700 Club

700 posts…as usual, reaching such a milestone makes me a bit reflective on the whole blogging thing in general. With more than 2000 pages of writing, I’ve got to think…um…why am I not churning out novels or something? Lack of inspiration? Lack of discipline? Lack of training?

Probably all of it…I never intended to be a “writer” and used to make fun of English majors back in college (not that majoring in Drama was any better, I suppose). Or perhaps, I thought it would be cool to be a writer, but it wasn’t something one had to LEARN about so much as just DO. This is similar to my take on the craft of acting; however, with acting there is a certain “knack” that very few people seem to actually have in their base genetics, and training (coupled with “doing”) can help develop this knack…at least sometimes (I’ve known some who had tons of passion, enthusiasm, AND training and could simply never find a way to be believable on stage).

But that’s acting. Writing…well, it just seems so EASY. Not that is (look at that recent Clash of the Titans mess…talk about terrible writing!), but you come across all sorts of people (including myself) who walk around thinking, yeah, I could probably write a novel or screenplay some day…

Just browsing at the old Barnes & Nobles the other day, I saw at least two or three auto-biographies of various ex-80’s rock stars. I suppose, if you’re famous AND have lived an interesting life, than people may be willing to shell out money to read about you. But I have a hard time believing that just anyone can cough out a book. My game book was a lot tougher to write than this schizophrenic blog…and I was working from a template (i.e. the original B/X books)!

However, having the ability (or “chops”) and having the aspiration are two different things. A lot of people ‘round about my generation have the astrological North Node in the sign of Sagittarius. For these folks, writing feels like it comes easy (boring even) and publishing feels like the thing that they really need to do to feel complete in their lives. And by “publishing” I mean “disseminating one’s ideas to the masses.” The great desire to spread…well, whatever half-baked thoughts are in your head…to folks far and wide.

Whoever came up with this blogging thing is a genius.

As are the print-on-demand folks, AND the .pdf and E-Books folks, AND the kindle people, AND the on-line forum designers…these people have made an entire generations dreams of self-publishing possible.

Regardless of whether or not we have any real talent for it.

And I don’t mean to sound like a “downer” today…I sat through a very cold, very wet, very windy Seahawks game for four quarters yesterday to root for the home team (a nice, crushing defeat of last year’s NFC West champs). A win is a win is a win…ugly, miserable conditions, or whatnot. And just to draw a weak parallel (‘after all, I am a hack writer), it feels pretty good to look back at one’s stack of writing, or typo-ridden (but published-and-sold!) book and not feel a sense of satisfaction. Satisfaction that you got SOMEthing done. And that SOMEone is willing to read it.

Okay, okay…that’s enough reflection. We shall now return to our usual gaming-oriented stuff.
: )