I don't really write blog posts as often as I once did, and I believe there is a reason for that. College was a really big transition in my life and I think I've finally adjusted. Looking on the other side of the glass now, college is really liberating because I finally achieved that level of freedom I only dreamed about when I was a sophomore/junior/senior and I really like that self managing aspect of life. In high school and even in middle school, everything felt too oppressive and spoon fed to me. I've always been an independent and introverted person, and now is when that personality trait finally becomes useful in the big scheme of things. Right now, I have a job I enjoy, I'm going to college with an end goal in mind, and I keep in contact with older friends I want to keep in contact with while cultivating new relationships and watching them grow. I've achieved a healthy balance in life and I don't want to mess it up, which is a good place to be.

For instance, this community, Giant Bomb, is an incredibly beautiful place. All of the videos, all of the podcasts and all of the articles made here are something I resonate with and place a high value on and now I have enough responsibility to gain the disposable income needed to donate around $50 to $60 dollars a year to and support a site and a community I love and care about. As a 13 year old, that was not even a remote possibility. Which brings me to the point of this post.

The reason I wrote a blog through out high school was because I felt shut off to the rest of the world. For about two years, my only connection to people that lived outside of the horrible and shitty high school paradigm was a 700 to 1000 word blog post that went up on a generic WordPress hosted domain site roughly about once a week. Now that I'm at a place where I don't feel like I'm being treated as a kid any more, I don't need that outlet anymore.

On the first day of my English class my professor said something that I felt deeply in my gut was true but didn't quite knew how to articulate until then which was, people who just write their "thoughts" are assholes. Everything has a point, whether you know it or not so writing aimlessly is near impossible. Pure thoughts are filtered so much to fit the societal norms everyone abides by, so by the time your 'thoughts' come out of your mouth, their edited so much that they barely reflect their original intention. Adding another medium to that distillation process in pen and paper only further distorts the point of your honest to god "thoughts."

I exploited that process so much in high school, that I'd feel like a hack if I even attempted to so today, so I won't. It's time to make the point of my creative processes clear, no matter what project it is that I'm working on. Which brings me to the future. I've wanted to make games for so long now that it's finally time to do something about it. I have an Evernote notebook dedicated to a game concept and I have enough knowledge of coding languages, game engines, story writing and pixel mapping/3D modeling that I can make a working prototype of something that resembles a game. I'm not going to stop writing all together (that would be crazy). I'm merely transitioning to another medium, to a place where I can give purpose to stories I believe are worth telling. Maybe I could be the next Jonathan Blow or the next Tom Happ but if anything, I know I'll make something more interesting than Mario Party.

I'll occasionally post something here on my Giant Bomb account if I'm in the mood, but I don't expect that to be often.

Cheers, my friends

Hello Giant Bomb Universe!

My name is Spencer Baughman! At the time of this writing, I'm 18 years old and a brand spanking new college student with a passion for video games, as I am going to college so I can get my bachelors degree in video game development. While I am going to college to increase my knowledge of video game development, I do consider myself a writer at heart! I've been blogging on a semi-regular basis for about two and a half years now, starting back when I was a junior in high school. My first blog wasn't anything major; it was just your typical soapbox for a teenager to complain about their lives in the stereotypical angst filled way. If you're interested, I believe you can still find it at http://crackerbarrelthoughts.wordpress.com if you so desire. Unless WordPress took it down due to inactivity, if WordPress does that... I have no clue.

Apparently people must have liked what I wrote because my blog captured the attention of an eastern european publishing company, Sellfy, and I was put on their list of Top 13 New Writers To Watch. During my senior year, my high school saw my blog and wanted me to write for the newspapers website. I was essentially doing what I did on my personal blog but under the newspapers name in, what I believe, was an attempt for the school paper to come off as "edgy" and "in-touch with the young folks of today." Regardless! At the end of my senior year, I just took a break from writing in general. The type of blogging that I was doing in high school was very self-centered and relied too heavily on my perspective of the world and looking back on that era of writing today, disgusts me, to be frank. Recently, maybe a month or so ago, I started writing again, with more of a focus on creative writing. The greatest advantage of creative writing is that I don't have to display my project to the world until I'm ready to, but I've realized that I miss a certain quality that comes along with blogging.

Ultimately, I look forward to seeing where this takes me and I hope at least some of you guys enjoy as well!

Cheers!

--SB