Return
I am ecstatic on returning to this dormant (don't say abandoned) blog to find that my last post was about a long-gestating article, one I had a lot of difficulty finishing. Well, it just so happens that I did finish it. Pushing Buttons: The Video Game Cartoons of John Holmstrom was accepted for publication by the academic journal ROMchip, and appeared in its December 2021 issue, almost one year to the day that I blogged about it here, when it was only a work in progress about which I'd begun to despair.
I've since moved on to hand-wringing over another project, an article I started researching in July 2020, then backburned owing to this and that: this, leaving librarianship and a (tenured!) job I'd had since 2012; that, moving from Texas to Washington, and continuing to settle into my new role as knowledge manager and technical writer for a SaaS company. The article, a history of two games about the Falklands War––games which created minor dustups in Britain upon their release––is far enough along that I hate to abandon it, but far enough from the finish line that I find the work discouraging. Not to mention, professional expectations and promotional possibilities no longer attend on the essay's completion; when I left the academy I left my largest source of extrinsic motivation.
Well, no matter. I harbor enough guilt about the piece that I will surely finish it one of these days, whatever its eventual quality (or lack thereof). I work on it now as one works a knife on a soft block of wood. Stroking away at it with only a vague intention in mind, hoping to find, at last, that it hides some recognizable form within itself.