I could easily say that after close to two and a half years of writing 50k words or more a month, I’m entitled to a break. After all, people who work 9 to 5 get at last 2 weeks off, so why shouldn’t I? But I’m not an office working. When it comes to this, I’m not even a truck driver. I’m a writer. I am a writer who aims to earn his living with his stories. That means that no, I don’t get 2 weeks of vacation like the rest of the world. I can’t afford to. If I don’t write, I don’t publish, if I don’t publish, I’m not earning money. So I have to get my word count in, no excuses.
So, how did this happen? Well, it started when I played Minecraft during my vacation at the end of September/beginning of October. I was on vacation, and I’d been able to play RImworld while maintaining a reasonable word count going so I thought, how tough could it be to do the same with Minecraft. Literally form the first day I played Minecraft, my word count plummeted. In the entire month of October, there was only 8 days where I wrote more than 1000 words. After the first week of this, with only 2 days above 1000 words, and one 0 words day, I should have quit playing, but instead I told myself I was over reacting, and that I might as well do a full month as an actual test, after all, maybe those were just bad days, everyone has those.
Right, like that wasn’t something I hadn’t told myself before. See, I’m an addict, and my drug is Minecraft. And like all addict, I found excuses to give into my addiction. The experiment was the excuse, only one of many in October. I did have rules, I had to do my writing before I played. Except that I never defined what that meant, so I might write a couple hundred words and call it done. Some days I didn’t even manage 10 words before I said I’d done my writing and started playing.
I can hear you already. “What’s the big deal about playing a game if that’s what you feel like doing?” “You need to take a break once in a while, go ahead, indulge.”
Sure. Would you tell a crack addict to go indulge if he felt like it? It isn’t because Minecraft doesn’t impact my health as directly as drugs like Crack that it’s harmless. It kills my creativity, it utterly kills it. As for indulging in a break when I feel like it. Can you decide not to go to work if you don’t feel like it? Go ahead, call your boss tomorrow and let him know you don’t feel like coming in. Do it the day after that, and the one after. Let me know how many days your boss lets you do that without repercussion.
A job is a job. The fact that I work for myself doesn’t mean I get to slack off. I have a job to do, and I damn well better do it.
I’m a writer, so I better damn well write.
I’m done playing Minecraft. I should say I’m done forever, but I know myself better than that. In a year, maybe two, I’ll again think I can keep it under control, and I’ll run another “experiment”; with exactly the same result. And in the short run, I’m staying away from all games, except Minesweeper, that’s the one game I can play without obsessing over it.
I am a writer, not a player of Minecraft. That applies to all of you out there who say they are writers too, if you aren’t writing as much as you want, look at what else you are allowing to control your life, and change it.
And one final thing on this, don’t waste time being angry at yourself. Well, okay, get it out of your system, but don’t dwell on it. It’s in the past, look to the future. Always look to the future.
So, what did I actually do in October.
I wrote chapters 24 to 36 of Crimson. It was tough getting those 12 chapters out, it was actual work, pulling the words one at a time, having to plead with the characters so they’d talk to me.
I wrote a few hundred words on the Orr chronicle story 2593
And I wrote a short story entitled “the Gunman.”
I finished the edits on “Finding the Line” and published the novel, which you can find here : books2read.com/u/bw8KNP
And I’ve gone through the edits my editor suggested for Chapter 1 to 19 of Demons.
And that is it.
Not that there is much, but if you're interested in reading what I wrote, it's all available on my Patreon : https://www.patreon.com/kindar
