Why I Started This Blog

Ben Earle

Dec 16, 2021 • 3 min read

When I was much younger, about ten years ago, I started reading a blog by Patrick McKenzie, known as patio11 on the internet. The blog, found at kalzumeus.com, talked about Patrick's business BingoCardCreator. He talked about everything: his sales, his design process, his setbacks, what worked and what didn't. It was fascinating. I learned a lot about business and creating. Even better I was inspired to want to create my own business.

But, I realized my passion wasn't creating a computer program or a product, my passion is writing. I've always loved books and stories, and for a long time I've wanted to write a novel. Unfortunately, whenever I started writing, I always ran into a setback or challenge. I would get stuck plotting or lose inspiration, and I didn't know how to fix the problem, so I gave up.

This year, I decided it's time to actually finish a book and try and publish it. I'd love to write an amazing book that everyone loves and makes lots of money, but that's not the main goal. The main goal is just to finish the book and figure out how to push past the challenges I've had in the past.

The goal of this blog is for a few different things. First, I'm hoping to share how I approach writing and publishing. I don't know all that much. I don't know what tools and techniques will work for me and which ones won't. But I'm planning to learn, and y'all can learn along with me. We'll talk about different writing problems, the tools I use, the research I need to do, my setbacks. Just like Patrick's blog gives a window into his business, I'm hoping this blog will give a window into my process for writing a novel.

With every entry, I'm planning to post my time spent writing (which includes my time spent researching and plotting, but not my time on this blog) and the number of words I've written. With each entry, I'll try and update you on a different aspect of my writing process. I'm hoping it will be helpful to other people who want to get started with writing.

<blatant_self_promotion>
My second goal is to do a little bit of advertising. I don't know a lot about marketing in the book world, but I'm hoping if people like my blog, they might take a chance on my novel. So if you love what I've written here, you should buy my book (when it comes out)!
And if you hate my blog, you should buy my book anyways, and write a bad review, but still buy the book!
</blatant_self_promotion>

Here was my problem today:
I'm writing a fantasy novel about a main character who loves games and is dealing with depression. Part of how he deals with depression is to turn it into a game, so each challenge he faces is game that he has to play. I was thinking about having him develop the game, but showing that process is too time-consuming in the novel, and will distract from the other things I want to write about.

My solution:
We start with the main character as a famous game designer, he's created a new game, and that is the game that you are playing now as you read the book. Along the way you will get to try different pieces of game play. Playing fun games like: try to get out of bed, try to brush your teeth, try to cope with a panic attack.
This idea is heavily influenced by Zoe Quinn's Depression Game - shout out to an amazing indie game.

Now, rather than talking about how to design a way of gamifying your life when you're depressed, my main character will just be part of a game that he's created. Not sure how well I've explained it. I'm still figuring out how this will all work.

Here's the new opening for my novel:
Press A For Start

Enter Character Name:
BEAR

Launching Bear's Game

Designer's Note:
Welcome to the game that is my memoir. I've loved games my whole life. Board games, video games, tabletop role playing games. Games are the best stories, because you can live them. This is the story of a difficult time in my life, a time before I'd built the games you all know and love: #info-game-names. It was a time before I'd found my passion as a designer. It was also a strange time for the world. Welcome to my life.

Press A to learn more
Press B to skip

Get Ready to Play...

Day One Location: Bear's Room

</gameplay>

I'll talk more about my writing set up in a later post. It's pretty geeky, so if you're not a computer nerd, no worries, you don't have to use a setup with all the software I use (like git, atom, and linux). I just happen to love computer programming, so I brought all of the tools I use in that world to writing as well.

Come along on this journey with me! I'm so excited!