Salutations!
As we stand on the cusp of a new year, I hit a major milestone on this blog. With this post, I reach 200 blog posts covering everything from video games, to theology, to personal stories and challenges.
In my first post, I stated that I wished to create this blog to journal my efforts into the areas of fictional writing, specifically, for my webcomic, Wildlight. Ironically enough, my path took some twists and turns along the way. A company asked me to run gaming events for the entire northern Utah region, which I did for about a year. Before, during and after, I dove into deeper studies about theologies, sharing many of my discoveries and thoughts right here. Eventually, I did manage to write up a number of short, fictional stories. Though it all, I focused on improving the craft of writing. I feel that I have made significant progress along those line, and hope you agree with me.
I write primarily for myself. Aside from practicing writing itself, I also find value in keeping a journal on my thoughts, studies, etc has intrinsic value in and of itself. I could reach both of those goals with a private Word document or the such. However, I also hoped by sharing online that someone may also find value in my rough drafts, rants and studies. Along those lines, I do receive comments on a somewhat regular basis. While I have no assurance, I do hope that these writings and discussions bless someone out there and bring them closer to God.
This brings us to my 200th post, on the cusp of a new year, which makes it a perfect opportunity to talk about future plans and goals. I did this last year, with limited success…hopefully, I will do better this year. So, in no particular order….
First, one of the more popular sections/topics of my blog, RPGTrek, shall continue. I originally started this as a way to remember details about my exploits through classic RPGs I worked through. I thought about quitting once I realized that the work involved consumed so much of my free time. However, my readers surprised me with tons of positive feedback… more than any other writing exercise I have done here. They have convinced me to make this a permanent, ongoing part of my blogging activities. I cannot promise that I will keep up the pace that I did last year, where I knocked out an average of a 1,000 word article each and every week. However, rest assured I shall keep on reporting on the progress of my characters, entertaining you as I go along.
Second, as mentioned in a previous article, I will reduce the amount of theological writings I engage in. I feel that in our post modern society, people value logical, well thought out arguments less and less. And, while I do enjoy studying and writing along those lines, I feel that I need to shift my focus into areas which will produce more fruit. Jesus calls us to be fishers of men… and while the Bible extols the virtues of studying God’s Word and arguing for the faith, we have a higher calling to reach out to others. I will not quit writing about theology and Bible studies, but simply reduce the amount I do.
So, you may wonder, if I plan to reduce my RPGTrek blogging, as well as my theological writings, will I knock out fewer blog entries? Far from it! (Lord willing). I plan to fill in the gaps with more fictional writing. Specifically, I plan to priorities working on Wildlight’s next story. I last worked on the comic nearly six years ago, so I have a lot of writing to do, and I plan to share a lot of it here, including specific information on backgrounds, organizations, setting, etc. Admittedly, most of this will bore the average blog reader, but I hope, by sharing some of that here, a few of the fans will help me by sharing opinions, thoughts and even editorial corrections as needed. (I have made dastardly mistakes in the past, such as changing the names of characters in the middle of the story!)
If any of you would like to see me write about anything else in particular, please feel free to drop me a line. I penned some of my blog entries in 2014 as a response to requests, questions and comments from my friends and readers. Regardless, thank you very much for accompanying me through 200 blog entries!
Lightwaves 