I am at a bit of a loss, and wanted to put my thoughts out there.
I have been writing on this blog for three years at this point. I have said repeatedly that the blog has been largely experimental. That is not to say that I haven’t enjoyed every minute of putting this blog together in my free time. If I didn’t love it, why put in the work? After all, for my whole life I have been terrified of expressing how I think and how I feel for fear of being misunderstood. I have had many negative experiences that have taught me to shut up and put up.
Recently I have been feeling more confident in myself and my ideas to put thought into action. This blog has helped me realize that there is more out there than the people who are in your tiny social circle in the locale in which you live. We live in a large world, and most importantly we can connect with people who would have been impossible to connect with thanks to the advent of the internet age. Its full repercussions have yet to be completely understood. And without it, I couldn’t be writing this blog today which has changed my life in some ways.
Without this blog I am not sure that I would have taken the next steps to explore and discover ideas. Testing the waters of the internet has been different from what I expected. Generally when I write for my blog I put in about an hour of time. That time is spent thinking, editing, gathering details for the piece that I am writing on, and then finally publishing it online. On a good day I can get it done in about 30 to 45 mins.
So why am I at a loss?
I feel like I put a lot of effort into honing my writing skills and putting independent thought into things that I deemed worth the time. But sadly I have been experimenting lately with video content unrelated to this blog. My other passion is gaming. And it turns out that more people will interact with a small 30 second clip than they will with my writing, which I spent far more time on.
In short, a few short 30 seconds clips have outperformed almost 3 years of blogging in less than a month.
I am going to continue writing. Period, end of story. I am not done here yet. But it’s a little frustrating knowing that some first person shooter clips that I didn’t put as much effort into are outperforming this blog. I am a bit beside myself. Maybe I am overthinking the situation. But maybe this is how human attention span works after all. Perhaps I am the crazy one for thinking people would like to read something that would challenge their perceptions and ideas, or maybe how those thoughts might reinforce their ideas on a certain subject.
These thoughts aren’t going to be cohesive or conclusive. Maybe over time my feelings on the matter will change. I want to keep writing, but the effort feels less rewarding in some ways than it did a month ago. Granted I have not always been on top of things on my blog, but when I am not getting paid for something and have other obligations at times it becomes a matter of priority and what matters most I suppose.
I am currently straightening out my working situation. Once I have that figured out I plan on being more dedicated to my blog again, and put more time into personal writing projects. Circumstance has shown me a way to try again, and I am not going to let that realization go to waste. Let’s have more fun together writing about anime.
Fortress William 
I think it depends on your goals. Is your goal video views/blog hits? Or is it monetization?
If it’s monetization, I think in the long run, if you want to write, there’s never been a better time to become a self-published writer. There’s a Facebook group called 20 Books to 50K (probably the only reason I’m still on Facebook!) if you’re interested.
On the other hand, I know people who earn a decent side income with YouTube, too; fewer with Twitch, but it’s still possible. I think it depends on your goals.
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I have been contemplating writing, and taking that more seriously than I have in the past. The videos are just more or less fun clips of game play. If they are big great, if not no big deal.
I am just trying to get my work life into a balance where I can spend more time working on projects for myself, rather than for my employer. I am currently also trying to study for IT exams to try to break out of current career trajectory.
So in short, my goals are a bit of a mess. It’s all a bit of trial and error. Hoping something will land that I actually am passionate about. There is nothing more infuriating that an employer telling you to chase your passion, and giving you no way to actually achieve it.
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A lot of the time, when an employer is telling you to chase your passion, they mean your passion for the work you do for them. I worked for a train wreck company that basically told me to grow my passion (for the work) as feedback when I received my first pay cheque. This company had not signed a single contract the entire time I was working there, and it’s apparently me who needs to grow my passion lol.
I didn’t stay with this company for very long, but I was so burned out by the incredibly toxic culture there with the people there pushing that I should lie to people over the phone (which I didn’t do), trashing employees after they’ve been let go, and lying about the circumstances of a person’s firing. I ended up not working for a few years after that because I was disillusioned with working after working for two incompetent employers back to back.
I’m now working for a better employer that is by leaps and bounds more professional, but I think my boss’s perception of my passion for the work was why he hired me because I pretty much straight up told him that making calls for a living is what I love doing and that it’s the work I’m most suited to doing. I believe that of all the candidates he hired, I was the only one to express that in my cover letter. My boss actually extended the interview process for me because I was sick at the time and couldn’t come in during the day we had agreed on, and he actually gave me more time to recover after the interview to recover by delaying my start date so that I’d be fully healthy.
My boss isn’t really pushing me to dedicate my entire life to the organization, but I neither possess a flair for sales nor have an excellent speaking voice (the latter which I learned during my first call centre job quite soon), so I have to compensate by doing more work than other people would in my situation. I write thank you cards after hours to leave a better impression on people that hear me out, and I have much less time for anime these days.
I know you’ve said before that you’re waiting for a Vance blog, but that will never happen. I’m a slow typer, and it takes a long time for me to compose my thoughts, so blogging would be an incredible drain on my time. The only anime that I feel strongly to devote a considerable amount of time writing about is Re:zero, and it pretty much only comes out with more animated material once every 4 years. A blog that is inactive for 3 out of every 4 years would not be sustainable.
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I am pretty much over being lied to by my employer and have the gumption to say it to their face when ever they have the gall to bring it up. It’s probably not the best career strategy. While I don’t mind some mincing of words to create a more professional environment, after the non-attempts of the other side to fix anything I am going to be stern.
For my current profession I am a sales man, but I will never be top of the game because I like to explain all the things people need to know and make it a point to be honest about the process. While that may lose me some business I couldn’t live dishonestly because I know people have lives on the other side of my sale, and I don’t want to negatively or unduly impact their lives for sake of my own greed or the companies greed. Sadly those who don’t mind being dishonest are generally the ones who get the most sales and in turn are most praised for their work, although I find that personally repulsive.
For me, passion is what I do outside of work, not what I do in it. Work is only a means to an end, that end being able to pay bills. I need to at least take the gamble on myself, and put more emphasis on writing and passion projects I actually enjoy doing. Why put all that effort and good will into a corporate that doesn’t care?
So for me I should have started sooner on this journey, but I am the type that self-doubts and doesn’t have full faith in myself. That is a mindset I am actively working on changing. I am going to believe in myself and at least try. Even if that means failing I am going to do it.
I am glad you have found a good employer. I hope that you enjoy that relationship many years to come.
If the Vance blog does happen, please let me know! Though I do understand the reasons why it won’t happen. I can tell you put a considerable amount of thought into your comments. I always thought if you had put that much into the comments, you could write a blog. I do feel you on the angle of not having enough time to watch anime. Out of my peers here on this blog it would not surprise me if the time spent watching anime and maintaining a blog was on the lower end. I personally don’t like spending time writing about things that I am not enjoying. RE:Zero was one of the few anime that I have gone all in for. For better or worse, simply because I really enjoyed the experience. I try to maintain my blog for sake of my own sanity, and not letting something die even though it’s been until this point largely experimental. I am going to make it more of a priority, with as much time as I can spare to it.
Thank you for leaving a comment, I hadn’t heard from you in some time and was wondering where you were.
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