Sam Reeves Blog: Verbal Kombat

Life in General...

I played a video game today. It's something I haven't done in about 20 years.

Oh, on a rare occasion and usually no more than for a couple of days, I played those Facebook games, and for about a week, I needed a frequent fix of 2048. Since I decided that I wanted to be a writer when I grow up, I have been afraid to play them. I thought they were these little time-suck viruses that made you forget to write today or maybe for October. I love to write, but let's face it, zapping aliens can often be more fun than conjugating a verb.

Why did I play today? My son.

A few weeks ago, he and I got to talking about different games. He wanted to know the ones I played as a kid. I was mostly an Atari, Nintendo, and arcade player. As I ticked off the list of the '80s and early '90s most famous games, I said, "Oh, and I used to play Mortal Kombat a little."

He is good about remembering details. Today, he went to the video rental store and rented, you guessed it, Mortal Kombat for his Xbox.

"I'll play it with you," I said, smiling.

He answered, "I was hoping you'd say that."

My smile got bigger.

"We are both going to be noobs at this," he said. "Do you know what that means?"

"Yes," I said, shaking my head.

Then he proceeded to kick my video game butt.

The Writing and Current Projects...

The video games most certainly did not detract from my writing today . . . Because I wrote 2000 words! Woo-hoo for me. I am going to do a little narcissistic happy dance now, because I have the self-esteem of a slug getting a "Love Me" tattoo.

I wrote that all in one sitting. I just kept hearing Brandon Sanderson say in my head, "Momentum is everything," and I didn't stop.

This might sound contrary to what I just said, but I don't think it necessarily has to.

I realize that for a writer--not a dilettante--writing should trump leisure activities like TV and books (and video games). I can take a break throughout the day, but I must observe portion control. The blogs are now easier and faster to write, when I used to think they detracted from writing fiction. I've loosened the quality versus quantity sphincter. Understanding (as opposed to simply "knowing") has begun to set in that I can go back and fix it later. Furthermore, I've finally realized that the revision process is a light touch, like the final brush strokes near the end of a painting. Otherwise, the writing flies past beautiful prose and dives into the pretentious. In the heat of obsessing over each word, I can't tell the difference in exciting and overwritten.