Yesterday I talked about some of the reasons I play games, but I feel like I left out a major one: I love the feeling of overcoming an obstacle. Often games will layout for us clear goals that we must meet in order to achieve victory. Rarely in real life are these goals as plainly laid out as they are in video games. Your win conditions are clear and you need to figure out how you are going to get there.
So is true with Blaugust, a month long challenge to write a blog post every day. Before the start of this I knew I was getting into an uphill battle, with GenCon landing square in the middle of this competition, but I managed to power through (albeit with a couple barely passable posts), and now that I’m in the home stretch it feels great knowing that I can beat this challenge.
So when I see Belghast talking about how it upsets him that I seem forced into posting, I feel obligated to intercede on Blaugust’s behalf. Yeah some days are harder than others, and this final stretch has had an unusual snag due to some con crud, but if it were so easy to do, I wouldn’t feel the sense of accomplishment for achieving it.
The journey is more rewarding than the prize
Blaugust comes to a close this Sunday, and I will likely take a week off blogging to recharge, but that’s not to say Blaugust has made me hate blogging. In reality, it’s taught me so much about what it takes to run this, and I’ve got an idea of what content people like and what content gets a pass (apparently I’m the only one who really loves math for math’s sake). It’s taught me about how to project my voice out there and get over the fear of not being good enough. I spent so much time on early blog posts and now I will start typing until something comes out.
This has absolutely been a great experience from me as a blogger, but almost as important it’s been fun for me as a gamer. Blaugust is a competition to see if I can manage for one month the level of dedication that it takes to write a post a day, and it’s been tough but it’s also been fun. I’ve met so many awesome people like Doone, Maevrim, Blue Kae, Alternative Chat, Cannot be Tamed through this process and I look forward to keeping up with the twitter-sphere as it goes forward.
Wrapping it up
I feel like this is one of those cases where if it were easy it wouldn’t be as satisfying to complete. It’s the type of game where I need to ramp up from the easy mode to make sure the game is pushing back at me enough that I feel the satisfaction of victory. It’s not even the most grueling challenge I’ve ever taken in a game, though given the “match” has lasted a full month, it might be the most marathon-esque challenge I’ve ever partaken in. Still, I’ve had a blast and I know that personally I will be right there for next year’s Blaugust when it all begins again.
For more stuff on Blaugust, check out the Nook!