And not without good reason, though I'm always hoping I can make this site more than merely functional. Energy is a limited resource for me, and what little of that is left after my work mainly goes to writing. It's cool to look back on my last post when I was at 71k- I eventually completed the draft of that project at the end of March with a word count of 158k which I think is pretty insane. Is it a good quality piece of work? Absolutely not! But there's much in there to be proud of and I'm proud of even completing it, I think that in itself is an achievement.
After that I have since gone back to the other project (the one where I was changing the tense it was written in) and it's a bit slower going because I don't know what I need to make happen whereas I had a fairly good idea with the last project. Since this one has been started over so many times over so long a period, it feels pretty unfixable, so I just want to see what I come out with this time and have done with it. I should really stick to the attitude I wanted to write it with, that I shouldn't be wasting time on subplots that I don't care about and distract from the core story.
The plan after that is to go back to the other one again, leave myself some angery comments on the doc and then try and fix it. I can't be sure what I'll do after that. I have to face up to the idea of letting people see my work at some point, I can't really force myself to hide it forever.
It all comes back to this idea of being seen and perceived. I think everyone hates it but me especially. Have been thinking on this a lot lately but won't go into it.
Energy being a limited resource, that which I had for gaming seems to have gone altogether at this point. I can no longer conceive of putting the mental effort in to winning some bish-bash-bosh fight. I'm still open to visual novels and other low-energy interactive experiences that are focused on storytelling but don't currently have anything on the go. And I think the Xenoblade series will always have me in a chokehold whenever the inevitable next entry comes out- the gameplay just hits differently and tends to ease you in, in a way that works better for my brain, idk.
I'm lucky that I get a decent exposure to landscape with a sense of place in my life now and I think that was what I was missing when I spent a lot of time playing games. I really do think that people are compelled to spend so much time in these virtual landscapes because the outside world around them can be so drab if you live in the suburbs or a city without access to nature.
My relationship with games isn't necessarily that simply defined either though, I also have always enjoyed the music, but for the past couple of years I wanted to try and listen to more albums and more diverse music than vgm and radio music because I realised I was really lacking in knowledge (and taste) to be able to have conversations with people even though I have always been passionate about music. It hasn't proved to be something that comes easily, because it can feel like a waste of time if you end up listening to something you dislike, but I am getting closer to being able to define what my preferred genres and styles are that I look for. I also got really obsessed with a band for the first time ever, there's been bands that I've liked before but never before had a specific obsession where I know 90% of their songs and have been getting all their CDs. And soon they have a concert movie I'm really excited about! But when I can tear myself away from their music and get back to the ~~diversity~~, I do often find myself thinking 'oh this reminds me of XYZ vgm', which shows how much it has and continues to influence my taste.