I’ve been finding it difficult to write lately. I have a ton of ideas chasing themselves around in my head, projects to complete and new novels to start, yet I’m running into some serious roadblocks. I have to assume that I’m not alone: a lot of writers are pre-occupied with many things, from life events to other endeavors to all sorts of personal issues. You should be writing – we all should – and if you’re not writing, something has to change.
If nothing else, you have to change your scene. A lot of writers have a particular area set aside for their craft. Away from foot traffic, secluded in some way, or just portioned off from the rest of a room, it is their fortress of solitude. When I move, I will be taking my writing desk with me, and it will be in a different corner from my computer desk. Even if it’s just across the room, that separation is crucial.
When life gets tossed into upheaval, it can be difficult to maintain the things that are essential to both our futures and our happiness. There’s a great deal of immediate tasks to deal with when changes occur in life, and not everybody has the same reaction time. To get back to the good places from where we can be productive and happy, sometimes the scene has to change.
I’m going to keep working on getting myself to that place. That’s how I’m going to beat back the dark things and stay on track with my goals.
I’m working on a post that talks about time management. It is, from my perspective, one of my biggest flaws. I find it difficult to parcel out my time in the most efficient way possible. The dayjob, exercise, writing, home maintenance, eating, sleeping… things get pushed around and I get distracted, and I end most days wondering where the time went. I know, consciously, that I need to make more time for things that are important to me.
Why, then, am I setting my sights on playing more Hearthstone?
Specifically, I’m going to be playing more Constructed – I’m not that great at Arenas. I’m brushing up on advice for more effective laddering, choosing a deck that I will stick with – probably DKMR’s Paladin deck – and pulling myself back when I begin to tilt. Ideally, I’ll be putting in time on this every day after I take the time to write, and that in turn would be happening after I get home from the dayjob.
The reason for this is simple: I miss high-level competitive play in these sorts of games. The events of Magic: the Gathering I’ve attended, both when I was younger and more recently, were at their most enjoyable when I was locked in competition with another player. I haven’t been part of that scene in a while, and I won’t be getting involved in a Netrunner community until after I move. The advantage of Hearthstone is that it’s a digital form of the same type of competition. The barrier for entry is lower than StarCraft 2, and personally, I find the experience of playing Hearthstone less clinical than playing StarCraft, even if I do enjoy both games. The in-depth interactions of cards, the delicate nature of move-countermove over the course of a match, and the visceral feeling of both winning and losing – these are things that really appeal to me.
Part of this is certainly Hearthstone‘s glossy coat of that certain Blizzard magic. Their games are always high quality in terms of graphical presentation and sound design. But on top of that, the more I play the game, the more I find things very finely balanced. With a variety of ways to play a class, to say nothing of different classes, success or failure ultimately comes down to the individual player. Without the immediacy and attention demands of a real-time strategy game, careful decision-making and precise timing are rewarded in a very satisfying way. This could just be my take on things, but I can’t deny that this, too, is part of the appeal.
I want to get better at Hearthstone. My goal is, eventually, to compete in a tournament with the confidence to advance at least once through its brackets. To do this, I will aim to climb the Constructed ladder into the Legendary ranks. When the new season begins, I may even begin streaming and recording my games. Who knows? This could open new doors for me, and that’s never a bad thing. It’s another step in my journey forward, and it’s my hope that folks out there will be willing to take that journey with me.
Or at least point out whenever I miss lethal damage.
Reality’s a stone-cold bitch. That’s why I mostly write fiction.
I identify first and foremost as a writer, not necessarily a programmer or a social media guru or mediocre gamer. As such I’ve come to accept several truths about myself.
Any emotional problems from which I actually suffer will be exacerbated by the short-sighted stubborn sociopathy inherent of being a writer.
If I take up writing as a full-time profession I am going to dodge debt collectors and utility bills even more than I do now. (Don’t panic, family members, my knees are unbroken and will remain so. I’m just not dining on steak and drinking cognac. More like dining on pasta and drinking cheap pop.)
The longer I do not write full time and cram writing in whenever I can into the nooks and crannies of a packed schedule, fueled by whatever energy I can spare, the more my writing is going to suffer for it and the less likely I am to get published before I’m facing off against Gandalf and Dumbledore in a long white beard growing competition. Which I’ll win because they’re fictional.
While writing is an evolutionary process that requires several drafts, torrents of trial and error, and accepting that one’s final effort might still be a flaming pile of poo, processes in the professional world are very different, and being writerly will rarely be tolerated long in the face of clients who want what they want yesterday for less than they want to pay. If you don’t get something right the first time, there’s the door, don’t let it hit you on those fancy pants you thought you were wearing.
I am never, ever, for as long as I keep breathing, going to give up writing.
Sure, I’ll be miserable more often than not. Who isn’t? I’ve learned to seize and capitalize on my joy when I find it. The smile of a loved one. Pulling off a win in Hearthstone. Meeting fellow geeks in person instead of just over the Tweetsphere. The open road on a sunny day. Enforcing. A decent movie or video game with a coherent story and three-dimensional characters. My mom’s cooking and my dad’s laughter. Good pipe tobacco.
And finishing a story.
That’s the hidden beauty of writing. If you do it right, you get to finish it multiple times. After your first draft, you go back and edit it. And when you get through the edit? Guess what, you finished it. Awesome!
In my experience it’s not a case of diminishing returns. The next round of edits might not be as heady in its completion as the last, but it’ll be different and it’ll still be good. And let me tell you, it’s a long hard road to get there.
Even if you do write for a living, you still have to produce. Instead of the aforementioned clients you have looming deadlines, a constant and gnawing doubt that your writing just won’t be good enough and the cold knowledge that at least a dozen younger, hungrier and more talented penjockeys are just waiting for you to fuck up so they can take your place, and your paycheck. Pressure from clients or deadlines or those lean and hungry wolves becomes pressure on you, pound after pound after pound of it, and when you go home at night with even more words unwritten, you’re going to feel every ounce of that pressure on your foolish head, and every word you haven’t written will pile on top, each one an additional gram of concentrated dark-matter suck.
It’s a love affair with someone who never returns you calls when you need them but always calls just when you think you can’t take another day of this tedious, soul-eroding bullshit.
I said earlier I mostly write fiction. This, for example, isn’t ficton. I wouldn’t mind writing more recollections like this, but guess what, I’m not getting paid for it (I could be if somehting hadn’t gone wrong with my ad block, thank you SO much for that, Google Ads). My movie & game reviews, short stories, commentary on geek minutae, Art of Thor series, IT CAME FROM NETFLIX!, the Beginner’s Guide to Westeros? Not a dime. I don’t write any of that because I get paid for it. I do it to entertain those couple dozen of you who cruise by here every day. I do it because I feel I’ve got something to say that hasn’t quite been said this way before.
And yes, I do it because I love it.
It’s in my blood and my bones. It keeps me awake at night more than bills or code or politics or Protoss cheese or ruminations on the Holy Ghost. And since I doubt I’m going to be getting rid of it at this point in my life, I might as well embrace it and make the most of it.
I’m going to suffer more hardship. I might have to move, or change jobs again, or go through some embarassing procedure because I tried to hock my words at passers-by on the train and had made one of the first drafts of my manuscript into what I felt was a fetching kilt (nae trews Jimmy) and a matching hat that may or may not have been styled after those conical straw numbers you see atop badass samurai in Kurosawa movies.
So be it.
Say it with me, writers.
I will not whine.
I will not blubber.
I will not make mewling whimpering cryface pissypants boo-hoo noises.
I will not sing lamentations to my weakness.
I am the Commander of these words.
I am the King of this story.
I am the God of this place.
I am a writer, and I will finish the shit that I started.
I’ve written up a couple in-depth after-action reports of Twilight Imperium before. I’m willing to do it again for the game that happened yesterday, but I find myself spending time and brain-power analyzing the game in terms of its structures, house rules, and interaction with the players. I’ve only played the game a few times, so I’m by no means an expert, but I’ve seen a variety of races bounce off of one another, and I’ve tried bringing different sets of rules to the table.
Our galaxy on 6/21.
One of my favorite discoveries is ‘Star By Star’. Part of the fan-created set of mods called Shattered Ascension, ‘Star By Star’ modifies the initial setup of the galaxy. Instead of everyone’s Home System sitting on the outermost rim of the galaxy, the hex containing that system is in with all of the other hexes, which are dealt to all players and held like a hand of cards. This allows more dymanic placement of systems and intriguing gameplay. You can’t put your home right next to Mecatol Rex, the former throneworld of the Lazax Empire, and the Embers of Muaat need to start on the outermost rim.
The other major change in house rules that I feel makes the most of the game is the modified nature of the objectives. Normally, Preliminary Objectives are dealt to players in private, and Public Objectives remain in their deck face-down until the Bureaucracy strategy reveals one. And in that case, the person with that strategy can reveal an Objective that very suddenly ends the game. There is an option rule called Age of Empire that makes Public Objectives… well, public… from the very start. I modified our Bureaucracy strategy so that the Objectives are tied up in ‘red tape’, requiring them to be ‘unlocked’ before they can be scored. Additionally, the Preliminary Objectives are shuffled up and one for each player is set out. Any player can claim any Preliminary Objective, allowing them to score a Victory Point and draw a Secret Objective, but each player can only score one Preliminary Objective. This is a bit more balanced and allows players to play to their strengths and positions, rather than wasting time and energy on something that’s outside of their plans.
A clash between the Barony of Letnev (red) and the Federation of Sol (blue)
I’ve played Twilight Imperium with several different players. While the randomized nature of the procedurally-generated galaxy, the Objectives, and race selection always ensure that every game is a different experience, it’s become clear that some races favor a particular style of play. Those that give advantages in terms of combat strength, such as the L1z1x Mindnet, Barony of Letnev, and the Mentak Coalition, seem to shine under the control of an aggressive player, while others like the Emirates of Hacan, Xxcha Kingdom, and Universities of Jol-Nar reward more patient play. There appears to be a balance between those types of races in the base game, with the Federation of Sol right in the middle.
As for the expansions, it may seem that the Embers of Muaat are incredibly overpowered, but the advantage of their starting War Sun can be blunted by players on the lookout as well as those racing towards War Sun technology of their own. Some of the races favor a longer game with patient play, such as the Arborec or the Ghosts of Creuss, while the Nekro Virus rivals the Mindnet in terms of naked aggression. There are a few races I haven’t seen in action yet – the Clan of Saar, the Winnu, and so on – but they’re certain to make an appearance sooner or later.
The Barony beating out the Arborec (gray) for the win.
Regardless of the races in play or the rules you use, I have yet to play a game of Twilight Imperium that’s disappointed me. Every one has been a day-long experience, every one has left me intellectually drained, and every one has been deeply satisfying. I love that it can both play right into your individual play-style and push you to try new things, as well as providing ways to get to know your friends. Who will stab you in the back while you’re pursuing a particular Objective? Who will send a Spy to the Galactic Assembly when they’ve been talking about making peace? If you have the time and resources, I highly recommend playing it at least once. Despite its scope and complexity, it is an excellent game; perhaps one of the best that I have ever played.
Last night was a bit rough. Workday stresses lead to an evening bereft of energy, and then I was awakened at 2 in the morning by a particularly aggressive peal of thunder. I find myself struggling just to write a few hundred words a day, which is never a good thing. I know a realignment is coming in the very near future, and I need to prepare for it, but there’s still frustration I have to deal with.
Anyway. Here’s a Throwback Thursday post from 2010. Some of my early posts were quite unfocused, even downright embarrassing. This isn’t one of them.
I am in the unfortunate position of not getting paid to do what I love.
I know, that doesn’t make me special. A lot of people are passionate about things that are very different from what they do. I doubt that most people that work for, say, Bridgestone or Michelin are passionate about making tires. Your average folks get up in the morning, put on some clothing that allow them to conform to the expectations of peers and coworkers, and commence a commute to some sort of job during the day that pays the bills, keeping the family feed and the lights on.
I’m glad to have people in my life who’ve broken this mold. They do what drives them, what fuels their imaginations and haunts their dreams. I know that sometimes the money that comes in from this lifestyle can be a bit more sporadic than the steady day job paycheck, and that bill collectors sometimes need to be dodged or placated. It might seem glamorous at first, but going for long periods of time with little to no income is no picnic.
I’ve been there. I was unemployed for quite a long time not too long ago. And even now, with this steady job I hold, things easily become strained. The combination of my pay rate with the necessity of supporting what I support takes a toll. But before I degenerate into self-indulgent whining, let me get to my point.
I need to make time to write. You might, as well, and here’s why it’s so important to do.
Nobody else can write what you’re going write.
The original idea, the seed from which your work is going to grow, is all yours. You might look to write it yourself, it might become a collaborative work or you may feel the need to hire a ghost writer. But however you plan to do it, there’s a big yawning gap between shaping the core of your idea and coming up with a finished product that’s capable of being sold. One of the biggest components of that gap is time, and to get across it you need to take time away from other things.
I say, when you get right down to it, sometimes you have to shut the world away. Disconnect the phone. Unplug the television. Turn off the Internet. Yes, believe it or not, you can turn off the Internet! Tweets, blogs, memes and streams will still be there when you’re done. Set goals for yourself, be it to write a few hundred words or a few thousand. Then, stick to those goals. Sometimes I have trouble with this, myself, so I’ll be struggling right along with you.
If you have any other tips on how to make the most of the time you try to set aside to write, please let me know. Because as much as guys like to project a “lone wolf” image, I know that until I reach that point where I can roll out of bed, amble over to the home office and flip on the espresso machine, I’m going to need all the help I can get.
