Today Robo♥beat turns four! I’m pretty excited that I’m still blogging. It’s become a big part of my life and something I really enjoy as a hobby. It’s like my place to ramble about the nerdy things I like!

What’s cool about blogging is the social aspect. I really didn’t expect many people to read my blog, and I never thought I would meet so many amazing gamers and bloggers through WordPress and Twitter. It’s a community that I feel lucky to be a part of it.

In honor of my blog’s birthday, I’ll take the opportunity to talk about how I started my blog, since I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. =)

In 2012, I was very into video games but didn’t really know anybody else who liked them as much as I did. I was working in San Francisco as a freelance writer, which was fun — writing was my dream job — but also challenging as I worked from home and got bored easily. I also had trouble keeping up with San Francisco rent, so I felt like it would be smart to find a job at a local company. I just had to figure out what I wanted to do.

That’s when I decided I wanted to write for video games. Since I was obsessed with games like Skyrim and Dragon Age at the time, I wanted to write an epic fantasy series. I even started one on my own — just notes and ideas for quests, as well as how characters would interact with one another in the game. It was like Skyrim in quest structure and freedom to explore, but had the companions, cutscenes, and romances you would find in BioWare games.

Of course, writing your own video game with no way to actually create it is a little silly. I had fun with it, then decided to turn it into a novel which never quite panned out… though elements of that game have made it into my current sci-fi novel.

Writing for games just felt like something I wasn’t prepared for. I had writing experience, but no proof of my interest in video games. So I concocted a fictional resume — one that would get someone hired as a video game writer — and then decided to fill in the gaps with my own experience. For instance, an ideal video game writer probably needed to list some published fiction — including branching storylines — on their resume. Stuff like that.

The easiest thing for me to do, though, was to start a blog where I could write about video games. It was also an outlet to talk about things I liked, since, as I said, I worked from home and didn’t really know other gamers. I’d always wanted to blog and had tried to create blogs in the past that didn’t really go anywhere. This topic felt more interesting than some of the others I had tried (like history, when I was history major).

I couldn’t think of a name right away, so I created the gibberish that is Robo♥beat and decided to “practice” blogging until I came up with a better name. However, I was lucky enough to have people following my blog right away, so I stuck with it. Now I really like the name, though I still don’t know what it means. It was supposed to sound like a robot with a heart, I think?

Blogging has been really fun for me. Early on, I would browse other WordPress blogs that discussed things I liked — I remember searching “Mass Effect” a lot! — and as I left likes and comments, I noticed those bloggers returned the favor. Pretty soon, I felt like I was part of the WordPress community.

I continue to blog because I love talking about games, books, and movies. I don’t know if I’ll ever be a video game writer, but I’m glad it inspired me to start blogging on these subjects. I also love hearing from other people about these topics and meeting other writers, gamers, and nerds. It’s become a hobby that makes me feel more fulfilled, so I’m excited to keep on writing long into the future. =)

— Ashley