#Blapril And Blogging

It's that time of the year again... Blaugust! No, wait, wrong month... but apparently we're having it in April this year because lots of people are stuck at home and blogging is a nice, indoorsy hobby to keep you busy during times like these. Thus, say hello to Blapril. (Personally I would have gone for Blopril since I don't like the association with "bla", but it is what it is.)

I won't rehash what dozens of other bloggers have already said about the event and simply quote my own super-short summary of it from last year: It's a community event for content creators (not just bloggers anymore), encouraging them to be loud and proud of what they do, so that people can share ideas, give each other encouragement, find new audiences and expand their own horizons. Most of the participants focus on talking about gaming, but there are no real limits on the subject matter. If that sounds at all interesting to you, you can find out more here.

I myself have signed up for the community and networking aspect of it, but as a regular reader you shouldn't really notice anything different on here.

Tangentially related, I got tagged for one of those chain letter-like things that we used to call "memes" back in the day before the word changed to mean something else. I'm not usually a huge fan of these, especially when they consist of nothing but "answer these ten completely random questions", but at least this one is related to blogging so I thought I might as well fit it in here.

The rules of this so-called "Blogger Recognition Award" (which doesn't actually involve any awards) are as follows:

• Thank the wonderful person who nominated you and leave a link back to their blog(s).
• Explain your blog’s origin story or its history.
• Hand out two or more pieces of advice for new bloggers.
• Nominate other bloggers and hook us up with links to their blogs.

First off, the wonderful person who tagged me is Telwyn of the GamingSF blog. I've enjoyed reading his blog for a long time as we seem to have similar tastes when it comes to using our blogs as gaming diaries and reflecting on game design. He plays a lot of different MMORPGs, but unlike some he doesn't always jump into the newest hotness but rather maintains a fairly large stable of games that he revisits every so often. I find that quite interesting as it means he plays on at least a medium progression level in all of his games, which is not a play style I see get coverage on a lot of blogs. Also, luckily for me it so happens that all three MMORPGs that I'm active in are part of his stable as well. If you're looking for reading material about a specific game, he has handy category links on his sidebar. Since this blog is about SWTOR, I guess I might as well include a link to his SWTOR category.

As for this blog's history, from what I can remember I've enjoyed writing pretty much ever since I learned how to do it, but that may be going back a bit far. I started my first digital diary around twenty years ago (oof) and when I really got into World of Warcraft I created a blog just for writing about that. When SWTOR became my main game instead, it made sense to me to give that game its own blog, and here we still are eight years later.

Since I've been dealing with FAQs at work today, I'm going to put my advice to new bloggers into a similar Q&A format:

How do I know if I'm cut out to be a blogger/content creator?

Because you like creating content or just talking about things. Or maybe you don't even like talking very much because you're kind of shy, but you're still bursting with things you want to express. Blogging would be great for you in that case!

How do I get started though?

There are plenty of free tools to build your own website or just publish your writings on someone else's domain these days, so just make an account somewhere and start writing. You can always sort out details such as prettying up the layout later.

Any suggestions what to write about? And how often?

Generally speaking you can write about anything, but I do suggest picking a general niche. Many bloggers will tell you not to limit yourself too much and just write about whatever, but personally I find that more stifling than liberating, because to me the freedom to write about anything is too much of a blank canvas. If you have at least a general direction, such as "what have I been playing lately", it's much easier to come up with an answer to the question of what to write about.

Similarly, I agree with Telwyn's advice that it can be good to set yourself at least a vague schedule, such as planning to post twice a week. Again, obviously blogging is meant to be a fun hobby, not a job, but having that sort of structure can help you pace your ideas instead of burning all your fuel in three days and then being out of ideas for the next month. (Also, readers generally appreciate regular updates too.)

How do I get other people to read my stuff?

You can use social media like Twitter to promote your writings, but I've found that - especially if you also want to benefit of the community aspect of content creation - the best way to disseminate your writing is to interact with other content creators, which in the case of blogging means leaving meaningful comments on their blogs and linking to them if they've inspired you/you enjoy their work. People do click on those links and before you know it someone goes "have you seen this cool new blog over there yet" and suddenly you've got readers of your own.

What do I do if I run out of ideas?

Come up with some new ones! There are always things to talk about, even if your blog has as narrow a focus as this one (it doesn't get much more specific than writing hundreds of blog posts about a single computer game). I did write a more long-form post about this a few years ago, which you can find here.

Finally, the tagging of other bloggers! I'll pick both SWTOR and general MMO bloggers for this. Don't feel pressured to join in if you don't really fancy it; it's just supposed to be a bit of fun.

• Battle Stance
• Cry Havoc's Ramblings
• Galactic Antics
• Leo's Life
• Parallel Context
• This Week in Aurebesh

#Blaugust Reborn - Why Blog?

SWTOR has a pretty active and awesome community of fan content creators, but as a blogger, things can still feel a bit lonely sometimes since so much of people's focus when it comes to content creation has shifted to podcasting and streaming/video-making these days. Well, in the month of August at least, no blogger has to feel lonely because Belghast of the Tales of the Aggronaut blog is hosting Blaugust! This used to be an event about posting every single day throughout the month of August, which is why I avoided it in the past to be honest - my days of wanting to post something every single day are long past me.

However, this year he decided to give it a broader appeal. You can read all the details here, but as a short summary you could say that the event is about the following:

- Encouraging people to blog, whether they are new to it or "hardened veterans". Most of the people involved write about gaming, but it's not strictly limited to that.
- Exchange links to increase exposure of your own posts and to find new blogs to read yourself.
- Share tips and advice about the subject of blogging (the event is also supposed to incorporate what used to be called the Newbie Blogger Initiative in past years).
- Developer Appreciation Week! I quite liked that one last year.

I signed up as a contributor, which doesn't really mean anything special for the blog as I'm not going to try to ramp up my posting frequency or anything, and I don't necessarily expect to make use of all the different writing prompts - but I will be mentioning the event every now and then and am fully planning to check out other people's blogs throughout the month. My blogroll could certainly do with some fresh blood.

If you are thinking about starting a blog, or maybe reviving one that you started in the past and then abandoned, this is the perfect opportunity to do so! We sometimes like to joke that blogging is dead, but more seriously: I believe that despite of social and new media, blogging will still remain relevant for quite a while and I'll give you three reasons why:

Controlled Discourse

Recent social media kerfuffles have once again highlighted that for all the connections that social media provide, they can also be incredibly vicious and unpleasant. We tend to forget that every public Tweet we make is basically like shouting into a megaphone, because most of us only ever generate a very limited response. However, things could basically get picked up by the wrong crowd at any moment and then all hell breaks loose.

I actually didn't know whether to be amused or sad the other day when in a discussion about this issue, I saw several people say things along the lines of: "If you just want to shout into the void without anyone ever responding, get a blog!" I mean, yes, you can make a blog that doesn't allow comments, but I think for most of us having comments enabled is part of the appeal. We do want to hear responses to our ramblings.

Anyway, the nice thing about blogging is that you control the discourse. People starting to flood a post or the whole blog with unwanted comments? You can selectively limit them without breaking a stride when it comes to your own output. Also, personally I've found that even if you allow completely anonymous comments, it seems that the feeling of "being on your turf" somewhat discourages people from leaving outright nasty comments, at least compared to an open platform like Twitter or reddit. So again, to make a long story short: blogs are nice because they allow you to have public discussions with strangers but with a safety net. I wouldn't be surprised if people actually came to appreciate this more again with all the social media ugliness that we've been seeing recently.

Searchability

I get that not everyone is as interested in archiving and preserving their own words as I am (it's pretty conceited, isn't it), but a properly formatted blog is like a miniature library that makes the past both easier to remember and straightforward to navigate. Between an archive sorted by year and month, tags and the simple search function, I can find any old piece of writing that I want to revisit with ease. Likewise the few more useful posts that I've written are merely a Google search away from anyone else who might want to find them.

One of the big problems I have with audio and video is that it's a pain to find things again later on. Ever felt your heart sink when someone tells you to check out so-and-so talking about such-and-such and they link you to a one-hour video without a clue of where the actually relevant part begins and ends? Or maybe you vaguely recalled hearing an interview in which something was said that you'd like to revisit... but you have no idea how to find it again based on that fleeting bit of memory alone. I've even run into it myself when recording my Pugging with Shintar videos, when I suddenly find myself thinking: "Didn't I talk about this before?" but I have no way of verifying my suspicion other than re-watching all of my old videos to find where it might have come up (which I usually can't be bothered with).

Maybe this is something that technology will be able to solve with time, but I wouldn't hold my breath for it happening any time soon. For now, blogging is still the way to go when it comes to creating content that will survive the test of time.

Time-Sharing

I suspect that one of the reasons that blogging and I suppose reading in general is on a bit of a downturn is that we live in an age of multi-tasking, where people don't feel productive if they aren't doing at least two things at the same time, and reading is really limited in that regard. You might be able to whip out a book while training on your exercise bike or something, but generally speaking, if you want to read something, you have to focus on it. This is a major advantage of podcasts and streamers, that you can listen to them on your way to work or watch a video while knitting a scarf.

However, one of the big trade-offs that comes with this is that both watching and listening take far, far longer to impart the same information than the written word. I reckon that most blog posts I read throughout the week don't take more than two to five minutes to read, with many taking even less, while most podcasts and videos that pop up on my feed tend to range from fifteen minutes to an hour. This is the main reason I'm really bummed that so many of SWTOR's content creators are focused on video these days - because while I'd be happy to say, read three blog posts about a new stronghold, I don't really want to watch three twenty-minute videos about said stronghold, even if they are all nicely done. Since each individual's content demands more time, I'm actually following much fewer of them than I follow bloggers, because there are only so many hours in my day - which is a shame in a way.

Long story short: reading and writing allow you to share information much faster and with more people, with less time commitment required on the end of the consumer.

Did I convince you to try blogging yet? Well, even if not it might still be worth your time to check out the list of Blaugust blogs and read about other people's adventures in gaming at least (not necessarily in SWTOR). I promise it will take no time at all!

NBI: Five Sources of Inspiration

This month is NBI month - if you don't know what that means, you can head over to Rav's blog here and read a bit about it. The short version is that NBI stands for "Newbie Blogger Initiative" and is a time to encourage people who've been thinking about starting a blog to do so and to give newbie bloggers who've already made the jump useful advice and an opportunity to promote their writing. In the spirit of the latter, one of my guildies has started a little blog project where he makes news stories out of NPC background conversations - check out the SWTOR Journalist.

I've previously also used the NBI to dish out unpopular advice, such as that it's perfectly OK to have a blog that limits itself to a very narrow subject, such as a single MMO. I thought this time I'd take the opportunity to talk a bit about how to find things to write about when your blog has a narrow focus, though some of this can definitely be applied to multi-gaming blogs as well. Incidentally, I don't actually think that giving yourself the option to write about anything necessarily makes it any easier to come up with things to write about. Science has shown that too much choice can be crippling, as I'm sure many gamers with Steam libraries full of unplayed games know all too well. Anyway, on to my suggestions for what to write about when you're struggling for inspiration:

1. What you've been doing in game

I would've thought that this would be the first and most obvious thing on anyone's mind when they start an MMO blog in particular, yet I continue to be surprised by the amount of gaming blogs I see that hardly ever talk about what their writers have actually been up to in terms of gaming. I suspect that some might be afraid that mere descriptions of their latest online adventures might sound too mundane or even boring, but part of the fun of practising your writing skills is making the mundane sound exciting. Making your way to a new zone can turn into an adventure of exploration and a bad pug run can become an epic tale of overcoming adversity.

Talking about what you've been playing also helps your readers relate to you ("man, that PvP match she describes sounds just as bad as the one I had last week..."), shows that you're actively engaged with the game and gives you credibility. Like in all walks of life, you sometimes run into people who enjoy passing themselves off as absolute experts on a game (and its many design flaws, usually) even though they've barely played it, if at all. By writing about what you've been playing, you show that this is not you. And this sort of leads us nicely to...

2. Thoughts and Analysis

Point one posts are relatively superficial, but under point two we can go a little deeper. What does it all mean? You look at what you've been doing in game and pick it apart. Which bits did you enjoy? What could use improvement? Why? How does it make you feel? There are so many questions to ask, and I think this is one of the parts that many MMO bloggers enjoy the most - getting to play armchair developer and feeling all insightful. It's all too easy to run out of inspiration for these though - which is why I feel they tie in extremely well with posts from the first category, because once you've written down what you've been doing, you can always analyse that.

3. What's new in game?

I think one of the biggest stumbling blocks for many a gaming blogger are times when they don't actually play their favourite game(s) very much, whether this is due to burnout or simple lack of free time. But you can still continue writing!

One of the nice things about MMOs is that they are always receiving updates and that they involve so many different people that there is always something to talk about if you look hard enough. When's the next patch supposed to come out and what new features will it introduce? Have the developers made some interesting statement on the official website or in a livestream? What about the community? Maybe a new fan site has opened up or an old one closed? What about that big roleplaying event that's coming up? If you have even a little time to do things like read official forums and fan sites, you should still find plenty of material to share and have an opinion on.

4. Past and Future

If you don't even have the energy to read up on what's currently happening in game, you can always resort to wallowing in nostalgia or daydreaming about the future. Admittedly the former requires the game to have been around for a while and you to have played it for about as long, but there are no real limits on the latter. Remember back in the day when we had to walk everywhere? Look how far we've come in terms of convenience! Anyone remember back when [class] didn't have [iconic ability]? Wouldn't it be great if we could do [thing]? I can't wait for the day when they introduce [feature]!

5. Make your own theme

This last point isn't really connected to any of the previous ones but is more about making your own rules for your blog - self-imposed structures can be a great help when it comes to coming up with things to post about. For example you can pick one activity that you really, really love doing in game and that you could talk about all day... and actually allow yourself to talk about it regularly. If you love taking screenshots, you could have a "Screenshot Saturday" where you post some screenshots that you took that week and talk about them, every week if you like. Instantly recyclable post idea! My Flashpoint Friday series is pretty much the same thing and has provided me with a regular topic of discussion once every two weeks for over nine months now.

Got any other great sources of inspiration to share for those days when you kind of want to make a blog post but it's not quite coming to you naturally? Feel free to leave them in the comments! If you don't have your own blog, maybe you can share what you'd like to see people write about more often instead.

NBI: Specialisation

The Newbie Blogger Initiative has come around again - somewhat to my surprise, considering that I thought it was now an annual event and the last time I recall mentioning it was only eight months ago. Nonetheless, if you're thinking about starting up a blog, I can only recommend checking out the NBI's website, its forums and especially its list of articles about blogging advice.

I'm happy to say that the SWTOR blogging and social media community seems to be thriving as of late anyway. I don't know if it's because all the talk about Episode VII is rejuvenating interest in Star Wars in general, but the last time I updated my blog roll was the first time in a while that I actually added more new blogs than I removed old and dead ones. Keep up the good work, fledgling SWTOR bloggers! I always enjoy hearing new voices chime in about the game, and if you've got an active SWTOR blog that isn't part of my blog roll on the right, feel free to let me know in the comments. If you've got another, not opinion-based type of fan site (news, guides etc.), I'll be happy to add you to my "general SWTOR resources" list instead.

Anyway, in the spirit of the Newbie Blogging Initiative, I also wanted to dispense a bit of blogging advice of my own. Specifically, I want to offer a counter-point to this post by Rivs, in which he quotes Tobold on the subject of how it's supposedly best to keep your blog title and theme as generic as possible, because your interests will change over time and you don't want to be stuck with a name and theme that don't actually match the things you want to write about anymore.

This is such a common piece of advice - I've seen it many times - and it's always made me feel a bit self-conscious about having such a hyper-focused blog. But you know what? I'm done with that. I blog about one game only and I'm proud of it.

The thing is, I don't disagree with the core idea as voiced by Tobold, that your interests will change over time, but I disagree with the conclusion. Making a new blog to write about a different subject is not a bad thing. If you completely change what you write about, you're going to lose a lot of your old readers anyway, whether you keep the same URL or not. And unless you're specifically trying to get internet famous, does your Google page rank really matter?

Scree recently wrote a post about how he's developing a tool to make it easier to sift through gaming blogs for subjects that actually interest him, and that was honestly a bit of an epiphany for me. "Gaming" is such a huge subject that ten different people can write ten different gaming blogs and cover completely different subjects throughout. This can make it very hard as a reader to find new blogs that interest you because their titles are usually completely non-committal and it takes skimming through a lot of posts to find out whether they tend to cover the kinds of subjects that you personally find interesting or not.

To a reader (and I take it as a given that everyone who writes a blog also reads at least a couple of other blogs), specialised blogs are a godsend, because you can tell pretty much instantly whether they are going to contain the kind of content you're interested in or not. So I say: don't be afraid of specialising with your blog, whether that means writing only about your game(s) of choice or only about a certain aspect of gaming in general. Your readers will thank you, and if you eventually lose interest in writing about your chosen subject - oh well. You can start over and still have a good time. Did you know that I used to blog exclusively about WoW? I'm really glad I started a new blog for SWTOR though, because having an archive full of WoW posts would feel weird now. Njessi did the same (she used to run the Murloc Parliament) and I pretty much dare say that she's actually made more of a splash in the SWTOR community than she ever did in WoW - starting over under a completely new name and URL certainly hasn't been a hindrance to her. Recently she also started blogging about Wildstar - and sometimes I even read those posts (even though I don't plan on playing the game) because I enjoy her writing style, but I sure appreciate that she made a new blog for it, so I don't find myself clicking on the link to her "usual" blog and going: "Oh, another post about Wildstar... and I was really hoping to read her opinion on the latest changes in SWTOR."

NBI: Start Your SWTOR Blog Today!

In the MMO writing community as a whole there's currently a project called "The Newbie Blogger Initiative" going on, which is supposed to encourage people to start their own blogs about MMOs. I wasn't originally going to get involved simply because I don't feel that I have a lot to say on the subject. My blogging is very niche and I do quite a few things that people usually advise against, such as writing only about a single game and producing walls of text that aren't broken up by any images, so I'm probably not the best person to go to for advice.

However, looking at my SWTOR blog roll on the side gave me food for thought. I used to be quite strict about purging inactive blogs after three months, but lately I've been giving them more and more time simply because I hate to take blogs off the list and have nothing to replace them with. Maybe I'm just looking in all the wrong places, but I don't see a lot of personal SWTOR blogs starting up right now, and I think that's a shame. Just because the game isn't the hottest new thing on the block anymore, doesn't mean that there isn't still a lot to be said about it!

Why should you blog? Well, it definitely isn't for everyone, however I've met plenty of people online that made me think "this person should definitely have a blog". Mostly it's about whether you like expressing yourself in writing. Basically, blogging is a logical next step if you're the type of person who likes to leave long comments on other people's posts or writes a lot on forums. The problem with these forms of writing is that things tend to get lost and buried. This is annoying if you think that what you've said was relevant and deserves more exposure, but also when it comes to archiving. Ever found yourself in a situation where you went: "I know I wrote my thoughts on this down somewhere, but I don't remember where"? Yeah, this is why it's good to have your own blog and a solid archive function. I can still go back and look at stuff I wrote about WoW four years ago, and that's nice.

So if you've got things to say about SWTOR and have ever considered starting your own blog about it, now is a good time. Just head on over to the NBI site for lots of advice on how to get started as well as plenty of opportunities to get your new blog promoted. And of course I want to hear about it too! Need more things to add to the blog roll...

P.S. You know I'm looking at you, Mace...