be a few related posts in the backlog.

Being able to disconnect and take some time to relax has me excited and ready to take on goals and challenges I’ve been putting off for a long time. 

This post started as the draft leading into my decision to put trials on hold, but I didn’t end up finishing it in time.

The last few years have involved trying out a lot of different things which allowed me to test the waters and gauge my actual interest. Thinking on what I’ve done recently I’ve found a few similarities in the things that I’ve enjoyed: creativity, challenge, and flexibility.

Be Creative

Generally, I like to work on things that allow me to make things from scratch. Whether it’s a full fledged DnD campaign or a simple sketch, being able to mold something from nothing is a great feeling.

Right off the bat the process of creation is a blast. Making decisions and building on the consequences of all those before leads to a unique creation every time. Watching something come together piece by piece into a final result is one of the best feelings I’ve had. I especially love working on DnD campaigns, because of how often I need to shift my planning to accomodate for unexpected turns the players take.

Creating solutions to present problems have long gotten me through challenges of life. Whether it’s embracing a new viewpoint or rigging up some system to break a bad habit. Developing the ability to look at the tools and techniques available to address a problem and pick one that works best is a skill that will benefit me for my whole life.

Always a Higher Peak

Most of my interests force me to face some form of challenge. Be it a mental challenge of overcoming a particular problem, a physical challenge that requires grit and persistence, or a social challenge of nonconformity.

Learning and developing my ideas wasn’t something I really embraced until after my education ended. From pre-K to college, I found myself going through the motions. It wasn’t until the end of college, I found a passion for chasing new ideas. I think removing the requirements helped build excitement for making my own path in learning a subject. Whether it’s reading old philosophical texts or taking an online course, picking an area to learn about has become a favorite pastime.

While my mind took some time to find interest in learning, I’m lucky to have long been interested in fitness. My passion definitely started with running cross country, which built into a distance runner’s passion for marathons and the sort. Finishing a challenging race with a proud time was a feeling that lasted only briefly, as now there was a new mark to beat. Challenging oneself from yesterday has long been a driver for me.

This didn’t just stop at running. After my college career came to a close, I pushed my attention to weight lifting and nearing the end of that, I was surpassing personal bests regularly. The strain and pain of working out has long been a feeling I love.

The feeling doesn’t apply to just the mind and body, but in social interactions as well. For most of my life I’ve been interested in niche (nerdy) hobbies like playing World of Warcraft, watching anime, and other weird things. If not for a willingness to try things out I wouldn’t have found myself writing this blog. In my youth, sharing these interests wasn’t easy, but as I’ve grown older, finding others with those interests, be they past or present, has led to many great friendships. The only way to find those people is to talk about those passions.

The buck doesn’t stop at nerdy hobbies, but also in my daily lifestyle. Practices like minimalism and pursuing financial independence have me making decisions that my family and friends may not entirely follow.

Constrained, But Flexible

One of the only ways I’ve been able to get anything done is to set up a deadline for a project. Setting a time limit has often pushed me to get things into some degree of a finished state, even if I think there is room to grow. Be it the weekly blog post or a game jam coming to an end.

Constraints, especially deadlines, are great at holding accountability, but there are some cases where the experience feels too rigid. Throughout the years, the promise of a weekly post has been the only reason I’ve been able to get this blog written. However, as time has gone by, something began to feel lacking in my writing. Periodically, I find I don’t have much to say one week or have dwindling interest in the given trial. When these times hit, getting anything on the page falls beyond a challenge to a painful slog.

Live streaming was especially a big challenge battling this feeling. By the end of the trial, I’d basically given up. I just didn’t have it in me to force myself to feel like I was wasting hours. Having to be “on” at a given time multiple times a week was just something I struggled with greatly. Having to work around a strict schedule is really something I don’t foresee myself working within for long term projects.

Something else I believe will help is to batch time for writing posts. I plan to spend more time writing on a variety of ideas, no longer under the constraint of updates relevant to a given week or trial.

Ultimately, deadlines are a great tool for consistent creation, but they need to be applied in the right settings. Finding what types of projects work best for time pressure and what needs room to breathe. Also, the ability to change direction when something isn’t working is crucial.

One of my favorite past times in my adult life has been playing Dungeons and Dragons. As someone who was long into nerdy hobbies, I was excited to find friends in college who wanted to play. The many years of playing has provided me years of entertainment, improved my writing, and most importantly made me a more empathetic person.

Time with Friends

My first experience with DnD started in college. I don’t remember how it came up, but knowing those times it was probably while out on a run with the team. A group of three of us all decided we were going to start playing and it began. My friend Drew started as dungeon master making this interesting story that pulled in elements of our characters and I was hooked.

As time went on, we added new players, but soon began a cycle that plagued our college experience. New semesters led to different schedules shaking up the group regularly. Too long of a gap between play sessions would often led to starting from scratch, or a busy schedule led to players and DMs having to drop entirely.

With college coming to its eventual end, we were able to continue over the years, often online with rare exceptions for games in person. Whether it was a brief campaign run or just a one-shot, a full experience to be started and finished in one session, we were able to play from time to time.

Writing and World Building

Throughout the years, I’ve held both roles as player and dungeon master, the latter which the most frequent role. I enjoy both, but there’s something I love about creating the world and scenarios the players will face.

As a DM, I love the initial stages of world building. I get to define the rules of a made up world. What are the geography, history, and politics of the area? How do those interact with magic and fantasy? What roles do regular people play in this world?

I remember when I was starting, I tried to figure out how to make a good region or world map, and I found a tutorial that started with the tectonic plates of the planet below to form the land. From there you could figure out where mountains, rivers, and lakes would form. Then, what kind of terrain would develop in those areas. Each point built on the last until you could make decisions on what areas would cities develop, resources that would be fought over, and so much more. It’s absolutely one of my favorite parts of starting a new game.

Making a world is definitely part of the process, but there needs to be interesting people inhabiting it for a good game. Coming up with a player character is a great experience. It allows you to live out an imaginary set of goals, dreams, and flaws. A unique spin on this as a DM is to create countless non-player characters (NPCs) who are the people the players will interact with in the world. This process is what I think role playing games can really help make people better by playing them.

Developing Empathy

We’re often told to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes when dealing with decisions or opinions we disagree with, but I don’t think many people can really do this. A lack of empathy, even for those who may be seen as the villains of our world, is an assured way to live in a worse one.

Though DnD I’d like to believe I’ve developed a much greater abililty to empathize with others. I may still disagree with someone due to differences of experience, beliefs, or philosophical frameworks, but with empathy I can understand what those differences are.

Whether they are a sleazy merchant, a stoic guard, or an evil villain, I have to think about the decisions that these ranging people would make.

This doesn’t just go for making decisions as NPCs. Reacting to decisions my players make that seem out of left field are often cleared up in seconds when I think through why the players may decide on one thing or another. It can be frustrating to perpare certain ideas or stories to have them ignored or flipped upside down. In the case of the former, it just means that the idea wasn’t appealing enough to the characters to take risks. In the case of the latter, it’s often caused by a lack of perspective from the players and their characters.

In a recent session, I was looking forward to a trial after they’d been framed. I don’t recall the exact inspiration, but I thought it would be fun for them to have to search for clues about what really happened and present a case at court. After a lot of prep, once confronted by a guard, they fled the town! I was a bit frustrated that all my prep was out the window, but immediately had to laugh that I had so much pinned on them following the law, something none of the characters cared about in the first place.

DnD has provided me with years of entertainment, amazing moments with my friends, and a free education in empathy. I am so happy that this game, that was once a label of vicious mockery, has found itself in what I suppose is mainstream acceptance. As I hear more friends and family are interested in playing, I have hopes for a world of more interesting and empathetic people.

The last couple of weeks, I let the days slip by without finishing a post. Part of this was an indecision of what I wanted to write on, while another part revolved around a dwindling desire to write. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot more than doing. The last post I put out discussed my plan to shift away from the trials and experiments this blog has been built on and focus on cultivating the ideas tested over the years.

Trial Hiatus

For the time being, I‘ll be putting new trials on an indefinite hiatus. Over the coming weeks, I’ll be figuring out where I want to focus my time and energy. In the time between now and trials resuming, I’ll be writing posts on a variety of topics.

I’ve had a number of rough outlines and ideas for posts about a mishmash of topics from productivity to media analysis and philosophy. I’m not sure what I’ll end up publishing over time, but giving myself this opportunity to explore more areas is definitely exciting.

One of the biggest benefits I foresee is the ability to write publishable posts more than once a week. With the trial structure, I often had little to prepare until I began reflecting on my experience that week. Removing the time constraint, I can prepare as many posts as I have ideas for. I’ll also be able to batch write more posts during times of creative surplus and take any needed time off during creative droughts, assuming I have enough posts in the backlog of course.

In a way, this is almost a trial of different styles of writing, but perhaps that line of thought is the result of running my life in experiments for too long.

Focusing on the Next Level

Over the years, I’ve tested out a variety of practices from habits to hobbies to lifestyles. While some trials resulted in failures or disinterest, I’m more disappointed in those I was excited about or planned to follow up on, but once the trial period was over, the next thing took up that time and attention.

It didn’t take long before the previous thing that was exciting lost its allure. A new trial meant I needed to write several posts on this new thing. I recall hearing something along the lines of “if you can put focused energy into anything for a year or two, you could quickly make it into the top five or ten percent of performers.” I’d like to take the energy I’ve been spreading out from one pet project to another and put it all behind one idea for however long that takes.

I’ve been brainstorming a lot about what kinds of things I want to work on for the foreseeable future, but I am still working that out. I’ve come to some conclusions on the aspects that would make up the ideal project, though I’m sure at the end of things, I’ll still have some tough choices left.

One of the major aspects I’d like in a project to begin is something finite. I want to be able to complete something and share it. Not worrying about picking it up once again. I think that’s why I didn’t enjoy streaming that much.

In a way, this blog sits in a strange gray area in that aspect. In theory, I will keep writing posts, but the trials gave me finite points to work off of. I am interested to see if this new direction, even if temporary, makes writing more or less interesting.

This week, I’m glad to say my habits have been much more consistent. I wasn’t exactly sure what to write about this week, but while thinking about perspectives, an idea formed.

High and Low Perspective

While journaling, I thought about the need to shift between a high level view and low level from time to time. As the page ended I mused, don’t get lost in the weeds or the clouds.

Right now, I feel I should be focusing on the former but have been tied up in the latter. I think that I’d like to start carving out a clearer direction of what I want to work on versus the specific actions. The habits I’ve been focused on have been keeping me busy day-to-day, but I’ve been finding it hard to stay motivated with anything long-term.

Getting too caught up in specific actions has left me neglecting the big picture. So, I’m going to take a step back this week and look over what I’ve been doing the last few years, what I enjoyed, and what turned out to be a passing interest.

Passive and Active Hobbies

This line of thought brought me to the truck load of hobbies I try to keep up with a few times throughout the year. As someone who starts to tumble down just about every rabbithole I pass, I’m now thinking about what interests I want to deeply invest my time in. To start, I’ve begun a list of all the hobbies I can think of that seem remotely interesting, and then pick a few to dedicate more time to.

This blog was designed to learn and experiment, but I’ve been finding that harder to do. After about four years of writing, I think I am starting to come to an end of excitement for experiments and want to start building stronger foundations for the things that have stuck.

I’m not sure if this idea has been explored at all by some productivity or lifestyle guru, but I’ve been thinking about hobbies falling into two camps: active and passive. The active hobbies are those that I take the initiative in learning and participating. The type of thing I can stay up late thinking about or working on – a true passion.

The passive hobbies, on the other hand, are those I let others take the lead. Not something I am deeply familiar with or passionate about but can engage with and enjoy. For example, I started climbing recently with a handful of friends. While I’ve been enjoying it, it’s not something I see myself pursuing on my own or care to learn about beyond the regular meet up.

In reviewing the direction I want to go, I’m considering what interests I can label passive, so I can put more time and attention on the active.

The last few trials have all been focused on trying to add things to my life. Unfortunately, they’ve had the side effect of throwing the habits I had in turmoil. I’ve been sleeping, eating, and managing my days poorly. Over the next few weeks, I hope to address those problems.

Fixing My Diet

Starting with the place I’ve made the most progress, my diet has already gotten better. Since most of my diet consists of what I bring in the house, it relies on what I buy at the grocery store. After a few weeks of delay, I’ve shifted back to what normal meals looked like prior to moving.

For breakfast, I have a small bowl of mixed nuts and a piece of dark chocolate. Still practicing intermittent fasting, I don’t eat breakfast until sometime between eleven and noon. With a lunch break to follow, I’ve switched back to a clean lunch of a few handfuls of mixed greens and tomatoes for a salad.

Getting these two meals under control helps me reign in on dinner, because why throw out what I just sacrificed for a bunk of junk food.

Lastly, when it comes to eating out, I tend to give myself more leeway with what I order. The goal in these cases is to limit how often I order from restaurants. Once or twice a week is more than enough.

The Core Five Habits

For a few years (past year maybe) now, I’ve held myself to five daily habits: reading a page from The Daily Stoic, a morning stretch routine, reading, creating, and meditating. Unfortunately, over the last few weeks, I’ve had a hard time keeping up with even one of these.

I’ve found this set of habits covers the majority of what I want to accomplish in a given day. Not all of them represent a perfect day, but doing at least a little bit in each helps to keep the wheels spinning. 

This week, a major focus of mine has been to hit the minimum of these habits. If that means reading only a single page or writing a line, that’s progress.

Building these habits to compound on one another helped me a lot in the past, and so I’ve been focused on getting those routines back. Reading my Daily Stoic page right after waking up, and stretching while my coffee brews are just two easy habits I can tie to activities I do every day already.

The other three have more often than not become things to do right before bed, which has begun a problematic cycle.

A Root Problem – Sleep

One of the cruxes of my issues has been poor sleep. Time gets away from me, and I find myself staying up far too late, getting poor sleep, and struggling the next day. I then find myself too tired to make progress on various goals or habits after work, and thus put things off until late in the night. This leads to late nights catching up to where I want to be and continuing the cycle.

To remedy my issue, I plan to get myself into bed earlier. Easier said than done, but it’s an objective marker that I can keep track of.

Lately, my sleep schedule has been to go to bed between midnight and one. Ultimately, I’d like to find myself back to an 11 PM bedtime, but trying to dial things back too quickly isn’t likely to see success. For the next week, I want to shoot for being in bed before midnight. While it’s not a monumental change, it’s a start.

While my week has been focused on getting the above in order, there are still pieces I need to improve on. Getting my sleep schedule to a manageable level, something like eleven to seven will definitely help across the board. My workout schedule has been hit or miss the past few weeks and I’d like to get that in order.

The last few weeks have shown me another fun hobby isn’t really for me to take seriously. Streaming, while it has its moments, never really got the momentum that I was hoping for. The Game Jam over the weekend was the culmination of the issues I’ve been having lately, spreading myself too thin.

Thoughts On Stream

The experience of going live and playing a game for an audience can be a great time but can be difficult when the need to perform is draining. There were a lot of days that the upcoming stream was a highlight but on others it felt like an oncoming burden. The latter days certainly outweighed the former.

This week, I decided I was going to put a pause on streams. I’ve been feeling pretty wiped out and have come to the conclusions of the trial already. Rather than continuing to commit to a schedule I knew I didn’t enjoy, I figured I would allow myself to recover.

For a long time, I was under the impression that I would have no interest in streaming regularly. The whole idea of consistently being online seemed far more demanding than I would ever like. After watching a few streamers recently, I thought it would be worth some honest effort.

There were certainly days that I had a lot of fun. Chatting with friends, family, and even strangers while playing interesting games had its moments. Then, there were the times that I would be less focused on the game and more concerned with if the stream was running right, my sound was fine, and other insignificant issues that took my attention.

Later, spending time playing games alone again was far more relaxing. I just allowed myself to enjoy the game and not worry about anything else. After that, it was hard to motivate myself to go through with streaming again.

Any scheduled stream night, I knew I wasn’t going to have a great time if by 7:30 I wasn’t looking forward to going online. This was most evident in the GMTK Game Jam.

Jammed Up

The GMTK Game Jam is an event I look forward to every year. With two prior submissions under my belt, I was looking forward to working with a bigger team this year. Little did I realize that what I was really excited for was time to spend with a few friends.

My brother had actually come over in person, and being able to spend time with him was great. With just moving, I got to show him around the house and the neighborhood. I feel like I spent more time sitting around talking than on any actual work for the game.

We ended up having other friends over, and my roommate and I even spent a couple hours at a bar nearby talking about all sorts of things. Sitting alone at my computer hacking away at technical problems was the last thing I wanted to do last weekend.

I did end up pushing myself to do a short stream Saturday night at which point I was already tired and struggling to move forward with the project. Having to entertain on top of that was even more exhausting. After a couple hours, I decided to end the stream to focus on getting the game finished. In the end, I was too tired to resolve the remaining issues and didn’t finish it.

I was a bit disappointed that the pretty simple hurdle of submitting something wasn’t met, but at the same time, I found it to be a great weekend.

Dealing with Failures

This being my first year participating in the jam without submitting a game was definitely disappointing. The feeling I have towards streaming also has the last few weeks feeling like a waste of time.

On the bright side, having gone through and tried to put even the minimal effort into streaming that I did, I can pretty confidently say it isn’t for me. Performance and play are something I need to be excited to enjoy at all. Forcing it just makes things worse.

Regarding the performance in the Game Jam, I don’t think it is all bad. Throughout the time I procrastinated, I imagined myself figuring it out and putting something together. It’s been somewhat of a trend of the past years. There were certainly bugs and issues, but the games were finished and submitted. I now need to accept that I need to manage my time and efforts better for any project that I’m committing myself to, especially those with a hard deadline. Something I should start applying to my growing backlog of pet projects.

Lately, I’ve been overwhelmed by taking on more and more seemingly pointless projects. Streaming, game development, and a number of writing projects all barely started. What I need to do is step back and prioritize. Setting deadlines and scrapping missed work might be the only way to move past these projects or else they will likely be seen in a growing stack of to-do lists for the rest of my life.

I don’t think I’m done with streaming for good, but for the time being, it’s going to be a rare instance when I’m feeling it. Something for fun rather than something for necessity. If that means I stream once a week, a month, or even every few months, so be it.

While anticlimactic, this trial has come to a close. The last month or so, I’ve felt that I’ve been slipping up the basics of my habits and routines. I kept blaming it on the move, which has now had a few weeks to settle. With little change, I think I need a nudge in the right direction. While not inherently a trial, over the next few weeks I’ll be discussing my attempts to get back on track.

After a lot of thoughtful insights last week, I hate to say that I don’t have much to say this week. While the past hasn’t been too exciting, I’m happy to announce an exciting project this upcoming weekend.

A Brief Update

As this trial has already proven, streaming has been a lot of fun, even with the various technical issues. With what I worked on this week, a checklist and prepared layouts before the stream, I have an easier time avoiding the issues.

An issue I find I still have is a few streams that hold a variety of unused space. While I prefer minimal noise beyond the game, it can be a bit bland while watching a stream. I did set up one layout with the chat feed while live. It did offer some character, but with the limited chatters I have, it was mostly an unused black void.

One of the biggest pieces I am missing compared to other streamers is a webcam. It’s long been something I’ve considered getting, but have decided against it, especially as they’ve become harder to find at a reasonable price this past year. I don’t believe a webcam is a requirement by any means, but can certainly help to not only fill that space, but create a more intimate space with viewers.

My goal this week will be to find something extra to add to fill the blank space.

The GMTK Game Jam Live

For the last couple of years, I participated in the Game Maker’s Toolkit Game Jam, a 48 hour game development marathon. In years past, I had help with design from my brother and music from a friend, but handled all of the coding myself.

I’m very excited to work with a wider group, including some friends who are experienced coders. We worked on a game a few months ago, and I’m looking forward to working with this much bigger group for the first time. I plan to stream at least a few hours of work this Saturday. Stop by at twitch.tv/qryguy.

I’m hoping with more hands helping on the coding side, we can not only make a more complex game, but I can have more time on the design side. This is the part of game creation I am most interested in, coming up with interesting, engaging, and fun mechanics to use in the game.

With the way that jams work, everyone will more or less do a little bit of everything, but people definitely have their expertise. At the end of the day, I just hope I don’t end up having to handle the art again.

Last week’s set of goals helped set me off this week on the right foot. Watching Devin’s video gave a few ideas of what to focus on for the next week. In particular, he discussed the importance of having a specific niche and how different platforms work for better or worse when it comes to discoverability. First, I have some thoughts on how streaming went this week.

Mistakes and Failure

For the next few weeks, my plan is to stream on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. So far, I’ve already had to compromise on one of those days with a long night spent setting up a new monitor and fixing some prior hardware issues with my computer, but that was just the beginning.

The new monitor is quite nice, but led to a variety of issues with my stream on Thursday. The different size caused the layout of the stream to completely change, making it a challenge to look nice, resulting in my giving up and settling for a wonky layout.

Another problem arose when I decided to snack on some fruit while streaming. In an attempt to not submit any viewer to my chewing, I muted my microphone, which I forgot to unmute the whole stream. Thus, nothing I said came through for the entire duration.

These aren’t the only mistakes I’ve made. In the past, I once streamed a black screen for multiple hours, only to discover the mistake near the end.

These problems seem absolutely stupid compared to what I regularly watch, but of course many of those people have far more experience. My mistakes are lessons I need to learn to improve myself and my content.

Platforms and Discoverability

Luckily, these mistakes are limited to Twitch itself. The one time stream that not many people will ever see. While a benefit in that case, reaching a wider audience is definitely a goal of mine.

Devin Nash is a long time Twitch partner and has advised a variety of people on growing online. Last week, I decided that I would watch a particular video of his about growing from zero to one hundred viewers on Twitch.

What was surprising is that a lot of his recommendations for growth come outside of streaming. The video was a conversation with another streamer and a lot revolved around using YouTube as the focus for growth. This is because YouTube has far better tools for reaching a wider audience that Twitch definitely lacks.

There are a variety of platforms that offer a wider net, whether they are social media like Twitter and Instagram or content platforms like YouTube or TikTok. These have easier ways to share and reach an audience with trending sections, built in sharing tools, and algorithms pushing content to new viewers.

Another big part of the video focused on something I’ve struggled with for a long time, choosing a niche.

My Possible Niche

In Devin’s video, he was talking with a streamer of Magic the Gathering Arena, the online version of the card game. While a lot of the specific advice was ways to improve using elements of Magic, the high level lesson was the importance of finding a niche.

I’ve long known that this is something that has driven so many creators I watch. Whether they are World of Warcraft streamers or self-help authors. Finding one for myself, however, has been a weird journey.

This blog has somewhat been in the self-improvement ballpark, but other interests of mine have been in areas of game development, personal finance, and fiction writing. With this disconnected set of interests, I haven’t been able to build a 

This scattered set of interests has also led to my picking up and dropping a variety of hobbies and projects. This basically leads to little of what I do ever getting to feel complete. Luckily, right around the corner is a fun project that always pushes me to publish something, the GMTK Game Jam.

With the success of my goals last week, I want to give myself goals. This week I’m more focused on avoiding the mistakes I’ve made in the past. I want to have layouts ready to stream for the games I plan to play for the next two weeks. I also want to have a checklist to cover before each stream to ensure I am ready and don’t make any mistakes off the bat.