The problem you'll find is that every single person on the planet is an idea man/woman. Given the chance, everybody wants to realize their own vision.

While that may be true to an extent I have actually met people, and am currently working with a person, who don't consider themselves idea people as much as they are good at the technical aspects of things. I personally consider myself decently adept at storytelling and coming up with ideas for creative expression. While I would hardly call myself the best in the world at it I would say that it is the only thing I can claim to be a talent. Thus as I am not a programmer, have no drawing talent, and not trained in any music particularly in depth, I however, write things that some people have told me they enjoy reading and have come up with game design ideas some people have told me they would like to make. So I focus on what seems to be my strongest suit.

So, michael, do you have anything to say about my idea other then questioning my self esteem?

Sorry. It's an awesome idea. Best of luck to you.

I like the idea, but it wasn't what I was expecting when I first read the title of your article and intro, I was thinking more along the lines of developing articles for Bitmob with other people. Maybe something like having a pool of unfinished articles and raw ideas from which the community might be able to latch onto and complete.

I myself end up having a lot of possible stories that end up not getting finished or not being fully realized, but maybe someone else would find inspiration and take it upon themselves to finish it.

Now that I mention it, I think I might write up something about this...

Go for it Chase. I honestly didn't rule out bitmob articles as something people could use this to collaberate on though. I just would love to see more people get together and do cool crap. Any excuse to do that is fine by me.

It took me 20 minutes of scanning different internet connections to finally get online and get logged on to Bitmob just to write:

It always nice to see Bitmobbers collaborating on things! I will definitely do a collaboration with Mi. I am still a little unsure about Jeffrey... ;)

Lance. I think you have an addiction to commenting supportively on my posts. Just remember that the first step is admitting to yourself that you have a problem.

I honestly mean this in the most positive fashion possible, Jeffrey, just to get that out front. I have no idea if you're even going to read this or not considering it is 14 days late, but because I want to be supportive I'm commenting.

I am working under the assumption that you're specifically interested in collaborating on games writing/journalism. If not, ignore the rest of us and apologies for the amount of text I am about to tack onto this post. :)

As I've done my research into starting a career as a freelance games journalist, one thing I keep coming across is just how difficult the task is of coming up with good samples, finding contact information for editors, and writing plenty of pitches to develop those editorial relationships. They are all tasks that freelancers have to do on their own.

I think you would actually be doing yourself and your partners a professional disservice if you partnered up to produce finished content. Conceiving an idea for a piece, doing the research, and sticking with it is SO much more work than I thought it would be two months ago when I decided to get started as a games writer. 2 hours of RSS feed reading a night and another 2 hours of writing and composing if I want to publish something that day. For articles with more depth to them than just idle musings (not that there is anything wrong with those) I'm usually looking at two solid days' worth of research and composition for a 2,000-word piece.

I think it's important for people to go through this exercise alone, because nothing but passion and discipline are going to get us through the time between having the insane idea of trying to make a full-time living as games writers, and finally getting that first, paid, published piece from which everything seems to flow, according to the games journalists I've intervewed. If we can't do that alone, chances are this isn't meant for us, is the impression I get from everything I read and am told by people in the industry.

Our love of writing has to be greater than our love of gaming. That's something else I've had repeated at me. Since I started writing about games, my gaming time has been cut at least in half if not more...but I honestly don't mind it. I enjoy the work that goes into researching, composing, and copy editing my pieces for its own sake, and for the pride of a finished product. I'm especially grateful for Bitmob where I have a chance to get professional editors running through my work if they like it. I love editors.

I don't think Michael was being unkind with his first comment. Being "an idea man" is a privilege reserved for senior editors, or those at the top of the totem pole. When we're just starting out, the way we prove our potential worth to an editor who doesn't know us from Adam is proving our ability to work according to deadlines, and to be consistent. That has to come from internal sources, not external.

I hope that made some sense...I'm a collaborative person by nature so I believe I feel where you're coming from, but when it comes to games writing I think we need to be able to come up with solid content on our own, without any assistance, to get the attention of an editor, such that all they have to do is a quick run-through before it goes to print, and if we can prove a consistent ability to be dependable for that service, that's how we'll get our ins as game writers.

@Dennis I appreciate the input but this was more a suggestion for getting bitmobbers together for projects that are more naturally collaberative, such as webcomics, fiction series, video content, whatever they wanted to do that couldn't just be done by sitting at their desk alone.

Not only did I not really consider this to be relevant to the actual act of video games journalism, I also have stated numerous times that my own personal focus is not on video games journalism, but more on the entertainment and experimental side of games writing. I want to write game related fiction, produce entertaining opinion pieces, and do funny stuff and all sorts of offshoots of the games writing concept.

In my personal opinion one of the reasons I am growing frustrated with this site is that while many of you mean well, you can't seem to understand or support the idea of games writing that doesn't fall under the purview of strict journalism, and that closed minded attitude ends up with you holding me to standards I have no interest in meeting. Not everyone is getting into games writing through the same avenues as the past and not everyone is getting into games writing with the same intentions as in the past. The sooner that we all understand and accept that the better it will be for everyone.

I'm not sure whether the kinds of things you want to work on speak any less to the need to be able to produce content on your own, to be honest. Opinion pieces? Those really need to be your opinions...and as someone who writes mostly editorial work, I know that I would be lax to work with someone if they told me that they really couldn't finish stuff on their own, and that's why they wanted a partner. If they are writing "opinions," that means they have them, and therefore I should be able to read a whole bunch of samples of their work showing me what directions those opinions lie in, and their writing style.

If you're talking about writing fiction, I think it's even more important to be able to produce work on your own, as it might be even *more* important for a potential collaborator to see that you are someone they can depend on to meet schedules and deadlines and who has the abillity to see projects through to the end.

I, personally, very rarely collaborate with anyone because they usually let me down. I helped two buddies of mine with a tabletop game. Buddy A had the idea, and Buddy B wanted to help with rules design and testing. I wanted to help Buddy A see the project through to its completion so that he could market it, because he said "Left to my own devices, I never finish a game, I just get distracted and go work on something else."

When the rules were finished, Buddy B lost interest because his part of the project was finished. Buddy A predictably got distracted and I got tired of being the "project nanny," and eventually just went to work on my own stuff, my writing, because it was a better use of my finite free time.

That's purely anecdotal, of course, but it's the sort of thing that someone who already is able to produce content - the kind of people you want to collaborate with - is going to think about before they consider working with anyone else. "Can I depend on this person to not waste my time?"

Anyone who doesn't have this criteria in place before they contact you is probably going to be someone else who also doesn't finish projects, and who wants to be an "idea man," and when push comes to shove neither of you will be able to slog through the scut work. At some point we need to stop being "idea men" and be "writers," which means sitting down and pounding out content even when we're stuck at "the boring parts," and then going back and editing our own copy which can take me as long as the composition because I take a step back and cease to be "the writer" and become "the editor."

Good luck to you, in any case. :)

@Dennis I am perfectly capable of finishing articles to put on this site, and I have finished short stories and other projects in the past. I just find it easier to work on more long term ideas when I have other people to work with, and a great deal of my ideas are also ones that require skill sets (such as art) that I don't posses.

I really don't see what point you are trying to make, yeah sure, being able to work by yourself is an important skill to have. Still, acting like a person who is looking for people to work with and who has respect for their own ideas as being something other people might want to work on is deluding themselves when you know nothing about their situation is a little ridiculous. Their are plenty of people who rely on others to get their ideas off of the ground, see the entire movie, television, and game industrys.

Just because I'm trying to connect and work with creative people rather then slave away on my own in the dark doesn't mean that I'm incapable of working hard.