Games and Writing (or possibly, the introduction to the blog)

I play a lot of games. The Myriad Games podcast has me learning at least one new game a week, sometimes more. I sit down with a group of peers and discuss what I like about such and such game, gaming in general, and what talking points we should discuss in the podcast. Then, we dissect the game in question, a process that takes about an hour and a half and is edited down to about 45 minutes. I also write the occasional article about games, head a Thursday night casual Magic: the Gathering league and play extra games with friends on occasion. I feel comfortable saying that I’m a game reviewer.

I’m also a writer, but I’m less comfortable calling myself that. I’ve written a pile of poetry, three comic book scripts and a handfull of short stories. I wrote half a book, decided I didn’t like it and started writing another book, which I’m about 60,000 words into and, I guess we can count a couple years worth of Creative Writing major and the fact that I’ve read a lot of books on writing. But, really, the only thing that gives me any confidence and allows me to feel okay calling myself a writer is the twenty or so articles about gaming that I’ve written for Guilt-Free-Games.com that are also in syndication at GameSalute.com. I mean, people have read those things. I’ve got the statistics.

This is my attempt to reconcile these two things in my life. As I get further and further into my novel, I’m beginning to see that the pile of words in my wordprossor will coalesce into a book some day. On the day that I go to see a publisher to show him my pile of words, I’d love to say that I’m a well respected blogger with web presence, and point to this website. But, if all I talk about is my writing, it would feel like a sham; A bit of circular logic where the guy who has not proven his chops talks about how much he knows about writing.

(This is where I need to apologize to a lot of people. Because I know there are many people like me in this predicament, and they are proud to consider themselves writers, even if they have yet to be published in the medium of their liking. I’m hard on myself, but I don’t mean to be hard on you. When I say that I am lucky that I have something that I can write about that ties both writing and games together because ‘otherwise, I’d feel like a sham’, I’m admitting my own hang ups, not criticizing you. As far as I’m concerned, you could be jotting ideas on napkins, and if you do it often, you’re a writer. When I turn the camera on myself, though, I become very critical. It’s flaw, I know. Please forgive me.)

Anyhow, what this convoluted introduction is here to explain is that I plan on using this blog to feature my writings on gaming, and to use my experience as a game reviewer to help our further understanding in the field of writing. Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work.