Pride

This is actually a positive more upbeat article for once!

So I finally had my second article go live for Team Dignitas that I’ve previously mentioned. I worked on this one a lot, I researched, I tested, I theorycrafted, I discussed with friends. I put a lot of time into it and was really proud of what I had done. Granted, compared to any champion guides that some people have made, it was pretty primitive. But I’m learning, I was hoping for good feedback at least. If nothing else.

I was totally blown away by the reception, even if it feels small scale. The content manager of the site actually messaged me on skype saying:

woah, just posted your blog on fb/twitter. Got triple the response we usually get! Seems like the fans rly like the title. 

And later on: Our fans love the guide, write more. 

It’s really gratifying to have someone appreciate you like that. I’ve checked the Facebook page and my post is still being liked and commented on, It was around 50 likes last time I saw. The only thing near that in popularity is a giveaway. I must have done something right. Shame that’s my most innovative idea for over a year, you can’t really pull viable strategies out constantly.

I feel really great about it. I’m still only on trial (for now) writing for these guys, and obviously it’s unpaid. But it’s so rewarding and I’m enjoying the experience, as well as constantly learning. More of this will be good for me, and especially for my confidence in doing what I love.

Aspiration and demotivation

I constantly want to further myself in whatever I can do, whether it’s playing guitar and singing as a hobby, songwriting (Which I suck at) or looking to find a job that I can build towards and love to do.

My biggest problem (That i’m aware of) is that I see someone that’s better than me and I get really demotivated. Yeah I know, there are lots of people that are better than me. Whether that’s E-Sports journalists, amateur singers / guitarists that I find online.

I really shouldn’t care about other people, if anything I should learn from them. I just want to do MY best with whatever I do in my life. I’m constantly on the tight rope of..not even happiness, just the balancing act of avoiding depression. I fall a lot and pick myself up, but I’ve been doing it my entire life. I can’t keep going the same way that I do like this. Something drastic has to change, I don’t even know what.

I’ll work that one out. As well as that, the company that I’m so excited to write for (I’m on a trial period) was meant to last a fortnight, that equals the same amount of time that I’ve had to wait for them to post my two articles (the second still isn’t live, it has been approved for over a week). It’s just really demotivating, I’ve been looking for other websites that I could approach to write for, or considering dropping it. The latter doesn’t last long, because I’m passionate about it. But it takes a lot of work to get into journalism for League of Legends especially. It’s a hugely over saturated market right now, I’m a raindrop in the ocean. I have nothing that puts me apart from anyone other than my determination. If I could afford a good quality microphone and a good pc I could actually create content that isn’t just written and appeal to a bigger audience. I really need to do that, but I can’t afford to do a damn thing with the low wages I’ll be on. Ugh. Sometimes things just suck, y’know?

Update

I normally game quite a lot, it’s kinda my outlet and I put a lot of time into it. I really enjoy it, I’d love nothing more than to have a job within E-Sports. I write frequent blogs about League of Legends over for Team Dignitas. (My second blog post has been approved and will go live any day now, I’m really excited about it)

The last week I’ve probably not spent over an hour playing games, I’ve watched a few professional games (I do my homework for blog posts and ideas, I like to stay upto date. Yeah I’m nerdy and passionate about it). I’ve been quite focused on finding a job, pretty much any job I suppose. Just my first little stepping stone of my life. I’m really distracted though. Relationship stuff will always take my focus even if there’s just a tiny shine of something in the vast dark night sky of my thoughts.

People that I spent my last three years with are graduating. I’m taking this as my hint to leave social media alone to avoid depression from taking over. I’m more disappointed at myself for how I didn’t graduate. Yet I’m proud of myself for taking things into my own hands and getting out of a miserable, dark place that I had gotten myself into.

The main reason that I’m sad about my position right now is because I’ve left everyone except my family that has been such a huge part of my life over the last three years. I’ll be visiting as much as I physically can, but if I’m working then it’ll only be odd weekends. That’s heartbreaking for me.

When I get to visit my old friends, I’m going to be so torn. There’ll be so much that I miss, so much to catch up on. Not enough time. More importantly, there’s one girl that I want to steal away for myself. It’s actually only her attention that I want. I hate myself for making a huge decision to seek happiness elsewhere. I take it back, I hate the timing of things and what could have been. If things are meant to work, it won’t be easy. I’ve never been in the position of a long distance relationship. Totally scary, but I’ll do anything, ANYTHING for this girl. I’d be blogging about anything else that’s on my mind if there was anything else in my mind to share.

I just can’t wait to see her when I get off of the coach or train and see her beautiful face waiting to see me. I just can’t wait for that moment. From there, lets just see how things go.

Motivational Wall

This always seems to happen to me. If anything “big” to me is going on in my life I have a habit of really getting down on myself with doubt and worry. It makes me realise I really have a problem with anxiety, I hate it. It’s totally overwhelming.

It gets in the way of everything I do, my blog trial for the gaming company released my first entry and I was so excited for the next two days, I still haven’t gotten much feedback from them. They seem really unorganised, but I guess I’m a trial writer for a big company and I’m only in direct contact with the content manager for the entire site.

Since then I’ve worked on drafts for two different articles in the last week, but I keep wanting it to be perfect. I’ve worked on theories and tried countless different things. I keep doubting myself, even though I know 100% that I’m an expert at League of Legends, so blogging about it is really no problem. I enjoy writing. I love writing actually. I just keep getting hung up on little details rather than a bigger picture.

That applies to a lot of scenarios though.

Today I’m going to be productive. I have no excuse not to complete my next article, and it’ll be great. I think I’ll get really good feedback from it, the article is unique and well thought out. It just scares me that I can lose motivation for things that I’m really passionate about. It scares me a lot.

Related articles

• Aspirations (melancholycontemplation.wordpress.com)

Aspirations

I haven’t made much clear about aspirations that I have in my own life, beyond relationships and happiness. So here’s an insight and a little update.

I’ve always been a nerd, and I pride myself in how good I am at gaming. I tend to take a game I like and play it to extremes, I’m really competitive, I always will be. My most recent (I get the feeling this one will stick) over the last few years has been League of Legends. Now I’m at a point in my life where I don’t just want this to be a hobby, I want to work in E-Sports and be a part of something that I love. Much easier said than done, right?

I applied to Riot Games who have an office over in this side of the world in Dublin, though they’ll receive so many that I’m a goldfish that is out at sea to these guys. I’m working on making myself stand out and in a dream world that I want to make a reality: I want to work with and around people that share my passion for something.

You’ll probably have noticed if you’re reading this that I love writing, and it comes quite naturally to me, it always has. Even if I still don’t think I do it enough. I’m trying to get my foot in the door so to speak and get something physical to show for my passion and knowledge of the game that I play which can be applied to a workplace.

I started off writing blog pieces as a little hobby for my best friend that runs a general gaming review website. I had a lot of fun writing weekly articles and got more hits than he had expected, but no real exposure can come when there is a lot more readily available content online for people, so they don’t need to search for it. (Reddit and well known forums are used so much) After a while I found it quite demotivating to get very little feedback or views on this, and it wasn’t much to show for so I slowed down on posting content and found motivation difficult with it.

Though I didn’t expect it to come to anything, I sent out an email to a big, well known company within League of Legends and other E-Sports communities, Team Dignitas. Within a few hours I got a response, a day on after a small chat to the manager, I’ve got myself a trial period writing articles for their site.

I’m stupidly happy about it, and it gives me huge motivation. It feels like a baby step, most people won’t class it as a forward step, even. But it could be the first step for me in my bigger picture. I’d love to be a part of journalism for E-Sports and League of Legends is the largest game in the world right now, it’s only going to grow larger in the next years.

It’s a voluntary, unpaid role. Though you get merchandise perks, which is kinda nice. It’s something I can keep chipping away at, my blog posts will be tweeted out to almost 50,000 followers and I’ll get a little exposure.I’m excited. For now it’s a hobby, but who knows. I just need to be noticed. You know what, I want to look back at this and say this is where it all started. I’m going to make it happen.