TLDR: New way of organizing posts (Major/Minor Reviews) as well as plans for videos and other cool things :p
Heyo,
So, while absolutely nothing has happened here or on my YouTube channel in a while (besides the sporadic Link Click 2 reactions), I feel like it’s a good time to just state that a fuck load of stuff has been happening in my own life. I don’t really plan on giving too many details and sharing things, just some context.
The 8 months of job searching went… not well. Moved to Austin with little hope of finding anything good. Then, I got very lucky with a film work training program and was really busy. Going from such a sudden shift of nothing to a lot of things I’m unfamiliar with (like the city, the people, hell even the things I’m doing for the program) was quite draining in it’s own way but also quite invigorating weirdly enough. Then I finished the program and am now not busy.
Usually I’m the type of person to roll over and die after social interaction. And, while I still am, I have a much greater desire to tackle things I’ve left unfinished. You see, I’ve been in a bit of a writer’s rut. I wouldn’t really call it writer’s block cause I’ve been writing, quite a bit actually.
However, I haven’t released any of it.
The pursuit of being a creative comes with the expectation that your work is to be published and perceived. I mostly agree with this sentiment but it does create a weird relationship with certain down periods in one’s life. I would argue I’ve been more creative than ever this past year but ultimately my Queen’s Gambit video is what most people reference in relation to my creativity. Mainly because I shared it somewhat aggressively and it did fine for what I wanted it to do. That’s just weird. I’m not very proud of that video besides just finishing it. So I need to start getting stuff out there again. I have a lot of moving plans right now, some big some small, that have just been semi-completed either recently or for a couple years now. How about instead of me talking about the idea of the plan, I just tell you what some of these changes are.
So, as for 2024 (not really a New Year’s resolution I just like starting from 1/1) I’m going to have a new rough schedule. For my blog, work writing projects, YouTube, and hell maybe even my Twitch (probably not I don’t really like strimming.) Let’s go over the blog first.
Blog Rework
So, as opposed to pressuring myself to only do grandiose posts that are more or less short video essay scripts, I’m going to divide my posts into a few categories and use that WordPress feature I’ve been neglecting.
Let’s go over what my new main categories are gonna be.
Major Reviews (0-2 a month):
If you’ve read my blog before, these are the posts you should be familiar with. From the mediocre Chainsaw Man review that made me want to start the blog up to the Kaguya-Sama review that I think actually has a lot of nuance.
These posts are now gonna be categorized as Major reviews.
Major reviews will go in depth on important aspects of the media as well as some cultural analysis of it. The usual overthinker stuff. As the for 0-2 a month, that isn’t a range that averages out to how many are coming out, but rather a hard minimum and maximum. I really debated with myself if I could handle doing 1 a month guaranteed. I really did. But, for the sake of my more important writing, I will have to say only expect a chance of one happening every month and maybe even two! But unfortunately, I have to prioritize my more important writing as of right now. I have a lot of different types of writing I need to focus on, blog posts should be at the VERY back of my mind. And yet, sometimes I obsess over them despite it not being what I need right now. However, I don’t want to cut myself off from what I love so to keep my rhythm up, I am going to be shifting my review style a bit.
Minor Reviews/Reposts (2-4):
(2-4 minus number of major reviews)
Now THIS is where the big changes start coming in. One of my biggest issues is that there are plenty of things I watch or play that I just don’t have a strong opinion on but I still want to score. Things that I don’t have some grandiose commentary about or no major theme I want to highlight.
That’s what minor reviews will be for.
These reviews will more or less only cover the basics and maybe shortly cover one major idea. Just general thoughts and feelings but very little going into the realm of critical analysis, though there may be some. The production value will be much lower, little to no images/gifs and sections will be quite general. I may introduce the idea of some being “Medium Reviews” if that comes up but right now I’m not planning around it. The other half of this section will be Reposts. The other big issue with my blog is I have a TON of reviews that I’ve only shared with my small group of friends.
While you might think it is just as easy to just repost these reviews, it’s not. Since starting the blog I have a slightly higher standard now for my reviews, something I feared before starting it. I expect myself to have a certain production standard that I wish to meet now. I plan on solving that by treating them as more or less minor reviews except with slightly higher production/quality since most of the work will just be editing and adding some graphical assets to it. The nice thing is, if I haven’t watched anything that I want to put under minor reviews, I’ll do reposts. If I’ve watched a lot of things that need to go under a minor, I don’t have to do reposts. And for X amount of Major reviews I do per month, I have to do X less of this category. This way I can slowly cut through my backlog of unshared reviews as well as still write about the media I consume without the pressure of The Big Effort.
Think Pieces (0-1):
The only think piece I’ve written was about STEM Education and I wrote that in a flurry of rage. To me, these posts are probably going to become more important to my blog over time but I don’t want to rely on them as an outlet. I have a bad habit of oversharing on occasions and frankly, I have too much social interaction in my life right now. Think pieces are either to share personal issues or maybe will comment on some social ones. These posts will be sporadic and I will only do at most one a month. Oh and as a side note, I actually don’t want people to interact with my think pieces. I call them think pieces cause the point is, this is me thinking out loud and maybe it will make you think. I’d much rather you discuss the reviews I’m writing because those are things I actually want to discuss further. Think pieces are meant to be perceived and digested for me personally. I just kinda want to share the insight if I have any.
Hobby Posts (0-2)
I don’t plan on doing a ton of these but occasionally I want to talk about my hobbies but don’t want to make a whole video for them. So stuff like League esports, Melee stuff, some occasional storytelling theory or some shit. Just generally gonna be things I think about in my free time when I’m not necessarily gonna be the most productive person ever. These posts will just be a place for me to write without the pressure of writing well.
Monthly Highlights (1):
This will be a post at the end of every month to highlight things on the blog, YouTube, and whatever the else is happening in my life. These thoughts will mostly be what I think of my own writing and whether I recommend the reviews or not or maybe even me mentioning I might go back and do an edit on them (if I haven’t already lol.) Whenever I post a video, if you somehow miss it, it will be here. And in terms of stuff happening in my own life, this might be about writing projects, work, or even just hobby stuff. I’m still trying to figure out what I’m okay with including in these but you’ll see what’s up when they come out. Mainly just for me to get an idea of how I felt about the month. These might not release exactly at the end of the month but hopefully will be released within the first week of the next month.
YouTube (3-4 Short Videos, 1 Big Video):
Oh boy oh boy. Yeah I know I’ve only released 2 videos. One took me 6 months and the other took me 5 weeks that should have probably been 5 months (I crunched hard on it since it was my “Capstone” lol). I’ve also done videos I plan to never release since those were done on insanely short deadlines! So while YouTube doesn’t seem like a big part of my overall plan, it’s always been floating around as an idea.
So for next year, I’m gonna give this YouTube hobby another college try.
The plan is for there to be 3-4 short videos (10-30 minutes). As well as one major video (60+ minutes). More details on that later. The main thing is I want to have YouTube videos feel more attainable since the Queen’s Gambit video emotionally scarred the hell out of me since a project that I thought would take 1-2 months ended up taking 6 (school got in the way of that a lot but whatever). So in doing that, I want to have smaller videos that are still good but are ultimately not perfect. Meanwhile, I want to give myself the whole year to work on my big video project and slowly chip away at it. The way I plan on doing that is through a series of blog posts that are more or less are gonna be behind the scenes of the scripting process.
Other Things:
First off, I’ve made a Letterboxd for those who wish to see it but I will always prioritize my blog and I’ll just cross-post there where applicable. However, there may be some things I just score on Letterboxd and barely review so it’s worth checking out.
https://letterboxd.com/ZephJDJ/
I’m also attempting to revamp my socials in general and all those links are here:
As for Twitch, I’ve been really enjoying this TFT set and I’ve been wanting to get melee back into my life again soon. So, I was hoping strimming could help facilitate that. It won’t be a priority but I may try and do it here and there more often to see if I can find my own ways to enjoy it.
That should be it as for the things I’m planning that I want to tell you about. I have things in my life I’m still trying to sort out so who knows, maybe in a month this whole post will be all a lie.
But as for now, that’s the Plan™.
– Jared/Zeph
Lights Off: Shower Thoughts (LO:ST) 