#6 Ill-timed Disaster

Everything was going smoothly for a while. My girlfriend was able to edit two videos for my variety weekend, but a lot was going on in her life and I needed to cut some of my content from an emergency backlog recorded during a stream I had in December. I was finding a decent balance between work and releasing videos. Unfortunately that would not be the case for long.
Wednesday night, two weeks ago, I was working on a social media assignment to turn in when I suddenly heard a loud clunk come from inside of my computer. I saved my progress immediately and turned off my computer to inspect the problem. I had never anticipated this as an issue, but my motherboard had broken and my heatsink had fallen off of it. It is a good thing I turned my computer off quickly because that event could have fried my computer for good. I know someone who fixes computers and had previously worked on mine, so I texted him my issue hoping for a response.
Luckily, he was awake and offered to take a look at it if I was able to bring it to him. Considering I needed the files from my computer to turn in my assignments, I took him up on the offer. Once I was there, he concluded that my motherboard was broken and needed to be replaced and I brought up that I was looking to upgrade the motherboard and other components once my summer semester was over anyways. We talked about options and then I told him what upgrades I wanted, retrieved the files I needed to turn in my assignment before midnight, and left my computer with him to fix. The most unfortunate part of leaving my computer with him, besides having to miss over a week of video uploads, was being severely hindered in doing my school work and letting all of my groups for class projects down. Thankfully, they were all very understanding, but I hate to leave them with my responsibilities, even though this was out of my control.
I got my computer back after a week and had to reinstall all the programs that I frequently use. It is now a much more powerful machine and will make recording videos with higher quality and editing a much smoother process. Sadly, I lost a lot of files from my SSD card because the repair technician didn't back-up my drive to save the files before formatting it. He told me after that he always creates a back-up image and doesn't know why he didn't that time or even ask. It hurts, but what is done is done and we move forward. I will need to take another week off of releasing videos to make up for the lost time on my school assignments and get ready for the end of the semester that is looming ahead.

#5 My biggest temporary obstacle

I created my video release schedule with my summer semester's classes in mind. I know taking five classes over the summer is no small task, but I hoped that I would still be able to set aside a few hours each week to record my videos, engage with the gaming communities, create unique thumbnails, and upload my videos. Once I saw the work being required by some of my classes, I was definitely worried that it may interfere with my videos. School is my top priority and will remain that way, but it is very unfortunate to see a chance that my YouTube channel could suffer because of it. As it stands, I have four group projects that will require massive amounts of time and work put into them in order to get a desirable grade. Past the group projects, there is no shortage of homework, other small assignments, quizzes, essays, and exams. One of my classes, Applications Development, requires copious amounts of codes and programs to be written each week, with deadlines every other day. That is my most daunting class on my calendar, but each class requires its fair amount of work. Before classes got into the full swing, I tried to record 4-5 videos ahead of their release so that I would have time to adjust to the new schedule. Although I had planned to have easy weekday uploads to allow for school, I had not anticipated how much work might be required during the weekends. While my normal weekday uploads for my Binding of Isaac series are easy, my variety uploads require much more work. Because of this, I am worried I won't be able to stay on top of my release schedule, especially as the deadlines for all of the group projects get nearer. My girlfriend had expressed interest in helping me edit my videos which would relieve me of a lot of the stress of trying to enhance my videos before their release. The only issue is that she would need to use my computer for editing. So that means anytime she is editing, I can't work on school unless I am watching a lecture from my phone. The other issue is that because she is learning, I need to help teach her or troubleshoot for her when issues arise, which takes away some focus from my classes. However, once she learns how to work with Premiere Pro and get used to the normal issues that arise, she could be a huge help in saving me time and helping to grow my channel further.

#4 Building off my pre-existing videos

With my first week of uploads out of the way, I needed to start preparing more original content to meet the release schedule I had set for myself. My normal weekday content was simple enough to record, I just needed to make sure I had set aside a few hours each week for recording. I also needed to set aside another hour or so for creating thumbnails from the template I had made and uploading with all the information required. The one factor I needed to be cautious of was my weekend variety uploads. Each variety upload will require a fresh thumbnail to be made, which could take hours depending on what I decide to do for it. Each of these uploads will also require me to do some research each week about which tags will be the most effective for my videos' search engine optimizations. I also would like to do some harder editing on my variety videos to give them a more upbeat vibe than my normal gameplay commentaries have. The first variety weekend upload I decided to do was for the game, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker on the Nintendo Switch. This was a game that my girlfriend had bought me for Christmas because I had expressed interest in it. It is a Mario spin-off game where you traverse different levels and solve puzzles on a 3 dimensional cube that you manipulate with the controls. I recorded my episodes in advance, spent about an hour in Photoshop to create a new thumbnail, and then I looked for new groups on Facebook to join and promote my videos through. The groups for Nintendo fans are plentiful, but only a few allow self-promotion, so you have to carefully check each group's rules. Once I found the communities, I was ready to upload my first variety content videos, all I had to do was upload them and set the tags and information. The groups were very friendly and welcoming, but I only managed to find a few people to give my videos a chance. As long as I am able to get any views on my videos, I am happy. I try to keep a positive mindset that anything can grow in time, and any small step is still a step forward. I don't hold high expectations because I don't believe I am entitled to anything, but I do hope that one day I can build a community through my videos and find a way to make a living doing what I love to do.