Category Archives: thoughts

Lack of Focus

Roses are red,
Music is cool,
I’ve got ADHD,
ooh look a squirrel.

I grew up as a hyperactive child before any real proper diagnosis of ADD was ever done, and managed to some extent with a restricted diet free of many of the stupider E numbers.

So perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that I’ve struggled with focus for a long time, and perhaps not in ways that others might. My mind often flits from thing to thing before I’m finished with it… Sometimes it’s almost as if I fear finishing things, fear taking that step.

As I say, I’ve struggled with this issue for a while… So I’ve decided to see what happens if I stop struggling so much. Allow myself to drift from idea to idea, with the added proviso that I at least try to finish things when I can.

Perhaps it should be obvious that I often feel as though I have a bit if an identity crisis. I find it hard to categorise myself; am I an author, an artist, a designer, a web coder, a video game maker, or… What?

Perhaps, for now, I’ll content myself with calling me a nerd.

Red Bargain: Onwards?

So, over the past several months I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to do with my life.. about what I can do with my life.  To be honest, part of me would love to be able to go and get a job and just work like a normal person.  But I’m not a normal person.

My depression has worsened over recent weeks, leading to me feeling like I’m at a bit of an impasse.  I know I want to write.  To be a writer.  That is at least a start.

Book I of my ‘fantasy epic’ is at draft stages, and I’m working through it to try and get it publishable.. I’m just a little unsure what to do then.  I am strongly considering the idea of self-publishing, possibly by using a Kickstarter to raise funds for promotion and for people to do general pre-ordering type stuff.  My thoughts here are still in their early stages

The Harbinger Rises, Book I of the Red Bargain

The Harbinger Rises, Book I of the Red Bargain

Heh, it almost looks attainable when I make a picture like that.

Scrabbling up a cliff

So, I’m still here, still out of work, still trying to Make Good Art* and keep myself alive

Working on writing things is becoming increasingly difficult, as my depression has caused motivation to be very hard to come by. I stare at a blank canvas and nothing seems to flow.

I am trying to continue to be positive, making little dumb animations – made from CG cardboard for a reason I can’t quite recall but hell, doing something stylistic is reason enough sometimes.  I’ve also tried putting my opinion out there a bit in a pixel-art inspired video too.

And yet, I feel like I’m falling at times, like I’m scrabbling up a cliff-face made of loose shale, cutting at my fingers and knees and only succeeding at slipping ever backwards.  I try to get people interested but it doesn’t seem to happen, engagement seems always to be so low; I feel disheartened.

There’s no positive twist to this blog post unfortunately; I can do nothing more than explain my feelings and thoughts and then I feel as though nothing more can be done. :sigh:

* thanks to Neil Gaiman for that one. :)

Pets and microchips

So, I made another Cardboard Theatre animation.  8)

If you like it, please like it on Youtube, go to http://facebook.com/lairofthenerd and like the link on there, and share it with your friends. :)

I admit, I am quite new to this whole social media promotion thing and am struggling to know how to get more people interested.  Any real meaningful word of mouth or “going viral” all seems very far from what I am capable of, and all the while is the ever-present doubt, and the feeling that I may be struggling in this area simply because I am actually just.. well, shit.  :sigh:

Oh, and for those who missed it, here’s the first Cardboard Theatre video:

Biographical

So, I spent a while making an autobiographical post for my IndieGoGo campaign, and decided the best form for it would be a video.

At first I considered a blog video style post of me looking straight at camera, but I was too worried about my appearance to do that, so I filmed my cat, and a few other things and threw a not-particularly-fantastic video together.

It’s brutally personal though.  I’m not normally this forthright about my depression because I worry so much of the time that people will view it as a weakness, but in the end I decided that the IndieGoGo thing is all about people believing in me, even if at times I don’t really feel that I’m worth believing in.

So.. now what?

My fantasy novel, which is now renamed “The Harbinger Rises” – Book I of The Red Bargain has now been completed.  Or at least, the first draft has been. 116265 words including the glossary, which is about at the level I expected it / planned it to be.

So; now I need to get a printout so that the friend who’s agreed to do a readthrough can do so, and I need to go through it myself and edit it; I am n ot wholly sure what to look for and what to do but I suppose I can find guides online.  Part of me can’t help thinking to myself.. now what? :-S

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Violence in Video Games

There’s been a lot of talk in the wake of E3 about how very violent video games have become.  I want to talk about it in detail when I have more time, but below is a bit I wrote on the subject in order to spark off discussion a couple of years ago that I thought I’d post here.

Violence in video games.

Does it turn kids into mindless killers with a bloodthirsty thirst.. for.. er.. blood.. <_<  erm… whatever… or is it just that people who are already violent are attracted to violent things?

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Why the New Tomb Raider isn’t that bad

So, Kotaku posted an article that got people upset, talking about how people will want to “protect” Lara Croft in Tomb Raider, with quotes from executive producer Ron Rosenberg.

There were a couple of disturbing things in there: firstly, the idea that people don’t project themselves into Lara as a character.  The viewpoint presented here is that all gamers are men and therefore don’t identify with Lara, instead they want to protect her.  Later on, there is talk of an attempted rape, where Rosenberg describes her as being like a cornered animal.  Just clumsy language, but ultimately dehumanising.  Tit.

So, why am I here saying that the game itself isn’t that bad?

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Why Sexism in Gaming is Not OK

I’ve been thinking about this a fair bit over the last couple of weeks and decided to make it the subject of a blog post.  I’m a heterosexual white guy living in Western Europe, and I know that means that in general I have life set to easy mode.  Male privilege, that’s what that means, and Video gaming ably demonstrates how years of male privilege can have a detrimental effect on our relatively new art form.

Sexism is rife within games.  I don’t think anyone would really sensibly argue with that.  There are very few games with female central characters;  those that do have a central female character can fall into the trap of her being a male fantasy type, and using her as eye-candy. Bayonetta I’m looking at you.

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