Panic!
Yes, I’m fretting again. Although not about Nanowrimo. Well, sort of.
I’m in a panic because I know I am not going to be able to finish the Neverwinter Nights 2 expansion ‘Mask of the Betrayer‘ before Nano starts! Not unless I drop all notion of figuring out a plot and characters for my novel before the Nano start date anyway. I’m not quite sure why I started the expansion having only just got around to finishing vanilla NwN2 after the third time through (I have said it before, but my attention span can be bad unless I find something very interesting or really immerse myself in the storyline). I think it was partly due to my upset at the ending of NwN2 and my hope of finding out what happened to all my comrades, but all I have learned is that the expansion is as brilliant and addictive as the original game - which is a bummer when you are about to write a novel and have no plot to speak of!
I’ve stuck to the advice ‘plan one week before Nano’ like glue, and my time is up tomorrow. Meaning tonight may in fact be my last night of gaming for a whole five weeks! Never in history - alright, since I was around eight years old and Dad purchased our lovely Acorn Electron - have I refrained from playing a game for such a long period!
How will I cope? Do gaming withdrawal symptoms exist? Am I really going to be able to concentrate soley on my Nano storyline for the next five weeks or so?
I know what you are going to say - get a life! Well, gaming is a lifestyle. I have grown up with games, watched the technology develop, and have seen them evolve into something I could never have imagined possible. I still remember the time I would dream of games being ‘realistic’; literally, at night I would lie in bed and visualise myself living in a game of the future. Playing Unreal for the very first time was a dream come true, it was everything I imagined and more. To this day I am still in awe of modern games.
Would I like to do what many Brits do and waste money going ‘out on the lash’ on a Friday and Saturday night, dressed in a ridiculously short skirt, smothered in makeup and stinking of cheap perfume, surrounded by kebab-reeking letches who accuse you of being a lesbian or insult your appearance when you turn them down? Or crouched in a bunker in the middle of a firefight, explosions sounding all around me, waiting to snipe the enemy when they try to capture my point; going on an epic journey to cure the world of some evil, smiting enemies and hurling fireballs at my foes; navigating the depths of the universe in a spaceship entirely at my command - all from the safety of my own home? I’ll settle for the latter.
Don’t get me wrong - I do go out. I do have some form of social life even if, having had two children in a rather short period, it is at an amoebic stage. In future I will go out more (as long as we can afford the babysitter), but I will make sure that my repertoire of friends consists mainly of avid gamers, those who play games quite often, people who occasionally game, and those who have gamed, in that order.
Okay, so I jest - but it sure would be nice to meet more gamers genuinely interested in friendship once in a while! Also, I have trouble socialising with those of my own age, especially women. I do think I am meeting the wrong people, because I find that I have almost nothing in common with the majority of my acquaintances. They are generally people who, when faced with an adult female who likes nothing more than to climb to the top of a huge climbing frame on a visit to Monkey World and make monkey sounds (pics will be here as soon as my Dad pulls his finger out and sends them), would immediately summon the ‘men in white coats’ to remove me to a padded cell.
Perhaps it is simply time I grew up and started to enjoy talking about the latest anti-wrinkle product, mulling over which curtain patterns go with teracotta furniture, and discussing the finer points of cake decorating?
Anyway, I don’t care if you think I am a gaming geek. I wear the title with pride, and hope to still be ‘geeking it up’ when I am old and grey.
Now, on with the fun…
