When Even Writings Lost It's Fun, Your Fucking Breaking
Posted on Saturday, December 18, 2010 by Alex R. Cronk-Young
Yeah, I know that should be you're. And maybe the you're right there should have quotations around it. I'm just having a lot of trouble giving a shit about any of that right now. So maybe it's a joke. Or a passive aggressive way of letting off steam. Who knows.
I used to really love writing. I would sit in the back of my middle school class -- not paying attention to a word that was said -- writing pages and pages. I'd invent characters, and villains for those characters, and describe the grand adventures they'd go on. None of that was for a class, or to better myself as a writer so I could have a future in it; it was just because I enjoyed doing it.
A couple years ago I had graduated from high school and taken all of the basic classes I could take in the local community college. I still had no idea what to do next. I guess it should have been a hint that in all of that time, writing never once sprung to my mind. Still, when the light bulb finally went off I thought I'd found my answer.
Several years down the road, I kind of hate writing. When I started this..."journey", I would sit down in the morning and just start typing. The thoughts would flow from my head down to my fingers and in a half hour or so I'd have a whole article. Not only did writing it feel great and make me happy, but I was always damn proud of my creation.
Nowadays I agonize over every comma placement. I slowly write something over the course of several straight hours (A gap of free time I never have in my life, which means my kid is ignored the entire time and by the time I finish my wife is pissed off at me), then I go back over it 3 or 4 times, checking every detail. This process isn't at all fun, but it's what real writers have to do, right? So I submit the article, hoping I did my editors proud. Inevitably I am met with a laundry list a mile long showing me all of the grammar mistakes I made, and a majority of the time one of them says I need to do a major rewrite of part of the article.
Don't get me wrong, I'm damn lucky to have gotten to where I am today, and it's an honor to have the opportunity to improve my writing under the tutelage of some of the biggest names of video game journalism. Still, I'm starting to worry that in turning one of my favorite hobbies into work, I might have ruined it for myself. I wonder if I should stop trying to pursue a career in writing, and just do it for fun again.
Obviously this is taking the easy way out and pissing away the chance I have to improve my skills, learning from the best. But, you know, it sure would be nice to spend some more time with my kid and less time slumped over, stressed out about where to place a comma. I've always been one for taking the easy road.
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1 Response to "When Even Writings Lost It's Fun, Your Fucking Breaking"
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Brian Shirk Says....Even though I doubt I ever enjoyed writing as much as you, I can relate in being frustrated with all the rules you have to memorize in order to be considered a "good writer." I don't know whether it's best for you to write as a hobby or a profession, but I do know that you've worked harder than most people in trying to make your dream a reality.
With all of your responsibilities and dedication to your job and family, that must have taken an enormous amount of effort just to write each week. But you did it and even became a staff member. Game journalism has gotta be one of the hardest industries to break into, because I think it requires a lot of luck in addition to skill and dedication. I really hope people close to you appreciate all the work you've put in even if things didn't turn out exactly the way you wanted them to. Your articles on Bitmob are still some of my favorites, and I hope you can at least enjoy writing as a hobby in the future.
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