It has been quite a while since I’ve last posted something here. As per usual, I undergo periods of time where I shelf projects that seem to go nowhere. To be specific, I have stopped writing blog posts and instead have shifted my creativity towards different formats. While I do enjoy writing a blog post here and there, it left me wanting more from the posts I’ve made.
If you’ve read over a few of my blog updates, you’ll probably notice a few projects I’ve started and stopped at various times. Most of these projects were spawned in a manic creation phase that I eventually burned myself out on. If you create, you probably know what I mean by that; A new project is exciting and full of ambitions. It’s much easier to start a thousand experiments than to see one all the way to completion.
The seeds of my prior ambitions have finally begun to sprout. Here is what has been occupying my time in the past six months.
Live streaming on Twitch
Sometime in January, I started live streaming on Twitch. I’ve had a lot of fun with it and I play a wide assortment of games there. I mostly play FFXIV, which has a new expansion that just dropped, so I’ve been deep in the trenches with that. Often, I’ll pick up an obscure indie game, so if you are a developer, reach out and I’ll gladly play your game on stream, should time allow it.
At the time of writing, I’m quite limited in my time regarding how much I can stream. Normally, I stream on the weekends for four or so hours each session. Lately, I've been slowing down the frequency to meet my deadlines for projects I’ll reveal below. Once I’m caught up, I can return to streaming at least three times a week. Here's a link to my Twitch if you want to join in on the shenannigans.
So what else has been eating up most of my time?
Video Essay Game Reviews
My years of writing have all been in an effort to sharpen my skills to create long-form video essays on games that I love. Videos in this format are my personal favorite and I can never get enough of them. If I’m grinding out hours on an MMO, odds are, I’m listening to a long-winded review of some game from the early 2000s.
After loads of research, writing, and trial and error, I can proudly say that I am able to create videos that I’ve been dreaming of making. As with prior ambitions, I did bite off a little more than I can chew on my debut video.
I had been covering Nowhere, MI, as my first video. I’m expecting it to reach almost an hour in length and I certainly have my work cut out for me. I spend lots of time recording and rerecording voice-over lines and the rest of my time is spent learning video editing. It is a beast of a project, but I have consistently been chipping away at it over the past several months.
Unfortunately, this has led me to hit a few walls with the creation of this video. I had some issues with my audio. By the time I had resolved this issue, I realized that I’d have to go back and re-record everything I already had.
Accepting temporary defeat, I’ve decided to start working on smaller, and much easier projects. In between my time writing my novel, streaming, and editing videos, I found some spare time to draft scripts for smaller topics.
These videos are expected to have about ten to twenty minutes in length and are lighter on the video editing. My goal with these smaller videos is to populate my channel, so new viewers can have an idea of what content I enjoy creating. On top of that, it would be nice to actually have something on my channel before I spend time on the more ambitious projects, which take way more time than expected.
I expect to increase my video editing skills and get a confidence boost from actually finishing these smaller projects. As a creator, one of my biggest weaknesses is actually seeing one of my endeavors to the end. By reducing my scope, I should have a much easier time managing my workload among all of my ongoing projects.
Should these videos be successful, I can grow my endeavors by hiring an editor and increasing the quality of my setup. Here is the link to the channel if you’d like to subscribe and support my work: Youtube.com/greysyns
Now, let’s talk about the novel that I mentioned earlier.
Lake Vender: A Mystery/Thriller Novel
Here we go again, yet another novel that I’ve embarked on. What makes this one any different than my other attempts? For starters, my current word count is right at seventy-thousand words, meaning that my first draft is near completion. This is the largest piece I have created and I am excited to refine the draft further.
Here’s my WIP elevator pitch:
“Lake Vender is the story of a man who recalls his time in a strange small town in southern Georgia. After a little girl goes missing, a call to action recruits a down-on-his-luck alcoholic to join a mass search party with promises of a cash reward. Arthur, our booze-fueled narrator, is now stuck trying to find his purpose in a town that is much more sinister than what appears on the surface.
Missing people, night terrors, murder, an odd rich family, and old folk tales all seem to circulate around the lake that Vender is known for. No answers can be found at the bottom of a bottle, but can the same be said for the depths of Lake Vender?”
I’ve been working on this novel for a few months now and I expect to have revisions done before the end of this year. Once my first rounds of edits are finished, I will be posting teasers and chapters here for anyone to read and provide feedback as I prepare the work for publication.
It’s been a ton of fun writing this novel, but god has it been exhausting. I vastly underestimated all of the mental workload writing a book requires, and I’ve learned a lot from the experience so far. Even if the work doesn’t land well with readers, I’m happy to have invested the time to enhance my skills as a writer.
Updating the Website
I’m actually surprised to see that my blog still gets clicks here and there. For that, I thank you for even reading my long rambles on miscellaneous topics. Once I get the YouTube channel up and running, I’ll be making more efforts to update my website.
You can expect to see a shift from my prior freelance/portfolio to a place where I can publish more works and updates on my projects. I’ll be creating a page dedicated to my novel once I get to the editing stage. Gotta finish the damn draft before I get too ahead of myself.
I do see myself adding more writing-related works here, so the blog isn’t dead. I’m just shifting my interest into fiction and my non-fiction writing is being channeled into YouTube videos. Luckily, I have more ways of engaging with me and my projects besides my website.
I’m slowly growing a nice community of gamers and creators through my Discord. All are welcome to join, though it's a small and quiet place at the moment. There, you can send me feedback, suggestions, catch up to date with what I’m streaming, and well, everything else Discord does. Here’s an active link to my server.
Conclusion
It’s been a busy year for me, and with the last half of the year coming up, some of my projects are finally reaching their conclusion. I’ll continue streaming, video editing, and of course, writing moving forward. Expect to see more updates uploaded here or on my Discord server.
Once again, I appreciate those of you who pop in on the website to poke around. I’m going to make more of an effort to upload something here at least once a month, now that my work schedule has stabilized. Make sure to sign up for email notifications to stay up to date and not miss any updates or future posts!
Catch you in August,
~Greysyns