22 September 2012

Gamer to Fiction Writer - 10 Milestones


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I’m publishing these because I started out my fiction-writing journey on a game called Threshold. Here is a list of these milestones in chronological order. Your order may be different, but most of these should be familiar to you if you started out on text-based games.




10. You joined a multi-player online role-playing game and instead of combating gelatinous cubes and giant scorpions, you spent your time reading room descriptions and crafting your own written prose to share with other players who were all combating gelatinous cubes and giant scorpions.


9. You wrote dramatic speeches for your cleric character and role-played him to the point of becoming chosen by the Gods and then created conflict that pissed off the Gods and got your character thrown out of the Church of Azeroth.


8. You had mud sex on text-based role-playing games to establish a fan base of your writing.


7. You applied for a virtual job on a text-based role-playing game as a writer for the virtual local paper, which paid you a virtual salary for the real life articles and stories you submitted.


6. You saved all the stories you ever wrote for your text-base role-playing game, even the shitty ones.


5. You saved all your logs from a text-based role-playing game because you thought that one day you might want to write a novel about your character and the dialogue would come in handy when you cut and paste it into your word processor, thereby saving you the re-typing.


4. You learned how to create websites so that you would have a home for all the characters that you developed on a text-based role-playing game.


3. You offered to design websites for free to build a portfolio of designs with "designed by Your Name" and "All rights reserved - Copyright 2011" displayed at the bottom of each page, just like you envision will be in the first few pages of your published novel.


2. You built a blog to self-publish your articles and used Twitter, Facebook and other social media to broadcast links to your blog (shameless plugs) which will one day host an entry for your upcoming novel...or other works in progress that will be coming out once you have finished mass marketing and making a name for yourself.




And the most important milestone in your journey from gamer to fiction writer (the last one that needs to happen for me)....


1. You finished writing that novel you had been working on!





30 comments:

  1. I don't follow all of this but I love it.

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  2. I write what's in my heart. That means it doesn't matter if you don't follow, you LOVE ME!!! :)

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  3. Love the list! Keep pushing forward. You'll make it!

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  4. Thank you Dave! I keep telling myself that, too. It helps to hear others say it. :D

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  5. I just do stuff, and sometime it works.
    Sometime I’ve even got paid real money, but not much…

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  6. That's a good and funny article. It also shows how that we can often write more when we don't notice that we're writing.
    Keep on learning, keep on writing.
    ~Newton

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  7. It helps to know that writing for entertainment is appreciated. I love the feedback! :D

    *thumbs-up*

    Thanks for stopping by, Garry and Newton!

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  8. follow this blog,please follow me!

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  9. Awesome. I love this post.

    I especially love how #8 was done "to establish a fan base." Hahahaha

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  10. You did it right, yay! and I LOVE this post! If you do fiction, maybe you want to join up with my writing workshop?

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    1. Yes, very much interested. Your blog hop was a very inspirational post and I'm ready for more. :) I will be checking back, lady!

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  11. We-e-ll, I have to say, I'm not a gamer - too old to have gone that route! But there's no wrong route to get into writing! Keep at it!

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    1. Haha, Lorinda! There's not an age today which is too old for anything. The game I played on had an age range between 16 and 60. :)

      I knew an older lady who kicked ass in the game and totally owned her son-in-law. Wisdom and words are more powerful than technology. ;)

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  12. I love this, Diane! And I'm not even a gamer. ;)

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    1. Yay! No, you're not a gamer. You're a writer. That's why you love it.

      lol

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  13. I never played those games I self published my book and then tried to build a platform. I guess I did it backwards!

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    1. Nothing wrong with that! It's not wrong, it's a different way of skinning the cat. lol

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  14. I gamed a little, but absolutely loved the stories surrounding the games! It was neat to hear how you got into writing fiction. Have a great Sunday!

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    1. Thanks Lara. Gaming is a story all its own. :D

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  15. Mud sex? The Church of Azeroth? Now I'm lost!

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    1. As I stated to Lara, gaming is a story all its own. LOL

      Sorry, had to.

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  16. Haha, I kind of always wondered about gamers-turned-writers! Thanks for sharing your journey and a huge congrats for finishing your novel. That is a HUGE accomplishment worth celebrating!

    Angela ackerman

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    1. Still working on it, Angela! :D Thanks for the encouragement though.

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  17. Very interesting :-) I never am a game person but now that you have mentioned --I guess I am one!

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    1. Gamers come in may shapes and styles. :D

      Thanks for stopping by and leaving your feedback!

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  18. Sounds good Diane. Congrats on finishing unless you were just virtually finishing in which case I wish you real luck. LOL

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    1. Nah, it still needs to happen for me. I'm getting there. :)

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  19. Fun and exciting journey. My journey into writing can't be mapped quite so clearly.

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    1. Is your user name "lisa wields words" or "lisa wield swords"? :D

      I've been known to wield a sword or two in gaming.

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