---
title: 'My Gaming Journal'
pubDate: '2/3/2026'
tags: ['Life', 'Gaming']
---

For the last 2 years, I’ve kept a gaming journal in an actual, physical notebook to record my thoughts and feelings on the games I’ve finished.

Journaling is something I’ve struggled to keep up with but have wanted to do for many years. I’ve gone through some fits and starts with it, but I’ve never been able to keep up with it consistently. So, it’s been nice to have something in that realm that I have been able to keep up with.

For me, it’s not just about getting away from the screen or the craft of writing by hand—my handwriting is atrocious and definitely not “crafty.” It’s about putting the ink to the paper and not being able to change it. Yes, you can scribble things out or tear out the page and start over, but in the end, you have to embrace the imperfections.

That’s a challenging thing for me. When I type, I sometimes find writing exhausting because I’m constantly editing, rewording, moving things around, and trying to make what I write some version of “perfect.” I find it difficult to just write and not worry about making mistakes or wording something poorly.

Writing by hand forces me to just accept my mistakes and move on. That frees my brain up to just write, stream-of-consciousness-style. In the case of my gaming journal, I end up writing things that I maybe wouldn’t write if I were typing something out about the game for my blog.[^1]

For example, in my entry on Cyberpunk 2077, which I finished this past December, I wrote a little story about what happened to my V after the events of the game and about how she and Judy lived out their lives and grew old together. Something I would never have written if I was writing my thoughts in a review format.

There’s nothing in this journal that I would consider good writing, but that’s okay. It’s not for anybody but myself, and it’s a way to keep me journaling on a semi-regular basis. And the most embarrassing thing in it is the page I wrote on why I thought Queen’s Blood from Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is better than Gwent from The Witcher 3 (don’t @ me).

[^1]: Incidentally, I have referred to my gaming journal when writing my yearly “Top 3 Games” posts.