Writing a Book and Streaming the Process
It is no secret that I have been feeling a little burned out of gaming in general but still love streaming to my loving community. I have been wondering what I could do instead of gaming, and the thought came to me that I should start doing more substantive IRL content of the things that I want to do or have wanted to do. Over the last few years, I have been slowly building up a desire to write a book of some sort. I am not sure if I want it to be Non-Fiction or a Fable, but I know that I want the book to teach people some life lessons that I have learned over the last 42 years of my life. As I have been enjoying the blogging process, I too believe that I would love the writing process, especially if I can focus my energy to write a full featured novel.
What this would mean for my current twitch community is a drastic change in content that would likely have many of them disinterested in the process. Instead, I would be building a new community of people who are interested in writing or simply interested in watching the creative process at work. There will certainly be people who remain from my core community checking in from time to time, but ultimately, this would be something that would take a lot of time to do and most of it would be me typing away on a computer screen while my imagination and life experiences fill the pages with my sage knowledge gained over the years.
I am ok with that actually. Moving away from gaming and into a more professional format could be just the type of change i need to jumpstart my career again in streaming while still prioritizing my IRL endeavors. The beauty is, anyone can be an author and write their truth. There are varying degrees of measurement for success in writing and most of these metrics are very much self-regulated. The fact of even completing a full featured book of any type is an accomplishment on its own, something that one can be proud of, and something that can be repeated with increasingly skillful progression.
Does this mean that I will completely ignore all video games moving forward? No. In fact, video games can serve as inspiration for writing some of the stories or books and perhaps even become the inverse: a story or book I write could become a game. It does mean however that the immediate future will likely be writing streams and brainstorming streams designed to come up with ideas and characters for the stories or books I will be creating. This is what we call the infinite universe of possibilities at work. Nothing is stopping anyone from picking up a pencil and notepad or opening up their computer and starting to type the next best-selling book. Even if it doesn't sell, the process of doing so will be transformative.
I am a minimalistic guy, so I personally am interested in setting up a routine that would ultimately put me in a setting with little distractions. I know that this is counter intuitive to some extent when streaming the process and having an active chat asking questions or commenting on the creative process, but I am able to focus upon my work with ease when the need arises. Authors like Stephen King have routines where they set a minimum work count per day that they set for themselves to keep themselves sharp and also recommend reading a ton of books to help with their vocabulary and writing styles. All of these things are things that anyone can do, which makes me believe that being an author is an act of discipline more than it is an act of pure skill. If you have the discipline to read and write regularly and you have a strong desire to put your thoughts onto paper, you too can become an author who creates something beautiful.
My job now is to continue reading as much as possible and start writing beyond these blog posts daily. My blog posts usually average around a 1,000-word count, which is a great start to the morning ritual, but I will need to put in many more hours to achieve the level of mastery that I seek to achieve for myself. Again, the decision to create a non-fiction book or a fable with fictional characters is what I really must ask myself. I like the idea of a fable though, because I can mix universal knowledge with the characters in the book to create something that could really help people of all ages. Stories told in this manner are exactly the type of content that I personally enjoy. While I have been focused on reading a lot of non-fictions in my life, I too would like to start reading more fictional works so that I can round out my own vocabulary and fantasy desires. Looking forward to sharing the journey with everyone on twitch as I write my first book.
Until next time,
Blackboa