04/10/2012

[War_Stories]

Today, my mind has been in a shroud. I've been feeling a lot of things but the emotion that resides in the foreground of my well-being is unhappiness. Unhappiness in my job, in particular.

As I have mentioned when I first introduced myself to the L-factor community, I serve my country as a grunt in the United States Marine Corps. For those who aren't familiar with this military branch; the Marines are said to be America's premier fighting force. When things turn ill overseas, we are the first ones to go there to deal with it.

There is a lot of pride that comes with the title of Marine and I have definitely felt that pride, but ever since I got back from my first deployment in Afghanistan, I feel as though I have begun to lose myself.

Before joining, I had dreams of becoming a great writer someday. I loved to spark emotions in my readers through my words and I had plans of taking that into the gaming community (my first love) and write stories for video games. The only problem was that I was an under performer in high school and did only enough work to get by. I needed a contingency plan and the military was that plan.

Fast forward to today and I have realized that the military is not the life for me. Yes, I have met some amazing individuals and I have experienced the thrill and fear of combat first hand but this way of life doesn't work with who I am on the inside and I want out, but I have another year left on my contract. I really want to get out but I have a wife and son to take care of and me running off to follow my dreams won't give us the financial security that we have now. So therein lies the question; stay in for the money and remain unhappy, or get out, be happy, but risk the safety of family by possibly striking out.

[D41V30N]

Hello there, War. Good to see that you've opened up a journal over here, and a very remarkable first post, indeed.

I had dreams of becoming a great writer someday.
We have something in common then XD. Well, I don't really plan to becoming a great writer, but I would love to see myself accomplish a complete novel and have it published. It's just something I would love to do in life. Nevertheless, judging from how you have written your journal, I can very well say that you have the edge in writing :laugh:.

... into the gaming community (my first love) and write stories for video games.
I WANT TO MAKE AN RPG! XD You know, like The Elder Scrolls / Dungeons & Dragons / World of Warcraft, with different races and magic and all. I've always thought it would be cool to have my own script up in a game. And, to be honest, I spend my free time studying different mythical creatures and races to enhance my knowledge about them :p.

So therein lies the question; stay in for the money and remain unhappy, or get out, be happy, but risk the safety of family by possibly striking out.
If you were single, I'd have told you to go for it. However, you have people depending on you, and even though I can imagine how it might feel, but responsibility is responsibility, man.
You can, however, take notes of your ideas in, let's say, a pad and then elaborate your ideas (using bullet points) when you come back home. Finally, when you have the outline of an entire story done, you can write at least half a chapter a day until you finish the story :). It takes maximum of 2 hours to write half-a-chapter, because you need to check the story for flaws or grammatical errors simultaneously as you write :p.

From what I read, you seem very passionate about writing, and I find it very admirable. If I had the same passion that you have, I would do something like what I mentioned earlier :p.

Oh, and if you already have some works done, put them up in Creator's Corner ;). I'd love to check out your works.

And welcome to the Journals :laugh:.

[War_Stories]

You have no idea how much I really needed to hear that. You made my day because for so long, I've been discouraged. So thank you.

And I'm with you on wanting to make a game that's on par with The Elder Scrolls games; it's just overwhelming when I think about trying to create my own world. lol

[D41V30N]

You're welcome :laugh:. I'm glad I could help.

Well, yeah. Creating a completely new world is very fun. I even once downloaded myself this map-making software XD (but my hard disk crashed, and I never got it back XD).
But with so many different stories in the sector, it's really difficult to think of ideas. Not actually ideas. I have some original ideas, but what is really tough is to create the world. You need to think about the names of locations - and it's very tough to think up original names which actually sounds cool, histories of the different races, and the most tough would be thinking up names of all the thousands and thousands of characters in a such story XD.
If you have any tips on naming places and characters, it would be much appreciated XD.