One At A Time

I hate Dragon Age: Origins right now.

There’s apparently a memory leak in the PC version of the game that causes load times to last longer and longer the more you play it. If you play for, say, an hour, you might not notice. But in my fervor to finish my first play-through I spent the bulk of my time this past weekend playing it, and the bulk of that time was spent looking at the spinning “loading…” graphic at the bottom of a parchment-colored screen stained with blood. I finally stopped and turned to other games in the middle of the evening yesterday, occupying myself instead with a little BioShock 2 and starting a game of Mass Effect 2.

But if I’m honest, I’m apprehensive. I want to finish Dragon Age for a variety of reasons, including posting a review here and over at the Escapist. The biggest one is something Chuck talked about this morning. Like writing projects, it’s probably best to focus on one game at a time. Of course it doesn’t help that I’m also trying to keep up with folks in Star Trek Online but that is somewhat beside my point.

I didn’t post a continuation of my Farraday fiction project because in comparison to The Project, it isn’t that important. I should probably make time to write some articles to pitch to the Escapist, but I feel that as much as I might get paid for them, it’s still taking writing time away from the aforementioned Big P. And if you look up at the little column-spanning block towards the top of this webspace, the first thing listed there is ‘aspiring novelist.’ I feel that, when I’m not distracting myself with games, carving out a little time to post here so you all don’t lose interest in me, or doing real-life things like taking my wife places or doing laundry or herding cats, I should be focused on that first and foremost.

Granted, things are still in progress with Polymancer Studios, there are a couple other things I’m waiting to hear about and I do adore everybody at the Escapist and working with them. But the fact remains that my dream has been to get a novel out to someone who can put it into print, and wandering past a bookstore to see something with my name on the cover displayed at the front of the store for people to purchase, take home and enjoy.

I’ve also dreamed of travelling to space and driving an Aston Martin, but like writing projects and games, I should take my dreams one at a time.