I have had such fun today.

See, today, my task was to do a first draft of the detailed design document I am writing for my Writing For Video Games 2 course.

A DDD is basically a blueprint for the game from the writer’s point of view. A full one would include every script in the game, but we don’t have to go that deep.

Instead, I got to create the characters, setting, story, and everything else. And that kind of detailed creation is something I love to do.

So I spent four and a half hours pouring myself into the thing. And I was in deep. I wasn’t doing anything but writing. I wasn’t even listening to music.

When I am really deep into writing, even music is an annoying distraction.

That’s the joy of being a deep focus person rather than a multitasker. We deep focus types can get thoroughly absorbed in what we are doing. To a fault, sometimes. I would hate there to be a fire when I was in The Zone, because I might not notice until I am physically being consumed by fire.

For a multitasker to achieve that state, I assume they would have to have their optimal number of plates in the air. When their task space is full, then they feel peace.

It all sounds like too much work for me. Then again, to some, writing for four and a half hours and creating a six page document (which is not yet complete) would be way too much work for them.

Well, the only difference between work and play is whether or not you want to do it. And that has a lot to do with whether or not you find it personally rewarding.

I found doing all that writing to be personally rewarding as hell.

In fact, it was hard to pull myself away from it. That’s how deep I got. It was like it had a magnetic grip on me and I had to overcome that magnetic force to pull myself out of the hole I had fallen into.

Like I had been digging for so long that I couldn’t get out of the hole I had dug.

In fact, I didn’t really escape. I just reached the point where I ran out of stuff that was, as it were, pre-written in my head. That’s how my creativity works. I get an idea and a whole bunch of other ideas crystallize from that starting point.

I like to think that this is what keeps my writing logically coherent. Or at least plausible. If one thing didn’t connect to the other, how did I come up with it in the first place?

Anyhoo, eventually I ran out of gas, and stopped writing. Only then was I able to order some Chinese food, and I pointedly did not do any writing while waiting for it to come.

Instead, I tried a new CCG style game I downloaded called Star Crusade. Verdict : it contains nothing that you do not find in lots of other games. But I don’t demand that my CCG games be original,,just that they be fun to play.

Plus, the fact that it is sci fi themed and not fantasy themed is such a welcome and refreshing change. I am so sick of endlessly rehashing Tolkien! At least science fiction tries to be original.

Oh, and the makers of the game, or at least their voice actors, have a cheeky sense of humour and are not above stealing from sci fi properties. Like, there’s a Heavy Gravity Ship card and when you play it, it says “I have a strong effect on mass!”.

That’s a reference to the Mass Effect series.

And when you play a Terminator, it says “Come with me if you want to live. ”

Cute. So I can see me playing that for a while.

Which is good, because I beat the game I had been playing, Dishonored. Fun game. You get to be a deadly assassin going up against the bastards that killed your beloved Empress, kidnapped the heir (a 12 year old girl it was your job to protect), and then framed you for the crime.

And you do it. But then you are betrayed by the group of loyalists that had been supporting you, and then you have to hunt them down and kill their sorry asses.

Still, they had something I enjoyed very much in the first half of the game : when you finally get close to the Lord Regent (head bastard of those who framed you), you have two choice : either kill the motherfucker outright, OR send his recorded confession out to the whole island kingdom, resulting in him being arrested, thrown in jail, and loathed.

I of course chose the latter. Not out of mercy, though. Quite the opposite.

If I had killed him, his suffering would have been brief. But by ruining him instead, I ensured that he would suffer for the rest of his natural life.

That’s what you get for fucking with me.

And I totally saw being betrayed coming. From the third mission with the loyalists onwards I was looking at them and thinking “I wonder when they are going to decide I have outliced my usefulness and must be killed so I can never tell anyone what they have done.”

See, the loyalists were led by an aristocrat and a retired general. Both people way, way above a hired killer like me. And I make a policy to never, ever trust anyone who is more powerful than me.

Because we the lowly are not people to them, and therefore they have no qualms about lying to you to get you to do what they want then throwing you away like a used diaper the minute you become a liability.

Even otherwise good people can’t help but feel like those of a lower social status are not real people. Just props so they can show off what good people they are.

So yeah. I knew they would betray me. But I had to watch my character accept a drink from those bastards while saying “Don’t drink it! It’s poisoned. ”

And I was right.

Anyhow, it has been a productive day, but I think I may have overdone it because I now have a splitting headache and I feel sort of dazed and dumb.

So if you don’t mind, I am going to go take an Aleve and lay down.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow, homework permitting.