WordPress Daily Prompt Thing – What are Your Biggest Challenges?

I keep forgetting this blog exists, how rude is that? 2023 was a bit of a sad year for my little corner of the internet, I admit that I let it gather dust for a bit, but hear me out, for my reasons are wholesome! See, I was working on some short stories for an upcoming anthology (that’s right, more published stories, wahoo!) and have also been working on a more long-form WIP that’s been festering in my little skull sponge for a few years now. It was about 7000 words this time last year, and is now almost 60k, on its second draft… so I’m doing alright there, hopefully that works as a good excuse reason for my blog being so quiet! Right? Right?

Anyway, I want to blow the dust off this lovely place this year, and get some content back on the go. A good place to begin is, I think the daily prompts provided by WordPress’s Jetpack app, it’s the kind of brain exercise that I enjoy, and made things like Seriously Geeky Sundays so much fun a couple of years back (thanks again for running that series, Heather of Just Geeking By, it was a wild time!)

So, the first question. What is it?

“What are Your Biggest Challenges?”

Bugger, one of those self-assessment-type questions. I hate those! Fiiiine, if this is what 2024 is going to throw out of the gate first, let’s give it a try! But I’m not going to go with high-level, life-affecting stuff because, quite frankly, who on earth wants to know about my back pain or rubbish eyesight? Instead, I’ll talk about the challenges I face in my hobbies/things I enjoy!

So, let’s start with the writing bit, as that’s kind of what I’ve branded this blog to mainly work around, eh? The main challenge I face in this department is my own brain and that nasty little thing it does called Imposter Syndrome. I’m incredibly lucky to be friends with a community of talented, open-minded and frankly omnipotent writers, and sometimes watching these literary Adonis’s (Adonises? Adonisii?) release awesome books and grace anthologies with their short stories makes my brain say “Look at these legends! You’ll never be as good as them! How did you infiltrate their ranks? You shouldn’t be there!”

Well, it’s bullshit folks. I’ve spoken to many people who likewise have traitorous brains, and all of them produce quantifiably amazing books, shorts, poems, art and general excellence on a month-by-month basis. The actual group of writers I am a member of have also pointed this out about myself directly, as well as my fellow Imposter Syndrome sufferers, they dive on any self-doubt like a positively reinforcing tiger, build us back up and help us on our way.

Writers, we’re a good community… mostly! And if you doubt your place among their kind or the quality of your own work… tell your brain to shut up and get back to work! You got this!

I suppose my next challenge is in my other big hobby – gaming! It’s a surprisingly easy one here too, I’ve run out of ideas for what to play next. Having finished Resident Evil 4 (took me ages because it’s scary, ok?) and Cyberpunk 2077 again (that 2.0 update and expansion were majestic, making it one of the best games I’ve ever played) I’m now unsure where to go. Baldur’s Gate 3 sounds really tempting, but I’m waiting for it to go on sale somewhere to save some pennies as the festive season has been expensive!

Not really a big challenge, but there you go!

Finally, I’m going to use this post to introduce a hobby my brother and I picked up last year that I haven’t spoken about before – historical tabletop wargaming – mainly Battlefront’s Team Yankee. This is a Cold War-era wargame using small-scale miniatures, in which the Cold War went hot, and World War 3 broke out as the USSR crossed over the internal German border and started making a ruckus in NATO territory. It’s really good fun once you get the rules down, working out how to move your tanks and aircraft around, use cover effectively and, most importantly, put big holes in the opposing tanks and aircraft. I went for the USSR as my faction, my brother went for the UK initially (before then getting full US and West German armies too, because he can’t help himself) and I’m sad to say that my Red Horde has never won a single game.

But I may have worked out the challenge here already – we were playing the game wrong, matching our armies on points but not actually building the armies properly! Soviet kit is inferior to NATOs at every turn in Team Yankee, but I am supposed to be fielding more tanks than my brother, using the formation guides they include, so a tank-for-tank battle as we seemed to end up doing every time will never end well for the inferior Soviet units! Silly us!

Well check me out, I write a thing! Thank you for reading it, I appreciate your eyes and brain for doing so and hope that I at least provided a bit of entertainment! I’m still on Twitter/X but not as active as I was, instead come find me on Threads (I’m @craig_rathbone, original eh?) I try to be active and chat with people, I least like a lot of posts that I.. well… like!)

Anyway, catch you all again soon!