Attendance at Blogger Recognition Awards

A long time ago, I attended an awards dinner at The Third Rail in Goodneighbor, Boston. Plenty of big-name bloggers were there, and I had quite a bit of fun hanging out with my blogging friends. I remember singing very loudly with LightningEllen, but for the life of me I can’t remember what song we sang. Luckily, The Reckless Reporter from Game Cosmos Press was there to capture all the festivities. That’s the last time I drink amiibotinis, let me tell you.

The reason I was at this fabulous party in the first place was because AmbiGaming had been nominated for the Blogger Recognition Award. The Reckless Reporter was kind enough to nominate us, and I am so flattered and touched that he took time from his wonderful reporting of the state of things in the Fallout 4 universe (and beyond) to write a small bit about our humble corner of the internet. He’s really a wonderful and insightful reporter who is on top of all things happening in the post-nuclear-apocalypse wasteland. No story is too big, too small, or too frightening for this brave reporter! If you haven’t read his reports, definitely do! They are down-to-earth, informative, and entertaining.

Of course, such an important event required me to make myself as dapper as possible.

People asked why I started blogging. A lot. It was apparently the hot topic of the awards night. So here it is, folks, the reasons I first started putting pen to paper (er, fingers to keyboard) in the blogosphere!

Why Write a Blog?

It originally was a joke with an old co-worker of mine. We would sit in his office at the end of the day, writing clinical notes, and would discuss how we’d change things for the better, from the facility we worked in to the country itself. The joke was that we should have a web show called “Saving the World from the Corner Office.”

Fast forward a few years, and I’m out of grad school, thesis still unfinished, no job, and a lot of time on my hands. “Saving the World from the Corner Office” came back to me: maybe I’d start a blog about my profession. Unfortunately, with the exception of my students, people don’t seem to care care what I have to say on that topic. Like, at all.

Around the same time, I had a few ideas about how you have choices  (or don’t) in video games, as well as some thoughts about storytelling in games.

That was it. I had ideas for four posts and decided to start a whole blog about how real-world concepts are portrayed in video games.

For me, blogging is about sharing ideas and having meaningful discussions about a topic. I wanted to reach out to other individuals who, like me, think games matter. The potential community aspect was what drew me to write in this type of forum.

Aether once mentioned the power of having people you don’t know and who don’t “owe you any social graces” stop by, read, and appreciate what you’ve written. He’s right, of course. What keeps me blogging is the community. Sure, I have things to say, but for me the fun part is interacting with the great folks I’ve met!

And the name AmbiGaming? Well… “ambi-” is a prefix meaning “both,” and “gaming” refers to video games. Since I look at real and virtual worlds, I put together a blog name that refers to both states of being, in a way.

Thoughts on Writing

The most important point of writing is to write. Think of your brain as having two switches. One is the “create” switch, and the other is the “critique” switch. Both can’t be active as the same time. The most important thing to do is create first and then, once all your thoughts are out, critique later.

Secondly, I’d say that having a designated time to write is very helpful. Knowing that you have a block of time to write and do nothing else helps with concentration, because for that hour (or however long) you are only concerned with writing.

Strange Happenstance

When the festivities ended and I dragged myself back to the medieval-style castle I live in, I found the answering machine light blinking. As it turns out, The Night Owl from The Late Night Session also nominated us for the Blogger Recognition Award! I was very flattered to be nominated again, and so humbly thank The Night Owl for his nomination, as well! Definitely check out his blog for game and hardware reviews and news, and the occasional movie post.

Nominees

Of course, all of these awards are meant to spread the love, so here are some other wonderful bloggers who deserve your attention (other than the folks I mentioned above, of course!):

1. Cary from Recollections of Play – Interesting thoughts on games, and she’s currently posting a Let’s Play of Metal Gear Ac!d, which is a lot of fun!
2. My friend over at One Depressed Gamer is a very supportive and insightful blogger, ready with a kind word and an interesting topic to talk about!
3. Greg Leighton from Flick and Mix offers reviews and thoughts of movies and games from all genres, and has been known to make a comment or two on the gaming industry, as well!
4. hungrygoriya is on the lookout for all things retro-gaming, but recently joined the current-generation(ish) of gaming with a Playstation3! I enjoy reading about her exploits of finding and fixing up consoles and games.

Oh Yeah. The Rules

• Thank the blogger who nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
• Write a post to show your award.
• Give a brief story of how your blog started.
• Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.
• Select 15 other bloggers for this award. (erm… yup that’s a thing…)
• Comment on each blog to let them know you nominated them and link to the post you created.

Final Thoughts

Thank you again to The Reckless Reporter for his kind nomination! It was great to spend some time in a world not populated by either dragons, private military corporations, or space bugs, so hopefully there will be another party soon 😛

Until then, thanks for stopping by, and we’ll see you soon!
~ Athena

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