A meta-post and a look behind the scenes. Allow me to indulge.

While I do try to play video games fairly regularly, and all in all I wouldn’t say it’s a huge amount, and I’m also usually a pretty slow player. Given this, one would think my blogging could keep up, but unfortunately that’s not the case. Partly because I generate a lot of thoughts (i.e. potential blog posts) even from relatively little gaming, but mostly because I procrastinate too much. For various reasons, one of which I will outline below.

I’m still in the process of learning the craft, ever the fledgling blogger, which entails meta-elements like getting started when one doesn’t particularly feel like it. I tend to lag behind so much on doing my blog duty that many planned or even half-written posts become obsolete.

Not obsolete in terms of interest to the community (hah) — all these posts may be obsolete in that regard for all I know (not really a consideration at this point) — but obsolete in terms of my own interest.

Because my interest is an ever-changing landscape, at least as far as specific games are concerned. When I’m in the middle of a game, rumination and contemplation on that particular adventure come easy, whether for a blog post or otherwise. That remains the case for a time after the game is concluded, assuming the game is compelling enough. But then the interest starts to wane in most cases, especially as I start engaging with new games, making them my focus.

Eventually I lose the interest entirely, possibly forever.

That period of active interest is the window of opportunity to write the blog post, at least if I want to have a shot at making the process enjoyable and relatively fast, rather than a slow and painful chore. Not to mention the increased risk of inadvertently falling into the pit of procrastination.

(Occasionally, when the stars align perfectly, I’m able to capitalize on and drum up some residual interest even when the critical period has passed, but it’s not yet something I can generate at will or count on.)

Planescape: Torment

Having that window closing on me is pretty much what has happened with my planned post(s) on Planescape: Torment. I finished the game some time ago, and was excited to organize my thoughts into a few posts, but I was too slow to get started, and now the inspiration and motivation are long gone. Instead, my mind is on the Bioshock trilogy, which is what I’m currently playing.

(For the record, I didn’t love Planescape. It’s good, but none the less a disappointment, though still an interesting game both to play and to think about. Maybe I’ll get around to write those posts anyway, maybe not. Actually, maybe I’ll even play the game again, which would surely reignite the inspiration.)

Final Words

The strange thing is that one can remain determined to write a post even though it has become obsolete. That’s one of many failure modes of blogging: being attached to write certain posts one has long lost actual interest and inspiration in writing. It’s an inner conflict that risk putting the kibosh on the entire enterprise, the blog grinding to a halt until the conflict is addressed and resolved.

That is a good time to channel the Buddha and relinquish the post’s hold on you. To release the attachment. What if the post is half-finished and you’ve already put to use some clever turn of phrase and a few elucidatory and eloquent examples? It’s a judgement call, either bite the bullet and just finish the damn thing, or accept the sunk cost (and the defeat) and ditch the post. For me, it’s usually the latter. Just ditch it. Then move on.