Choose your own Ronventure episode 1. "Ron's Next Hobby". *
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Page 1:
Ron has adjusted to his current mode of life and has emotional bandwidth / energy to take on a hobby. At some point in his life, Ron would like to do all three of the following, but is having difficulty figuring out what to do next.
Should Ron:
A. Take back up fencing, which has health benefits, is fun, and I already know I do pretty well, and had to give up 2 years ago due to budget. Fencing? You? Yeah, 6 years, 3 in high school revitalizing a dead sport at my school, and 3 in college fencing NCAA III. (Wow, it sounds way cooler when I say it that way.)
Turn to page 2.
B. Take back up learning a musical instrument. Yeah, believe it or not, Ron has taken keyboard lessons and limited trumpet lessons back his pre-teen years, and contra dancing has stirred up his interested in either guitar or violin. (Okay, Guitar Hero helped with the prior, too.)
Turn to page 3.
C. Take up sketching. ZOMG Ron, you sketch? I used to, back in my pre-teen years. Wrote a few comics, even.
Turn to page 4.
D. Stick to his career-related activities, and do more blogging and work in virtual worlds selling virtual goods.
Turn to page 5.
E. Spend more time on his photography, which he already enjoys.
Turn to page 6.
F. Take up a previous artsy hobby, like poetry or stage.
Turn to page 7.
*(This is how decision-making often plays out in my head.)
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Page 2:
Ron decides to take up fencing again. Ron goes and buys a new mask, starts jogging a tiny bit again, and peels off that extra 15 pounds he's been saving for a rainy day. Ron forks out $125ish per month, and does it two evenings per week. Ron never makes it to a competitive level, but has a lot of fun with a skill that sounds really cool but ultimately will not be useful in the long run other than keeping health.
Congratulations, this a fun, worthwhile, and somewhat pricey choice. Eventually, Ron will move on to another hobby, and if he's really fortunate, he'll keep fencing.
The End.
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Page 3:
Ron commits to the music instrument endeavor.
Should Ron:
A. Go with Guitar.
Turn to page 8.
B. Go with Violin.
Turn to page 9.
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Page 4:
Ron takes up sketching again. He hits the art store, buys a couple of sketchbooks, some decent pens and pencils, and is satisfied that he hasn't blown a lot of money on this. Realizing he's had very little formal art training, he focuses on story design and world-building, something he does know pretty well. In the meantime, his sketching gets a little better, and a bunch of storylines are roughly drawn out. Ron buys a few "Hey, fanboi, come draw some manga" books and fiddles with that a bit.
Ron starts publishing his web comics. This blog entry makes for some of the first material he publishes. This is IRONIC, and therefore appropriate. Other topics draw from his own 20-something history - because that's who reads web comics mostly, nerdy topics, and experiences dealing with fun** people in the virtual world industry.
Ron gets a small little audience, and publishes 2-3 times per week if he's really lucky. 75% chance says he stops after a couple of years, and smiles as he's at least tried this. 24% chance he gets an invite to an obscure convention and gets a dozen visitors, and then has a crisis of identity. "Have I always been an artist? My work with virtual worlds is clearly right-brained!"
1% chance Ron gets eaten by a rampaging velociraptor.
The End.
** By fun, I mean "fun, odd, strange, bizarre, and/or enormous jerk-o-saurus people".
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Page 5:
Ron strives to make more virtual stuff, and blog more interesting things, but goes a little bit nuts doing the same thing for fun as he does for a living. Ron allocates time to do it every week for a few hours a few nights per week. but seeing as how it's sitting in front of his computer, he winds up playing video games instead.
Turn to Page 1.
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Page 6:
Ron needs a better camera, and doesn't feel like dropping $700 - $1200 on a prosumer camera and lens right now. I'll get back to this in a year or three.
Turn to Page 1.
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Page 7:
Poetry?
Dear God, no. Ron's poetry is best when he's single and lonely. It's not that great, either. Ron also feels no need to write poetry when he's writing other stuff, and his blog suffices as his creative writing outlet, at least for now. Besides, poetry doesn't win you any friends unless you start hitting the open mic scene in an artsy area. Bleh.
Stage Acting?
Nono. I'm done with that. One minor role in a college performance was enough. I've done enough in-front-of-camera work back at my college TV station for a lifetime. It was fun. Now it's over with. No.
Turn to Page 1.
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Page 8:
Ron has a few friends who play guitar, and guitar's the thing to do, right? Take it to outdoorsy gatherings, impress women, yadda yadda. Ron's got an okay karaoke voice; that should suffice, right? Ron says "Screw lessons!" and learns some songs by memory, swearing off actually learning to read music. He gets good enough to take it around, but it's a guitar, so it's big, so it's not always convenient to do so. Ron has no interest in playing cover songs at bars, partly because that'd just be copying a good friend, and partly because Ron would like, require a few years' practice and some singing lessons.
Ron thus reaches a level of expertise in the guitar enough to jam with friends, maybe sing in groups of friends who forgive his mediocre voice, and doesn't regret the decision since he didn't plop down a whole lot of money. Ron moves on, and takes up another hobby, but his foray into music is pretty much done. 15% chance that Guitar Hero magically gave him muscle practice enough to learn the guitar exceptionally well, and he'll take some classic guitar lessons and get decent enough to occasionally play with friends' contra bands or chill-type-cover-music-at-bars.
The End
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Page 9:
Violin? Hey, why don't I build a time machine and go back 20 years when people are supposed to start learning a real instrument. That's okay, Ron's a super-genius or something, right? Violin is central to country music, so it can't be THAT difficult to get mildly good, right?
Ron either rents a violin or buys a cheap, second-hand one on Craigslist. He plays around with it for a couple of weeks, getting a feel for it, learning a few technicals, so that when he starts lessons, he doesn't completely waste the instructor's time. Ron commits to three months of lessons, after which he'll make the decision to stick with it or not. Should Ron not stick with it, he'll forsake music for at least 3 to 5 years, and probably go to fencing, which at least he knows he's good at. In the case that Ron takes to the violin, he'll spend six months sheepish about not being good enough to play, partly fueled by angry neighbors. He'll then ask close friends who play other instruments to come jam with him.
After about a year, Ron has spent a good chunk of change on lessons, but can play passingly well. He now probably decides to stop taking lessons and just learn on his own, mostly through practice and jamming. 50% probability it only comes out to jam with friends, 50% he does something silly like try to play on rare occasion with a contra band. This builds on things he already does in his life, but at this point it's a considerable investment in time and money.
The End
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