I would be lying if I said the past couple days haven’t been tough. I realized this past weekend how much I really love to write about video games, and how writing about other things such as sociology and the environment just isn’t really interesting to me. I was recently contracted to write a five-page essay on a specific social interest topic. The subject of that essay isn’t really important, but it mainly had to do with certain types of families, and the relationships between parents/legal guardians and their children.
I can see you yawning already.
So I had to write this social interest piece, and I got started on Saturday. I got the first two pages done in a short amount of time and went to bed shortly after. Sunday came along, and I couldn’t continue the assignment because I was going to watch the WWE Elimination Chamber pay-per-view with my sister and girlfriend. So Monday comes along and the assignment is due that night. My, how difficult it was to finish that assignment. The whole time I sat in front of my computer looking at the unfinished work, I couldn’t get three things out of my head: The Legendary Starfy, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and StarCraft.
It was unbelievably hard to focus on the task at hand with those three amazing titles just circling around in my head. And then specific thoughts kicked in: swimming around in The Legendary Starfy; solving puzzles in the Lakebed Temple in Twilight Princess; choosing evil and taking on the Terran race in StarCraft. These are just a few of the specific thoughts that flooded my brain as I stared blankly at the boring, stale social interest piece resting on my computer monitor.
Later than night, I finally completed the five-page essay…
I even surpassed the five-page mark. Granted I only did one extra page, but I surpassed the five-page mark nonetheless. So as I happily celebrated my triumph and powered on my Nintendo 64 to get some StarCraft 64 gameage going, I receive a text message. Apparently, two of the pages needed to be rewritten. That portion of the essay was done incorrectly. And I really can’t blame myself for that. The instructions weren’t specific! I felt myself blushing and getting hot all over. Anger. I reluctantly flipped my N64’s switch and powered off my dear console, walked back to my desk, and got to work on those two pages.
By the time I re-submitted the assignment, I was exhausted. I wouldn’t be playing StarCraft 64 after all.
Last night proved to me that writing about topics other than gaming, even for money, is a taxing and cumbersome affair. Sure, that writing gig earned me enough cash to pay for a date with my girlfriend and even served as gas money, but at what cost? I’ll likely take on another writing job like that one solely because I am in need of the money. But believe me when I say this: I’d rather write about StarCraft.
