Determination

Hey there.

 

My last personal blog post focused largely on the negative emotions that were affecting me. 2013 was a really difficult year. I feared that I was the verge of depression, that things could not get better, and that I was stuck in a tragic cycle.

 

2014 is has been great.

 

I acquired a full-time job at a natural food store as an assistant manager. Opening a brand-new store is much more difficult than one would think. I shouldn’t complain, though, I had an insane amount of overtime in the initial month. The pay increase has helped me begin to pay off my debts, as I had a Macbook Air financed right before work was slowing down. I used my credit card to buy food often, which led to even more debt.

As an introvert, taking the role of assistant manager is challenging. I dislike ordering people around and no one wants to be around a bossy person. My fellow employee’s are generally pretty cool. Everyone is hardworking with no douche-bag types to be found. There are only a few downsides, but the positives outweigh them. Working in retail full-time does give me more drive to become a paid writer. The retail biz just isn’t for me. I only do it because it pays decent and I have a modest amount of knowledge about it.

 

The balancing act of writing, working, and going to school in late August is something I am not looking forward too. The ideal scenario is to go to school full-time during the week, then write professionally in my free time. I’m not a social butterfly, so the undertaking of writing and playing video games all weekend appeals to me. One can dream, right?

As long as I keep at it, my writing should improve. A year ago, my typing speed was probably around ten. Now, I average around thirty. Not ideal, but it’s nice to see an improvement of some kind. Now to perfect my grammar skills!

I purchased plenty of books in the beginning of the year, all of them having something to do with writing/grammar. The real struggle is taking the time to write, read, and play the occasional game in between. This is challenging as long as the internet exists, Imgur and YouTube being prevalent examples. It’s troublesome to write after working a long day. The last thing my body wants to do is use my over socialized-introverted brain. Can’t I just sit here and continue to click-through Imgur? Sure, but I’ll be upset with myself later. I’m getting better, though, the insane work schedule I started with earlier in the month has halted, giving me time in between to pursue my real interests.

 

As far as video games go, I genuinely haven’t dabbled in anything for a significant duration. The server that I attended on Rust died down, probably due to the influx of games that were released last month. January was a lull in terms of significant games, and that’s when Rust was the most popular on Steam. I hope to dive back into Rust once I get some friends to roll with. I have enjoyed the small time I’ve had with Telltales latest releases, though.

 

I have some good pitch ideas I hope to run by some smaller sites. One that will require extensive research and the other dedicated to exploring why Silent Hill 2 is great. I’m also thinking about doing some video with the SH2 post. Trying to find something topical to write about is another problem. Most of my idea’s are based on older games. Every idea that I come up with has been covered at this point.

 

Being proud of something I have written is my ultimate goal. From there, I believe I will have the confidence to go out and make my first pitch!