First Post

Hello, Internet

It’s 23:44 down here in Brazil. Every single computer game in my hard-drive is being deleted right now. I’ve decided to stop gaming for at least a week, maybe longer.

A drastic move, maybe. But I realized after a day of shopping for computer parts that even though I don’t consider gaming to be a major part of my life, I act like it is. I blame inertia for that; finding good games is easier than finding good novels (for me), and I started gaming years before I started writing — which was what made the experience of reading novels a lot more engaging for me.

So I’ve decided to do a no-gaming diet. Here’s a tip if you’re planning on making a major sacrificer: start today. What’s easy can always be left for tomorrow, but there is no tomorrow for hard tasks. Postponing what you really don’t want to do even a second only makes it easier for you to keep pushing it forward, giving your future-self ample reason to resent you for not starting earlier.

Today is the only day to sacrifice, the only day to be brave, the only day to be strong. At least for the first step. We are so often impulsive to do what’s meaningless and dumb — impulsive to go for another dose of ice cream, another burger, to skip another day of gym. Why not flip that around and try to be impulsive with positive things as well?

Results may vary, but I’ve found that works well for me. So once I realized a purge was needed, I crawled out from under my bedsheets — I was already ready for sleep –, turned the computer on and got to work. The deletion is already 50% done. I also took the chance to do another thing I’ve been postponing for a while: start a blog. Which is what you’re reading right now! So hooray!

I’m going to lay out my goals for the near future here. I don’t have any readers yet, but writing in a “public” forum gives my words a deeper sense of weight behind them. It makes them feel more real than just writing into my journal.

First, regarding this blog. The purpose of this venue is to give me a place to discuss writing and record my reading history. I plan to do it in an unstructured way: sometimes you’ll get fallout educational posts, sometimes I’ll just discuss the last series of YouTube videos I’ve watched.

Don’t be fooled. This blog may appear to be here to benefit the general public, but it isn’t. This blog exists because writing about things is the best learning tool in my arsenal. The fact that the byproduct of that learning process will be a series of posts that may or may not help other writers is just a consequence, not the goal. My goal is to better myself as a writer and a person, plain and simple.

Second, regarding this week, my goal is to get bored. No, really. I haven’t been bored in ages, but that has been because I found a nice cocktail of old and new games, combined with YouTube channels and work, to keep me engaged. Which is great! But I want to get deeper into fiction, which means I’ll have to endure bouts of boredom and frustration as I figure out the best literature and general fiction diet to keep me engaged.

I’ll keep this blog updated with what I’ve been learning and what I’ve been doing regarding my fiction writing. Of course, as a fundamentally selfish endeavor, this blog will not have a schedule or regular updates; I’ll write as I feel the need based on what I have been learning. Years of journaling have made it so that I can “sense” when it’s time to write, kinda like a build-up of pressure behind my forehead that needs to be released through text. So I trust that finding out the right time to write for this blog won’t be hard.

That’s all for now. The games are almost done deleting too. Wish me luck, Internet! I’ll see you… tomorrow, probably.

— Tadeu Rezend, Freelance Writer Extraordinaire™