No, this isn't about SWTOR, or Rift, or anything else pixelly and loot-filled. For once. Consider this a features update, rather than a content patch.
Last night, I had an epiphany. Or rather, my girlfriend had an epiphany for me.
See, I just lost my job. It's a long story, but I've got all this grown-up, real-world stuff to do so that my six game-playing, food-stealing cats get to keep their cozy home. Only, I spent all of yesterday working on updating graphics and stuff on my YouTube channel, here on the blog, Twitch, and even Twitter. Rather than making her an awesome dinner and cleaning the apartment so she wouldn't be mad, I greeted her at the door with my laptop in hand. And I made her read my blogs.
And she laughed. I was amazed. She actually enjoyed reading what I've written. And then she told me something that I probably should have thought about a long, long time ago.
"You should write a book. Not like, a book about some dwarves killing some dragons and shit, but like your blog. About YOU killing dragons and shit." Not her exact words, because if my girlfriend swore as much as I do it'd be fucking weird, but you get the picture. She actually encouraged me to keep writing, treat the blog like a brainstorming area for a proper book, and tackle it head-on. (And before you guys start burning incense and lighting candles in her honor, she also made sure to remind me that I have to find income ASAP. She's not a moron.)
I stewed on her suggestion for the rest of the night, while I plodded through Act 1 on my season wizard and fucked around with my OBS settings to get my stream running properly. What would it take, I wondered, for me to actually pull a book off?
Ideal world, I'd need a month or two of uninterrupted writing time, money to start sending out manuscripts and find an agent, and a box of cookies. The cookies are optional, but I find they make the writing process work. (Love, if you're reading this, yes I ate all your cookies, but it was for a good cause.) My problem is that I can't just up and devote my life to producing a hilarious and relateable memoir.
So I figured what the hell. I signed up for a Kickstarter, put in an estimate of expenses related to actually writing the book and making super cool special things for donators, and went through all the paperworky-type things to get my internet panhndling set up. Seriously, I used PayPal back in the day, and I don't remember it being so time-consuming or needing so much information to set up. -.- Anyway, I had a hell of a time figuring out what sorts of perks to offer for donating. It's scary, coming up with things you'll give people that relate to an unfinished project, that you've got to deliver whether you're able to market your manuscript or not. And how do you make the perks tantilizing enough to get people to donate ten dollars instead of five, or whatever?
Everyone (on Facebook, anyway) says my kitties are adorable, and our pictures of them "helping" us play games are usually well-received. So I figure, why not prostitute their cuteness? Making cat videos and taking cat pictures is pretty fun, and something I can handle pretty easily. Boom, rewards. I like writing to people. More rewards. I love the sound of my own voice. HOLY SHIT I COULD RECORD AN AUDIO BOOK AND BURN IT TO SOME CDRS OR SOMETHING.
Yeah... I'm probably really bad at this fundraising thing, but... We'll see! If you like what you read here, or at On The Rox, please think about clicking the donate button or contributing to my Kickstarter at the top of the page. Thanks for reading, folks, and stay awesome.
OH! And don't forget that I've got a Twitch stream and a Twitter account! Because you can never have enough tactically dysfunctional, kleptomaniacal kattladies in your life.
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