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Throughout the month of August, I'm aiming to write 25 blog posts. This is post #1 of 25. Find them all in the "blogathon 2014" category.

I figured the right way to start this blogathon was by blogging about blogging, so I sat down and pulled up the post editor.

“Blogging,” I said, placing my fingers on the keyboard. “Right then.”

Curiously, a fully-formed blog post didn’t flow from my fingertips, so I started poking around in search of inspiration. I checked out my archives, and realized that my first blog was in 2004, a solid decade ago.

Whoa. I’ve been doing this blogging thing a long freaking time. Continue reading →

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Blogathon doge

I’m going to try something ridiculous.

I’ve been wanting for a while to blog more. No surprise. I think just about every amateur blogger regularly looks at their front page and thinks, “Damn, I should blog more.” I’ve said it myself, numerous times. But this time, I’m going to do something about it, and that something is a blogathon.

Here’s my goal: between 12:00 am (my time) on August 1st, 2014, and 11:59 pm on August 31st, I will write and publish 25 new posts here on the blog. That’s it. No rules about content or length—these could be 25 posts about anything (and I fully expect there to be some oddballs in there). But 25 posts.

It’s a little intimidating. 25 is a big number—that means if I stick to a pattern of one post a day, I’ll have less than one week of wiggle room. In fact, when I started writing this post, I intended to set my sights on 20, because it seemed easier and totally doable. Then I realized this was one of those situations where I could sit back and be comfortable, or really push myself into scary territory. I don’t get those very often, so I figured I probably owed it to myself to do the scary thing.

If you want to help out, send me a question or a prompt! I initially asked for questions on Facebook, expecting personal things like “What’s a time you were horribly, embarrassingly wrong?” or “How do you feel about mortality?” or “What do you want to do with your life?” Instead, I got some really deep philosophical questions. Those are rad too, I suppose. Whatever floats your boat. At any rate, go to that link and submit your questions for me, and I may or may not answer them.

The last time I tried something even vaguely like this was NaNoWriMo 2013, when I set off trying to write a 50,000-word novel and never made it past 5,437 words. I soon found that I had too much going on in my life to prioritize writing 1,667 words a day, especially since I write at a snail’s pace. Will that happen with this goal? Will trying to write 6-7 posts a week overwhelm me and burn me out?

I sure hope not, but there’s really only one way to find out.

Shiba photograph by Atsuko Sato.

 

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Cassette Tape

There’s a song from the musical Avenue Q called “Mix Tape”. In it, one character, Kate Monster, receives a mix tape from her charming neighbor, Princeton, and agonizes over the meaning of its contents:

“You’ve Got A Friend”
“The Theme from ‘Friends'”
“That’s What Friends Are For”

…shit.

Oh, but look!

“A Whole New World!”
“Kiss the Girl!”
“My Cherie Amour!”

Oh, Princeton! He does like me!

“I Am The Walrus”
“Fat-Bottomed Girls”
“Yellow Submarine”

What does it mean?

This post’s not about Avenue Q (although if you haven’t seen Avenue Q, I strongly encourage you to check it out the next time the opportunity presents itself). Instead, I want to use this as an example of what I’d like to dub the “Mix Tape Mindset” about crushes, ’cause I think it’s a very silly cause of an unfortunately large amount of unhappiness. Continue reading →

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I’ve always been a customizer. As a kid, I actively searched for video games that had level editors, because I was so enamored with the idea of making a game myself. Sometime in college, I discovered Magic Set Editor, and very quickly set to making my own Magic: the Gathering cards for fun.

It’s been a long time now since I’ve played a game of Magic, and probably even longer since I tried to seriously design a card, but the design of Magic is still something I find fiercely interesting. I read Head Designer Mark Rosewater’s weekly columns about design, and subscribe to the /r/custommagic subreddit, where I see a dozen amateur designs a day.

After browsing /r/custommagic for so long, I’ve noticed some trends among newbie designers. Just like everyone falls a couple times as they’re learning to ride a bike, damn near everyone makes these mistakes when they first start designing their own Magic cards. There’s no shame in it, but if you’re actually interested in learning to be a better designer, it’s important to understand what these mistakes are, why they’re mistakes, and how you can avoid them.

Continue reading →
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Tangled glasses drawing

Last week, some sort of inspiration struck me, and I ended up doing a lot of drawing. Here are some of the things I sketched last week:

(Incidentally, now that I’m drawing more, I wish I had a scanner–except I have a hard time justifying devoting any extra space in my tiny apartment to one. Oh, dilemmas.)