Pretentious Monologue About Fiction Follows

Videos games were my first love.  I was a kid who didn't make a lot of friends in public school.  Actually, until I got to High School, I had almost no friends.  Needless to say, I didn't do a lot of socializing.  What I did a lot of was sit in my room and click on my Super Nintendo while the sunshine beamed down outside.

Games were my first stories.  Sure, I tried to read some novels, I even actually read some good ones; A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Leguin was among my first.  But the thing was, I really valued that interactivity of video games.  I always wanted to make games, but oddly enough, I gave very little interest to graphics and coding.  What I really wanted to do, was write stories for video games.

I sat down with my SNES today and played one of my still favorite games of all time.  Mega Man X.  In the first stage, which does a great job of establishing the story and the world it takes place, you face a villain in a large robot suit called Vile.  A bad guy with a name that means, "icky".  You can't kill Vile--no matter how hard you try.  In this first encounter, he must win.  Because it sets up the game's theme for getting stronger.  But every time I sit down to play it, I still fight back against Vile.  Not because I don't know that I can't win, but because I don't think X would give up.  I don't think he knows that he can't win.  It's still a story, after all.

When I was a kid, I had very in-depth fantasy adventures.  I even put together a little montage opening and a theme song in my head.  I think I was a time traveler, or something.  The stories were always about me (I was eight-years old, don't judge).  I never really shared them with anyone because they weren't for other people--they were for me.

It's NaNoWriMo

November is National Novel Writer's Month.  You may be wondering, "Whasat mean, bra?" What it means is that novel writing procrastination must be stopped this month.  Seems like a lot of people have a novel idea or a fiction idea and they just never seem to find the time to do it.  During NaNoWriMo, we put an end to those excuses.  The goal is simple: to write a full novel in the space of a month.  Several people have succeeded in this challenge and still more have tried.

Why do we need a month to tell us to get off our collectives asses and do some writing?  Because we Rack a Disciprine.  So, if you're sitting at your computer or staring at a mobile device thinking, "I has good idear for story." Get off your butt and do it.

I considered starting a new project for this month, but I really feel like I'm getting to the home stretch in Lost Lamb.  I didn't get as much time to write during the week this week, but I'm going to write up a storm today.