Jump to content

NEW VIDEO: I Quit MMOs and THIS Happened

Gank's Log


gankylosaurus

Recommended Posts

I totally agree, Cam. I think being intentional is the right response. It's also a really good word for this situation.

I think I've come to the conclusion that I just won't get my words done when I have a 9 to 5 shift. It's not often that I have that shift, but I did yesterday and I do tomorrow. Monday was a day off and I got my words done. Today I only work 1 to 5 and I've already got my words done (a whole new chapter in fact!)

Yesterday on the other hand wiped me out. I came home and nearly passed out. Plus, I stopped by my apartment (since I'm still house-sitting) and filled out an application and submitted it online. I had to do that at home because I needed my scanner for it. Now that that's out of the way, we wait, and hopefully I'll get out of this dead-end and annoying job. Seriously, lifeguarding looks easy, and generally it is, but it's like going on a long car ride by yourself with no music. You have to stay vigilant so no one gets hurt, but you're bored out of your skull most of the time, and by the end of it, despite "not doing much" you're tired.

So at least today I got my writing in and I have a half-shift. The rest of the week may be a little more difficult, but I'm happy about my progress with the book. Can't wait to have this draft done so I can put it through the next round of edits. Gonna have to set more deadlines to get all that done since I want to have it publishable by Fall.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 85
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Had the nine to five again today. Was thinking about my story a lot at work, had my notebook and my laptop open during most of my breaks. Reread the last chapter I wrote, had an idea, then figured out the middle of my story is way too short, and the beginning way too long.

The best breakdown of a story is 25% beginning, 50% middle, 25% ending. This is just a rule among the most gripping stories out there, and it's something I'm trying to achieve. The way things were looking, my story was about to be 40% beginning, 25% middle, 35% ending. That's way off.

But! I'm intentionally aiming to write about 10,000 words more than I want in the final product. So a lot of that will likely be shaved off the beginning (which, to be honest, probably gets repetitive and tedious. That's what's editing is for). While that doesn't help the middle, what does help is that I realized how to stretch out the middle in a way that doesn't make the story seem drawn out.

See, I'd just revealed the final antagonist. But, I realized I could use that exact same scene later (ie. about 10,000 words later) and establish more of the theme in the meantime.

So I went over that part of the story and decided what to do. I have notes for what to do after the actual reveal of the antagonist, but in the meantime, I need a better path to that point... although I really like how that scene worked out.

Anyway, the way this new scene goes, the main characters discover something new, but instead of the antagonist showing up, another previously introduced character appears and more complications arise.

So while I only wrote about 500 words today, I feel like this was a fairly successful writing day, because planning is at least half the battle. Plus, I didn't necessarily lose the words I cut out, since I can just move them later on in the story in a similar situation. Without elaborating on that, I can assure you that it will make sense when it happens.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think more than anything else, I just want to distance myself from the gaming community. I just don't want to be associated with it anymore. Things like GamerGate and a plethora of other more general shit has made me embarrassed to call myself a "gamer." It's become a charged title, not to mention a little sad to have that be your primary self-identification.

I saw an article yesterday about Street Fighter V being patched to censor out some of the butt-centric camera angles, and that led me to finding other butt-censoring in the same game, this time in a Youtube video. And oh my god the comments. "Are you happy SJWs?" "Dirty SJWs ruin everything. I'm done with gaming." And so on.

Like, I can be every bit the horny teenage boy as any other mid-twenty-something guy. But who the hell gets up in arms about (totally unrealistic) butts and boobs being censored, downsized (which has become a concern with the FF7 remake) or just diverted away from a little bit? Manboys, that's who. And I don't even want to be tangentially related to them in any way.

Maybe I'm also just outgrowing the general age of the online gaming community as well. I recently watched the chat in an MMO where the conversation was about women and... Yeah. It was bad.

But I also defy this whole line of thinking because hey, that's my nature. I don't like people who are stubbornly adult. And by that, I mean the kinds of people that reject things that are totally fun because "Nyah, that's kiddie stuff." I gave up Pokemon years ago thinking that I needed to do so to mature. I ended up buying it back. I later quit because I'd gotten bored with it. Which was the right reason and a decision I'm happy with.

Anyone else with similar gripes here?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey, @Somebodyelse, thanks for stopping by! Good luck with your own journey.

That's awesome @Tom. It's always great to hear that a book recommendation is appreciated by someone.

So, I've completed the main story of the game I was playing. I still have two weeks left on the subscription, but I'll bite the bullet. I got my $15 worth, especially with a couple of really long days. Today is day one of my reboot, and after that, I'll decide if I want to go back and continue the story. Right now I really want to continue it. We'll see how I feel by the end of April.

I've actually wrestled pretty hard with this decision. Even in the last half hour where I was lifeguarding (and taking a break from writing this) I started to reconsider. But no, I need to do this. (Update: After work, I tried playing it again, then decided even more strongly that this reboot needs to happen now.)

And I'm going to try to make this as much of a full-on reboot as possible. No gaming channels, no mobile games, nothing. The only exceptions will be party games with friends, but only after we've had enough poker and board games.

There is one teensy weensy sticking point, though. The fansite that I'd been writing for until it became defunct for four months without updates decided to merge with another, much bigger fansite. One with over a hundred staff members and hundreds of thousands of followers. A site I applied to six years ago but they were full up on staff at the time and told me I seemed like a great fit for the future. We decided to move one of our bigger projects over there because they allowed us to, and now we'll have a much bigger team to help us get it done, which is exciting. And if I get on writing more news and features, then that's a much better portfolio for me with a much more reputable site than the one I'd been working for.

But it's still a video game fansite. The upside is that I don't actually have to play any games to do any of the volunteer work there, as long as I don't accept any review features. There's no way I can turn down this opportunity right now, especially with this big project we're transferring over since I'm one of its two creators and we want to stay at the head of it.

Anyway, other than video games, I'm cutting back on spending. I figured out that I made about $800 and spent about $790 in January. Honestly, that's better than I'd expected, since I thought I was digging into my credit card more than that. However, I also figured out that between credit, debit, cash, and my fiancee's money, we spent around $200 on alcohol last month. That needs to stop. And not just for my wallet, but for my health. Used to have a six-pack, ya know?

I went for a run the other day. And @Cam Adair, I gotta say something you said stuck with me. That thing about action breeding motivation. Because right after running and taking a shower, I did the dishes because I was just ready to do shit. And I'm going to go for a run this afternoon, then probably get the apartment back in order. I still have about two hours left of the audiobook for Spell or High Water, so that's my incentive for cleaning.

And another thing. I really need to limit my Internet time. I've found in the past that I've replaced gaming with mindless browsing. Or just watching endless youtube videos. So whenever I open my laptop or turn on my desktop, I need to have a purpose.

So, I'm home now. I just ate, so I'm going to let my stomach settle then go for a run.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Funny how things work out. Last night, my fiancee came home and asked if we could play a game together. So we did. One game and then bed. I don't feel bad about it because I've mentioned before that that's fine by me. "Game-quitting" for me is more about getting away from the antisocial hours-on-end gaming sessions and obsessing about not having enough time to level up and worrying about what games I want to play after work because I just have to progress in the games. You know, shit that doesn't matter.

But games with my fiancee or basically anyone else in the room is not antisocial, nor do I obsess about it. The only rules I'm giving myself on this are: No online gaming (ie. the friends I'm playing with must be in the same room as me), and I can't be the one to suggest we play games. For instance, our "poker nights" rarely remain poker nights. We eventually turn to video games usually. And now we have board games so that will probably rule out video games altogether for a while.

Anyway, today was a day off. I got my run in yesterday and managed to shake of shin splints with my compression sleeves and proper stretching - I always underestimate the need to stretch when the run I'm about to do is supposed to be easy. Today I got the rest of the apartment cleaned up, paid rent, bought dog food, read a few chapters from a book (which I'm going to go back to after finishing this post), and pulled up my story with the intent to write.

However, because of the changes I've made to the story, I had to refocus on where I was going with it. I also had to remember not to cut out whole characters who'd played large roles before, and even give roles to characters that had appeared minor before. Otherwise why include them at all? So I wrote out the broad sweeps of the rest of Part Two then worked on the important parts of Part Three. Pulled out some index cards to write down the scenes I'd need as well. All in all took an hour or so to do all this. And despite not getting any prose written since I got back from my dad's place, I feel accomplished with what I've done today.

Next step is going to be writing out a summary for the rest of the book, which helps me visualize it better as a story. But for now, I'm ready to relax and read.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guys, I suck at this.

I should just stop announcing when I'm starting my reboot. The first time I was in here with a long streak, I didn't even mention when I quit games. I was just like "Oh, hey, it's been two or three weeks" in one of the posts. That was an indicator of a good streak to me, and rather than being held to proving myself, I proved myself before announcing it. Of course that lasted I think almost two months (which is great, don't get me wrong).

It's not just game-quitting either. Porn is a much bigger vice. If I could only do away with one, I would get rid of porn. And I think that was kind of my original goal - get rid of one bad thing at a time. So I reverted to that. I tried to just play games and avoid porn. It didn't work. In fact, with porn, I'm impressed if I make it two days.

(Also, I'm never going back to the nofap community, so don't even suggest it. Red Pillers started moving in and fucked it all up, not that it wasn't dogmatic about the supposed "superpowers" that successful users have supposedly discovered already. Plus, I kinda hate Reddit.)

Anyway, I feel stuck again. I'm thinking maybe I just need to pick up more positive thoughts. "Don't play games" equates to "Don't think about pink elephants." Of course I'm going to think about the elephants.

And I've learned that physically taking things away from myself isn't ever enough. I always end up granting myself a little leeway, particularly after doing something productive. Like, hey, I just finished a book, so I'm gonna go re-download that game I just deleted.

Part of me wants to just be able to sit and meditate whenever I get urges. But I've tried it before. I don't know if it's because I'm such a faithless person and I've yet to find a secular guide to meditation, but I just can't get into it. I don't give a shit about my "spirit." I just want to calm my mind.

I sometimes wonder what other common threads we here at GQ share. For my part, I think I'm beating myself up for getting out of shape and not writing as much as I would like to. How many others here have personal projects that don't get done, thus being the source of their own misery?

I remember some time ago, I just stopped writing. It was a conscious choice. I stopped and didn't worry about it. And I was actually happier. But something was always missing. Now I have it back, I'm less happy, but the thing making me unhappy is actually something I enjoy and want to do. I believe that's a catch-22.

So, just popping in to say all this. I don't know where to go from here. I don't expect to be sharing when I start my reboot again. It's like when I got really into running. The only person who knew it was going well was my fiancee. I didn't need to tell people about it to feel validated. I was doing it for me, not for anyone else, and only once I had been doing well did I tell anyone that I was a runner. Then I threw my back out and screwed all that progress.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

Join Our Discord Server!

Connect, discuss, and have fun with fellow members on our official Discord server.

Join Now


×
×
  • Create New...