As mentioned in my last post, I am working on a new direction and consistency for this blog from a more holistic point of view. Since we are so close to the new year, I am just going to officially kick this off on the first of January. I will do a few posts before then to kind of set up expectations and hammer out a workflow that is most efficient and effective for me.
I know that what this means is that some of you won’t really care about some of the topics I post, and that is okay. You are welcome to read them, of course, but really, if you don’t care about my hobby stuff, or my faith stuff, feel free to skip those days. In order to help you decide how to best spend your valuable (and hopefully limited) online time I am tossing around the idea of posting in four different “lanes”. I am going to write just a little bit about them below, and then I would love to hear any thoughts you might have.
The four lanes I am looking at are: Spiritual, Personal, Professional, and Spiritual. I will probably do other, more detailed posts on each of these lanes or even change it up a little between now and then, but roughly here is what I am thinking for each of them.
Spiritual. This is where I will post my reflections on readings or other things I read or see online. Additionally, I plan on talking about my catholicism. Why I chose to be catholic, how it has helped me in my life, some thoughts on some of the catholic things like saints and Mary that might not be familiar for my friends and family because, happily, I have a number of friends who are Protestant, atheist, buddhist, muslim, and even a few Wiccans. I am sure that there are others, and that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you or love you, it just slips my mind at the moment.
Personal. This is where I will write about things focusing on emotional, physical, and mental wellbeing. This is also the category where I will talk about my challenges (and successes) with my ADHD and other neurodiversity struggles. I torn between putting art here or in the Hobby category, but I feel it might end up here mostly because I don’t expect to have a lot to post other than finished products. I also will likely keep instagram and post pictures there, but am not sure. Also, I will probably talk a little bit about my family here, but don’t expect a lot of that because I am working on guarding their privacy pretty diligently.
Professional. I have a few different professional passions and am looking forward to talking about them and exploring them here. This is where I will pontificate on the importance of Quality Assurance in software design, the practical ins and outs of writing, peeks into the various sandboxes that I get to play in as an author (particularly the Dying of the Dark vampire world and the NashVegas paranormal hunters, as well as my own original settings – I have a few things I am working on here that are top secret at the moment), time management systems that have succeeded (and failed) for me as well as programming, and online learning in general as well as reviewing podcasts I have been enjoying and professional development books. I will also pontificate on the evils of the run-on sentence. I will post any original short story writing that is not related to the games I play under this tag.
Hobby. This is going to be where I will mostly focus on my hobby of miniature gaming. Like I said above, I might do a bit of art here, but since miniature games actually comprise a number of different areas from building and painting the models, to writing up army lists, coming up with narrative for my (and my friends’) armies, and actually playing the game. Plus I might do a few reviews of Black Library books here and there. I will also tag any gaming related fan-fiction that I write under this tag.
Anyway, if you have any thoughts on the best days for those lanes or other things you want me to write about, please let me know.
Stay safe and sane!
-Patrick
Random Thoughts 