My Life: What's the point of this blog, really?

This is the beginning of what I hope to be an incredible journey. It will be an exploration of the inspirations that made me who I am, the creations I have devised over nearly three decades of desperately synthesizing into the creative ether, and the philosophies that define what I do and what I hope to see of the future and, even more importantly, my future. I hope this will lead to me understanding myself more as a person and becoming something better as a result.

Or this could be a bunch of semi-coherent rantings at best. Because, honestly, I have know idea what I'm doing here.

Let me get started with the beginning, then. My name is Joseph Barder, as you might have noticed from that little box in the corner. No, it is not Seth or Vyreth, as some people might have assumed based on how they got here. There is no random self-aggrandizing titles involved, nor random series of numbers. This won't be done behind any of the identities, avatars, signatures, or pseudo-personalities that I developed online. What would be the point? Writing as someone else, even if it's someone else that agrees with pretty much all my points but can conveniently do it behind a mask, wouldn't really change me.

Besides, screen names lack permanence. I want it established that this is me, or at least the me that I am as of January 28th, 2008. Soon to be January 29th, so if I don't want to be late for my first damn post, I really had better hurry. Sorry about that, rough day at work.

And that's another thing. This is supposed to be about my plans and hopes, not my daily trouble and distractions. I tried doing a journal of a more traditional nature before. It rather quickly turned to a weekly angst and whinefest. There is something cathartic about that, but that will not be the subject of any of these blogs. The short version of my social life is that it's not especially good, I don't speak the crazy moon language you humans call love, and while I hope that will change some day, obsessing over it will not help. Similar, regardless of the highs and lows of my current employment, it will not be discussed. Any significant changes in my employment will warrant a mention, but that's it. Besides, one thing that writing using an actual name changes is how much employment talk you can get away with. Similarly, my political views can be avoided, at least for now. Here's a hint, though: the candidate I'm rooting for has an A in his, her, or its name. Enjoy.

So what WILL I be writing about, once I get past the pretentious introduction? Well, I intend/hope/desperately cling to the idea of keeping a schedule. I will be updating on set days 5 times a week. Mondays, like this one, are for more personal discussion of myself. This is again not "here's the news on how Joseph Barder's life sucks/is awesome," but it will be a discussion of my interests, groups I belong to, and history not pertaining directly to my creative endeavors.

Wednesdays are about what I believe, especially about art, video games, and art as video games (yes, that last one will be a subject here at some point.) Fridays get past ideas into some of the things I designed over the years, from Dungeon and Dragon settings to full video game design documents. Well, there is an exception to that last part. Some of the ideas I developed were, well, developed A LOT. As in I wrote as many as 400 pages about it. And while I can accept the remote possibility of someone reading this and stealing my ideas, these big ones are past the idea stage and moving into investment. Therefore, any project I wrote more than 100 pages on will not be included here. Interested video game companies: email me. We'll talk. Oh, and one more warning. Many of these ideas were created when I was very young. These ideas are nonetheless important to my personal and artistic development, and thus they should be written about. But some of them are very silly.

Saturdays are my inspirations. They are the games, television shows, books, movies, authors, and more esoteric things that have inspired my own work. Besides summing up what the thing is and what it meant to me, I'll review what I think about the art work is as an adult (since many of them inspired very young me, they also are very silly,) and some examples of what I use from it in my own work. Finally, Sundays are pretty simple: reviews. I picks something I recently watched or played to or near completion, and then explain why it good or bad. Unlike the other topics, which are pretty structured and thus already have twenty or more subjects that I can eventually write about, this section will vary based on what I did that week and I'll be flying blind here. Yes, I'm scared too.

And that's about it, at least until Wednesday. Yes, content is still minimal, but hey, it's my first post. I had to give at least a semi-coherent explanation for why I'm about to wave goodbye to countless hours of free time. And I hope you continue to read this as I improve my writing and develop with my writing. Unless this blog crashes and burns within two weeks, in which case I hope you forget to mention it. But I did write over 400 pages on a single video game idea, so I'm nothing if not dedicated.