First off, if you’re somehow here because you thought I would talk about blending random shit with a Ninja Blender or some other such food processor, you’re in the wrong place and I apologize. I’m actually here to talk about how I am going to try to overlap my hobbies together so that they complement each other.
With that little disclaimer out of the way, let’s get into it.
So, what ARE my hobbies? Well, according to what I wrote on my About page I like to play video games, read, and write. For those of you that are familiar with me and the blog you might be saying “Why aren’t you mentioning streaming? It’s listed as a hobby!” Well, you’re right it is listed as a hobby, but in my mind I see it as an extension hobby and I’ll get into this a bit later.
At the top level, video games are the primary hobby because I can pretty much play whenever, where ever and they’re easy for me to pick up/digest. The same can be said of reading and writing, thanks to today’s technology making access so much easier (there’s an app for EVERYTHING these days). But I don’t treat them as the #1 hobby I have because I’ve fallen out of habitually reading and just default to games, while writing takes motivation to want to complete. I do want to point out here, though, that these three things aren’t exclusive of one another in my mind. They have some fun overlap! Classic jRPG’s have lots of reading, and modern Party Games often require clever writing to grab people’s votes. (Although let’s be real here, clever in that case is more than likely catering to the particular audience with in-jokes and low hanging fruit, but whatever.)
On the subject of streaming as a hobby, I’d like to point out that there is a whole host of information and data out there around streaming, as well as differing opinions around it being a hobby for people. For me it’s an extension hobby branching off of playing video games. When I play games I don’t HAVE to stream, and I’ve done just that to enjoy a game that I felt like wouldn’t lend itself well to streaming. However, as I’ve been streaming off and on for a few years now, investing the time and money in my setup and equipment, I have tried different kinds of streams (like painting Pathfinder/D&D miniatures) and it really took on a life all it’s own in my mind, which is why I decided to include Streaming as a hobby when I started The Dragon’s Grove.
All that being said, how can I BLEND these hobbies? Well, that’s the challenge I’ve put on myself, because for the last couple of years my motivation towards these hobbies has dwindled (2020 events having a strong impact) and so I decided I needed to change things up. I’d been quietly tossing around the idea of doing writing streams for probably a year, soliciting interest from friends and acquaintances to validate the concept. Some of them even helped me brainstorm ideas on how I can make these streams interesting and engaging, but I didn’t act on any of it. Then, at some point in the last month, something clicked for me and I realized how I could make the interactions viable and easy for my viewers through Channel Points Rewards. This has given me the first sparks I needed to put things in motion. So with a little help from a friend to brainstorm through some options, I set things up.
Now let the experiment begin! I can play games on stream, people can hang out and watch and earn points. They can redeem points to give me prompts and to ask me to write something for them. It’s all very much a work in progress, but I’m just going to run with it. I’ll go into the specifics in the next post, but I will say this: You’re going to hopefully see a lot more activity here, which is a good thing! This way, I’m encouraged to stream and to write because I won’t likely be able to do one without the other unless the whole idea falls flat on it’s face. Which I’m going to fight to prevent (especially since I’m the sole person responsible for maintaining it all!)
See you in the next post!
The Dragon's Grove 