Blog 11-3-15 – Things are late, and unfortunately will continue to be late

Hello followers and viewers. I value my schedule highly, and I believe I have done a good job over the last long while of keeping up with that schedule. That being said, if you view my content with any regularity you will have seen that I have been late the past few weeks on a few things, and have unfortunately exceeded previous records of my own lateness. This is especially not fun for me with my comics, which I consider the core of my online content.

Now I don’t want to just make excuses, but I have had a few things happen recently that have made progressing more difficult. I moved into a “limbo” situation that has not gotten resolved as quickly as I had hoped, and makes my work and living environments undesirable from a “getting things done” or “moving around comfortably in clear spaces” kind of way. I’ve also had to change jobs to one with irregular hours that prevents me from being in “work mode” for my various comic and article writing/drawing. And finally I have a large project I’ve been working on with a very hard deadline that is very behind schedule. I’ll talk about that more as it nears completion.

So with all of those things I was still able to be on top of things for a while, but it wasn’t going to last. And it looks like things will be problematic for a little while longer. I hope you can bear with me while I work this out, and I hope to have all of the items I have been late on and caught up to all of the new content by the end of November, but it might end up closer to the end of the year. I hope you enjoy the content regardless and I hope your holiday season is less stressful than mine is going to be.

Best Wishes,

Austin Smith

www.Dragoncompany.org

www.Dragonfunnies.com

www.Artsupplycritic.com

Why am I so Bad at Publishing Articles Consistently?

Now I really have a good reason for it this time: in 3 weeks, I moved, produced 2 new (and 2 revised) books for, and attended, a (mini) Comic Con. So I’m late, I get it, and I really shouldn’t be, but it seems that of the things I’m late for, doing my articles on Friday are the one I’m most consistently late at (not counting videos, and editorial cartoons).

I have wondered why this was the case in the past. And I really don’t know. I’m (for the most part) on time with most of my reviews and especially my comics. It’s just something about the “medium” form writing that makes me late.

It might be a lack of inspiration, or ideas, rather. What in the world do people read on the internet these days? And it has that Blogging problem of most people’s lives not actually being interesting enough to maintain a Blog. It’s also the fact that I started them as a comedy thing, and longer-form comedy is not how my brain works.

That’s why I’ve mainly switched away from comedy. Doing articles on things I’m interested in, or things that are happening right now, is just easier.

They are also posted on a traditionally weekend day, Saturday, (or now Friday). And while almost all of the rest of my life has completely forgotten about any artificial day/week structure, maybe it’s still there in that sense for this article writing. And while for anything else I can wait until the night it’s scheduled for to do it. For Blogging, that really doesn’t work. So waiting until the last minute on a Thursday night/Friday morning might be a terrible scheduling idea.

It’s all still excuses. I really just need to do it, which I have been making a new routine to do more easily. I know that it is something I can do since I usually can catch up. It just needs to be done in a more organized fashion. So I’ve been reading about time management, and I’ll get back to this topic in a few months and see if it’s worth another post about my progress.

Lessons from Board Games – Dungeon! and Social Interactions

I play a lot of games, some light and some heavy, and for the most part I’m not particularly afraid to jump into something pretty complicated. My group jumped from Risk to Pandemic to Battlestar Galactica in a few sessions, and the Flames of War rulebook is huge (I still haven’t read it all, because I don’t need to learn about artillery and aircraft if I don’t have any).

But still, I don’t mind a simpler game now and then (or 75% of the time) and Dungeon! is quite a simple game. You move, find monsters, roll a die, and either run away or get treasure, then go back to the center. There is almost no skill used in the game, and no strategy beyond the gamble of being at higher levels (which give you better payout but are more likely to kill you), or lower levels (which are easy but don’t give you much. It can be played mindlessly). Turns require almost no thought, just hope.

dungeonfront

Just try not to destroy the components

 

And in my opinion, that doesn’t make it a bad game. Are there better games? Absolutely! But if you’re just sitting around talking, and want to do a little more than talk, it is absolutely the game to go for. Since it doesn’t require much thought, Dungeon! doesn’t impede the conversation. The most interruption it’ll cause is either when you tell someone it’s their turn, or when there is an “epic” battle going on (which the player will almost always lose). In some cases it even helps the conversation to progress: if you have someone who won’t stop talking, they likely will for at least a moment to take their turn, allowing someone else to get a word in while the other can still listen. It also livens up the evening (or any time) by adding in moment of excitement where the players can cheer for either a monster or another player to win a battle, and since most battles are determined by chance, there is very little the “better” gamers can do to make it more likely for them to win.  Everyone’s even, and the stakes are very low, unlike in heavier games, where an aura of tenseness or ill-will can persist near the end of the game. Not that that usually lasts for long, or a grudge is held, but sometimes it’s good to just not have it.

The components got better, but the art isn't as unique

The components got better, but the art isn’t as unique

There are plenty of other games that can fill this role: most dice or “filler-type” games will work just as well. The difference here is that Dungeon! takes a bit longer, which, depending on the scenario, can be good or bad. If you just want to play for fifteen or so minutes and then get to something else (usually a larger game) Dungeon! isn’t the one to go for. But if you have 45 minutes to kill before dinner (supper, lunch, brunch, tea, possibly breakfast) and the conversation, while still going, is a bit down, it works great for that. That doesn’t make it a great game, and just because it works for my group doesn’t mean it’ll work for yours. But I know if I want to have a conversation and play a game with multiple people, Dungeon! is the game I reach for, and I like it for that. It fills a niche I never thought needed to be filled before, and might not ever have intended to fill. So, well done, Dungeon!  My shelf is a bit more well-rounded now.

 

Why Do They Rename Content After Its Release?

Renaming videos and articles after their release seems a very recent phenomenon. I go to a website, or see a new video on youtube that’s news-related, read the headline, read the article or watch the video, then leave and do something else. And when I return to the website to check something else, I discover the title to the thing I’ve already seen has changed.

I’m never quite sure why the change has occurred, but I do know that it is quite inconvenient for me when I think I might be looking at something new when I definitely am not.

I guess I know why they’re doing it. In theory it would be because of a mistake, or improper wording. If they had a title that didn’t reflect what the article or video was about, I would understand the need to change it. And, of course, typos need to be corrected.

But in some cases, more recently, I’ve been seeing perfectly accurate titles being replaced with equally accurate ones, less accurate ones, and sometimes even irrelevant ones. Perfectly good titles are exchanged for ones that will get more views, or play in with some recent phenomenon (that will get more views). And this is something that really disappoints me. I want the places where I go for entertainment to at least keep their original titles (save for fixing typos) the vast majority of the time. When a much-more-appropriate title appears, I am absolutely fine with the previous one being replaced, but if one is replaced on a weekly basis I start to have problems.

Sometimes I don’t name things until I’m done working on them, but often times I have a finished title halfway through production, and not having one, or at least a good idea of one, by the end of the process seems like a large oversight. If you don’t like the title enough that you’d consider changing it later, think for a longer time about it now.

And when news sources do this I feel especially wronged (not in a severe sense, because this is just online, but you get my point, I hope). Many times it’s obviously changed to get more views. Now I’m fine with things being named to get views, but if I have to deal with two click-baity titles on the same piece of material in the same day, I start to not want to view that content. Sometimes there are even more title changes, which may speak to a strange attention disorder and want of more recognition that may be inside the mind of the poster.

In short, I don’t like it! It is passable sometimes, but I feel that it is wrong to an audience to rename multiple times what you have put up for viewing. In my opinion, it attempts to get more views dishonestly and corrects mistakes very rarely. Although I’m not a fan, it still isn’t nearly as bad as the Discovery Channel airing that mermaid “documentary”, though.

If You Can’t Write… Don’t.

Articles are hard, just sayin’ that. Depending on the definition of article being used they can be even harder. What exactly makes an article is really up to either the author or the publisher. The same thing applies to when a short story becomes a novella, a novella a novel, and so on. But other than that they’re just plain hard. Writing is hard, every writer is the first to admit that (every high school “artist” wouldn’t in a “million” years). And contrary to popular belief, writing is becoming harder. While anyone can now become a writer, attention spans are becoming shorter. People who “write” write very little. Bloggers even have to force themselves to come up with interesting content. At least the interesting ones do. How many times have you come across a dead Blog with a promising start, that just disappeared. Or, more realistically, just sucked and piddled out. Everyone has a Blog, everyone posts words, or videos or something on the internet. However most just wither and die. Most “writers” don’t have the attention span or the drive to continue writing. Even people who are attentive to their Blogs fail because they can’t push themselves to continue creating content. Eventually preconceived ideas drain and nothing new comes. It seems cliche now to say that every writer finds it hard to write and most have to force themselves to start, but it is true. The difference is that most people say that to encourage people to write. I am not trying to encourage you: writing is hard, really hard and time consuming. But I don’t mean to discourage you either, if you write well then write, if you can force yourself to. Just because writing on a computer is easy, doesn’t mean you have great ideas, just because you have great ideas, doesn’t mean you can force yourself to write them, or that when you do it will be good.

Most writers that continually create content write as either their job or as a major hobby, and it works like any other hobby. Just like how the movie buff spends most of his free time watching movies, or that model collector you know spends his putting together little plastic pieces and painting them, writers spend theirs writing. It takes time and dedication to do, and if that is not applied, it is crap. And as much as the writer in me wants to say it’s hard because you’re continually being attacked by dinosaurs, going to parties, flying pigs around Mount Everest, and communing with the soul of William S. Burroughs, that is simply not the case. Any writer able to continue creating deserves commendation, but those unable to should not be concerned. The ubiquity of the Blog is unnecessary. Not everyone needs to be a writer. There are other ways a voice can be heard, or maybe it won’t even be your voice but your actions. Writers may be able to write more and arguably better then you, but you can do better than them at something. And if you are a writer continue to be so, the amount of dead Blogs grows every day from forgotten passwords to lack of content, don’t let yours fall into the same hole. But my intent is mainly a caution: do what you do, and not what the internet does.