Friends, and my interactions with them.

Yesterday was a big one for me. A ten day long contest ended that brought many new eyes to my channel--as many new subscribers as I've seen in such a short time over my first year as a youtuber. I gave away a copy of Firewatch on PC, then celebrated with a full playthrough of Firewatch, one last time, live. Some of you may have even joined me for the stream.

I had been looking forward to the day, and these last 10 or so days, for a long time. I wanted Firewatch to be everything I hoped it would be, and I believe it was, I wanted to take that game, share it with you all and grow my channel in the process. Giving it away was unplanned, but worked out well, and the farewell stream was a great goodbye to the game.

With that stream awaiting me at the end of my Monday night I did what I usually do and try to make sure I'm in a happy, energetic mood and ready to play and entertain at 7pm. THat usually involves music, a walk, and having had the sort of productive day that clears nagging thoughts and self doubt from your head. Its with that framing that I'll tell you two very different stories about interactions with two friends.

One of these stories is about a new friend, a friend have never met in person to shake hands with, but our friendship having formed online matters little to our interactions. My friend Chuck is a fellow streamer and youtuber, and 2016 has been particularly rough for he and his wife--I will spare details. Chuck has spent the better part of the year looking for work, and I have been there more times than I bother to count. I can relate, and I know the sort of words that motivated me when I was in his shoes...

So, with an interview upcoming for the guy I took a moment of my free time to write what can only be described as a pep talk. It was spur of the moment, but I wanted a good thing for a new friend and I thought I might be able to help. I don`t even remember what I wrote, or if it did in fact help, but Chuck got the job. That put a huge grin on my face as I hurriedly uploaded the announcement video for my Monday night live stream and rushed to go see another friend.

This other friend has been in my life a lot longer and there was even a time we called each other brothers. I guess I have to be more careful who I honour with that label, as I do not think of the guy as a brother... and having slapped that label on him takes away a bit of what me and my brother have--something unbreakable.

I guess I have already set up this story, so there is no point in saving the results of our get together for some conclusion. I did not go well, and I worry our friendship is not unbreakable. I still think of Bill as family--we may not be brothers but he is the cousin or uncle you love at their best and try not to hate at their worst moments.

The last time we spent significant time together I was a different guy. A guy who could let rude or inconsiderate behaviour from a friend breeze by me in preference of avoiding conflict... I guess I am not that guy anymore. It might be my baggage that led to the verbal clash, I thought lying in bed last night unable to sleep--maybe I have become a bitter jerk who can`t loosen up and have a good time... but trying my damnedest to get some sleep so I could wake up and write this, I analyzed the way I acted. I lost my cool, but for good reason. I shouldn`t have, but I was calling out what I thought at the time was wrong (and still do)... I refused to back down like I used to and things blew up.

I  hate it, but I dont know what to do about it. What really kills me is that I know I`m in the right--I was angry and frustrated because I saw someone I love after years apart and they arent living up to their potential. Bill at his best is one of my favourite people on the planet, someone I love like family, but I don`t know how to be around him when he isn`t at his best.... it brings out the worst in me. Short tempered, frustrated, and emotional. (Some of that might have to do with the fact that I was swinging a golf club for the 2nd time in six years, but not in the sun and wind with some beautiful vista, but on a simulator smacking balls at canvas with the fairways of Pebble Beach projected onto it. I hated it.)

The problem for me is figuring out how to repair things... because I don`t want to back down. I apologized for losing my cool, paid our hefty tab, and asked the guy to get in the car with us, come home and try to sort shit out.... and he didn`t... wouldn`t. I made my gesture, and because I love the guy I`ll make one more, but I think I have to accept that a lot of this is beyond my control. I can grow and make myself a better person, but I cant help another person do the same.

...

I managed to get home and get myself back on emotional level well enough to perform and entertain viewers for over three hours on live stream, but I counldn`t help but be struck by the way I interacted with two friends. One I barely know and the other I rely on from time to time... and they had switched spots. I rely on Chuck, and this morning I feel like I dont know Bill anymore.

This is far and away to most raw, honest, personal thing I`ve written here. I find solace in the fact that only a few people will read it, but it still scares me.

-UTC

Overcoming writer's block for your daily blog.

I had a vision when I started this blog to take what I've learned from the first year of growing a Youtube channel and apply it to this--to use this blog to develop an audience for my work, and approach it with the same level of fervor I took to Youtube with. Here's the difference: inspiration is easy for a let's player, as there are a thousand games I'm dying to immerse myself in and show off to my viewers. Here, not so much.

I need to come up with interesting things to say on a daily basis and that is no easy feat--it actually requires I lead a more exciting life and take time to make myself better informed and generally more interesting. That though is just fuel for a metaphorical fire, what can be hard is starting it! I have ideas... plenty of ideas to expand on here, but getting my hands on this keyboard and having those thoughts flow eloquently through my fingertips and onto Blogger's clean white page is never easy. Writer's block is a real thing, but it isn't some mystical force that gets in your way... its fear,and getting over that fear is the kindling and tinder needed to get those fires of creativity roaring.

The good news is, fear is easy to beat, as a writer. Start writing, badly, and keep it up until you start writing well. Just as the best method for overcoming stage fright is spending time on stage, the best medicine for a stumped writer is more writing.

That's what today's blog is, by the way. My practice run. Normally, as a terrible perfectionist, this warm up gets thrown out, tossed aside, and the words that follow are saved... not today. Tomorrow you'll get the brilliant, eloquent (as if) words I am about to write, but to show off my method for overcoming that fear I'll give you this today.

If you, like me, have made some half hearted commitment to starting a blog and keeping it up with daily posts, fear will get you at some point. You'll sit motionless with your hands above the keyboard waiting for the ideas to flow and they just won't... when that happens you should write, like I have today, about whatever is on your mind. And maybe it'll be decent enough to post.

-UTC

Looking Back on Firewatch. Part 1.

I am a gamer. If I'm known for anything on the internet, it's playing video games, so this blog will likely touch on the subject from time to time. This blog might actually give me the opportunity to reflect on the experience of creating a let's play series for Youtube, how a particular game made me feel, and what I took away from the experience. I have never really had a good forum to spew my thoughts on completing a series like Firewatch that I planned for months, prepared for, spent a single day playing, a few days editing, and two weeks of sitting back and watching your reaction to what I have made... well, of course the team at Campo Santo had a ton to do with the end product, I just interacted with their masterpiece and let you watch.

My journey with Firewatch began a long time ago when some of the promotional art and an early description of the game caught my attention. Olly Moss created some gorgeous 2D art that Jane Ng would later attempt to recreate in the 3D environment of the game world, and those early bits of art hooked me, and the narrative reeled me in.

The narrative in those early days of development was simple: A man, looking for an escape in the wilderness of Wyoming, which happened to be my favourite place in all of the United States. Set in the world as it existed in 1989, Firewatch captured the world as I first got to know it--born in '84, I came of age in the last years of the decade. I was born just early enough to have the games iconic typewriter, walkman, and boombox be a part of my life--they were the way I saw adults write letters and listen to Cyndi Lauper.

All of this is a product of another coming of age--not the one that happens as you set off for school for the first time, but the one that happens when your peers, those that started kindergarten along with you in the late 80s, begin creating the world's best art.

Firewatch wasn't set in 1989 in Wyoming by chance. It was written by Sean Vanaman who is more or less my age, and likely lived in the beautiful wilds of the state in the 90s when I got my opportunity to fall in love with Wyoming's mountains, lake, plains, and rivers.

My series on the game is still ongoing, so I'll save the spoilers and my reflection on the plot until we get to the end of that series for another post, which makes this Part 1 of a few. Which means I need a conclusion... don't worry, I've got one.

I now live in this world as a 32 year old, raised on ninja turtles, boys with rattails, and flourescent coloured clothing, and its my generation's time. The people that are taking chances, chasing their dreams, and making brilliant art are my age--raised on the very same pop culture, and I look forward to what is hopefully a decade of getting to experience amazing video games not created by the children of the 70s or 90s, but of my decade, the 80s, and if those people are as good at what they do as the eighties babies at Campo Santo, I'm in for a treat.

Thanks for reading. I'll talk more about Firewatch in the days to come.

-UTC

Metaphorical Bread Loaves.

I didn't lay out a mission statement or some grand overriding purpose to this blog in the first post. I was trying to be spur of the moment and write what came to me. I guess that makes this a good time to talk about my inspiration for starting one... and I've had a few.

First is Seth Godin, whose conversation with Tim Ferriss on a recent podcast convinced me of the value of writing something you can stand behind every day, not for a a diary or a journal but for the world to see and way in on. As small as my audience is in the early days of this blog, I am nevertheless in the public eye. I may only occupy a tiny sliver of its iris, but by taking the time to write a little, every day, I will be forced to make predictions, applaud or denounce people or thing because I have strong opinions, and if I write here every day about something I'm thinking about, they will emerge.

I think that's a good thing now matter how you slice it. I started my youtube channel about a year ago with the goal of figuring out how to turn that (and my other endeavours online) into my primary source of income) and to do that people need to know me and love me, I need to be indispensable to the daily routine of at least 1000 people, and that won't happen if I don't put myself out there.

It may be becoming obvious that listening to podcasts is a big source of information and inspiration for me when I get deeper into a brilliant metaphor from Adam Corolla. That being said, I also listen for fun and enjoyment. Bert Kreischer is a hilarious comedian with an incomparable laugh and great stories--he was the single inspiration for the Van Wilder character, if you want his credentials. (He also robbed a train in Russia with some mobsters.) But as interesting as he is, his podcast generally provides more moments of laughter than it does epiphanies, so catching a conversation that inspired and moved me wasn't expected, but that is what I got when I listened in on his chat with Adam.

Bert was clearly inspired by Corolla, and that's why his questions brought out such brilliant answer; one, about how Adam chooses his projects will stick with me for a long time and I`ll do my best to lay out this metaphor with the same skill and simplicity as the Aceman.

You walk into a bakery and you need to pull a ticket--take a number, and get in line. You look at the ticket machine and the next number reads 999, and at the same time the man behind the counter calls out `three!` At this point, many people refuse to even take a ticket and they walk away--who is going to wait for 996 to order just for a loaf of bread? If you never grab a ticket, you never get in line--and the brilliance of Corolla isn't just the advice he gives to take that ticket, regardless of the wait, but to head to every bakery in town and grab a ticket.

Those tickets are your ideas, and the loaves of bread you receive after putting in the time are your rewards. The translation is simple--take chances, a lot of them all at once, if you want a chance of success. That brings me (perfectly I might add) back to Seth Godin, who pointed out that those who claim they don`t have many good ideas will admit that they dont have many bad ones either, and that those people you know that are full of good ideas will have had a lot of bad ones along the way.

This blog is a ticket, its an idea (good or bad), and so are my Youtube channel, my Twitch channel, and my twitter feed. Every one is a shot at a loaf of bread--the chance to expose me and the things I do to a broader audience, which in the end is the goal. It is really easy to make excuses, to explain to yourself why you dont have time to take on the new project you cannot stop thinking about, but its another ticket. Do it, poorly at first if you have to, but do it.

If it hasnt yet become obvious, this blog is another ticket. Its purpose is to give me another portal to you guys, and maybe you'll like what I have to say and you'll tell a friend, or you'll head over to my youtube channel and watch my lets plays. Maybe it'll become the loaf of bread I'm after.

-UTC

The Practice of Writing. Every Day.

I listened to an amazing podcast this week, and it has inspired to take a little time to write every day. If you haven't been inspired by a podcast, then either you aren't taking time to listen or you`re listening to the wrong kind of podcast.

For those looking for inspiration, and eager to find as many sources of it as you can, here is a good starting point: Tim Ferriss' interview with Seth Godin on his podcast from earlier this week. ► http://goo.gl/pTMDar

I had heard of Seth before the podcast, but I knew very little about him. Listening was inspirational, and I cannot tell you how many useful bits of advice I was able to take away from the whole conversation.

One in particular was about writing and Seth is an authority on the issue, being one of the biggest bloggers on the planet. (If you don't believe me, try typing Seth into google. He is at the top.) He talked about how making a practice of daily writing is one of the single greatest decisions he has ever made and to be honest it is something I have considered and even attempted in the past.

Last summer I used a site called 750words to journal (hopefully at least 750 words) everyday, but then the site required I pay to use it and my interest and attention waned. The practice of taking time to record my thoughts helped me de-clutter mentally. Taking the thoughts in my head and typing them out kept those nasty nagging thoughts from sticking around all day and interrupting my focus.

We all have a little voice in our heads and some of the time that voice is a jerk--mine makes a point of telling me that I am not good enough, that the time I spend working on my Youtube channel is a waste, that I will never accomplish my goals...

... when in reality, the only way those statements are true, is if I listen, if I respect that voice and let it shape my future. By writing a journal daily I found I could shut that voice up and better listen to the positive encouraging thoughts that bounce around the inside of my brain.

The big problem, however, is that journaling instead of blogging meant I was able to hide, to lie to myself. A daily blog, even if it is only a couple hundred words, will be in the public eye. It will be seen and occasionally read, and I will be forced to make good points and stand behind them. I will be accountable and responsible for my opinions, and ideally the practice will help filter the voices in my head like a journal.

I cannot promise to write every day yet but I will work my way up to it over the next several months and if the process is as valuable as Seth makes me believe, I will continue it. For now this is a good start. I hope I have something interesting to say tomorrow.

-UTC