Revenge of the Gamer

When I was fourteen I bought one of those mottled black and white academic notebooks from the corner store with a pile of change I’d scrounged from my paper route.  I wanted to be a writer, and my gifted and talented teacher told me that all great writers kept journals where they revealed their innermost thoughts.

I loved the sound of this and while my inner most thoughts mostly had to do with girls or whatever novel I happened to be reading I eagerly recorded them every week.  Within three months I’d finished my notebook, and coincidentally this happened just before New Year’s.

As the final entry I decided to create A Year in Review, my first stab at a column although I didn’t understand that at the time.  That entry began a tradition and every year since I’ve spent the final days of the year reflecting on the previous twelve months.

I am a very goal oriented person, and there’s rarely been a time in my life where I didn’t have a slew of things I was trying to accomplish.  My journal entries are the yard stick I use at the end of every year to measure what I actually accomplished.  It only makes sense to continue that tradition on my blog, as that’s replaced the old hand written journals I used to keep.

What were 2009′s Goals?

In 2009 I set a modest number of goals, at least by my standards  They are as follows:

• Move into a nicer place
• Figure out what I want to do with my life
• Put together a new gaming group
• Lose as much weight as possible
• Get back into paintball
• Decide if I want to date
• Work on my FICO

  

Goal #1- Finding a new place

The first thing I wanted to do was move out of the three bedroom duplex I was living in.  The place baked you in the summer and was freezing in the winter.  It had no central heat or AC, thin walls and tiny little rooms.  The power was frightening, and we had to run extension cords throughout the house to preserve our delicate power balance.  Even with the extension cords thrown breakers were a daily occurence.  Our microwave sat on a chair in the dining room, because none of the outlets in the kitchen worked. 

When Jeff and I first moved up from Los Angeles it was just us.  We chose a three bedroom place, because we wanted to have an office where we could game.  Both of our computers were in there, and that’s where we spent the bulk of every day.  It was really nice to sit right next to each other when we played games like World of Warcraft.

Not long after that an old friend of mine needed a place to stay.  This was problematic as two of the bedrooms were in use by Jeff and I, and the third served as the office where we gamed.  Our first instinct was to say no, but Aaron agreed to sleep in the living room and set his computer up in the office.  This preserved our game room, and since we didn’t really use the living room anyway it seemed like a good solution.  All three of us would play World of Warcraft together, and it was an absolute blast being in the same room. 

Adding a third person took the place from roomy to cramped, but we adjusted.  The problems got more and more annoying as time passed, and as most of them stemmed from where we lived we decided to start looking for a more comfortable place.  Aaron deserved his own room, and we desperately wanted a second bathroom.  A place where turning on a light switch wasn’t a fire hazard seemed like it might be a plus, and not having someone sleeping in the living room would be a definite improvement too.

Instead of moving we added another roomate.  Not only was there no room for a fourth person, but the guy in question wasn’t paying any bills.  He just sort of…lived there.  If you’ve ever seen the movie Half Baked we had our very own Guy on the Couch. 

If I haven’t mentioned it the place only had one bathroom.  With two people it was no big deal.  With three it was a big deal.  With four it was untenable.  To make matters worse the kitchen was like a warzone.  Every dish sat dirty on the counter, and the refrigerator usually required you to hold your breath before you opened it.   

I hated it and it gave me bitter flashbacks to the final years of my marriage, when I lived in indescribable filth.  Back then my floors were covered in fast food wrappers and other gargbage.  The refrigerator had evolved into a new form of life.  Trust me when I tell you the place was grim and you wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemy.

When I realized what I’d let my living situation devolve into I was furious with myself.  I’d made a promise that I’d never live like that again.  Yet that’s exactly what I was doing. 

Goal Resolution:   10/10

So how did my quest to escape the den of filth end?  Very, very well.  Jeff and I talked and we decided that getting a place with just the two of us was a must.  In May we moved into a two bedroom place with hardwood floors and an indoor washer / dryer.  We have heat and AC, and for the first time since moving home I no longer dread August. 

I love the place and work hard to keep it spotless.  The boost to my confidence and mental well being that comes from living in a nice place is immeasurable.  It completely changed the quality of my life.  I no longer fear going home, and when someone asks if they can come over I eagerly accept.  I show off my place with pride instead of fumbling for an excuse so they don’t see the hellhole where I live.

 

Goal #2- Find my purpose in life

I’ve heard people talk about the dreaded mid life crisis, but I’ve never understood what they meant until this year.  In my case the mid-life crisis was triggered by a sudden terrifying look at my life.  When I left Los Angeles I was making a six figure income.  I lived in a beautiful apartment.  I had the respect of my peers, and ate at the nicest places in the San Fernando Valley.

I gave all of that up when I moved home.  I told myself that money didn’t matter, and that true happiness would never be found as a yuppy living in LA.  I was burnt out and tired and I knew I needed a drastic change.  The problem was that while I had correctly identified the problem, I really had no solution for it. 

When I moved back to Santa Rosa I took a low paying entry level customer service job.  I turned down the promotion they offered me, because I was content to hunker down in my cube and stay out of the limelight.  Instead of forging a path to the top like I had at every other job I was content being a peon.

Work had been a big part of my life in Los Angeles, but after moving home instead of a career I just had a job.  I had also just broken up with Jen.  The only things of any real meaning in my life were the latest video games, and the roleplaying games I played with my friends.

I didn’t look think about the future, because I told myself I’d earned a break.  That might have been true, but losing sight of the future was damaging in ways I could never have predidcted.  I had no purpose in life, no goals.  For the first time in years I had no idea what I wanted to do. 

This destroyed my self-esteem, and  at first I didn’t even know why.  When I don’t have goals I stagnate very quickly, and it wasn’t long before I fell into a depressed funk.  I was miserable, but didn’t know what I could do to fix it.  What was I looking for?  A new job? A new relationship?  Was I trying to lose weight?  I just didn’t have the answers, and it drove me nuts because I desperately wanted them.

Goal Resolution: 10/10

A great deal of soul searching later I finally found the answer.  There wasn’t any one specific thing I needed to do to find my purpose in life.  In fact my goals didn’t really matter at all.  What matters is that I have goals.  As long as I am learning and improving I am happy, but if I get to a point where I’m treading water I become depressed and listless.  So I decided to test my theory by improving my life.

My first experiment was going back to school.  I took an American history and a programming course, which were both amazing.  Even better than the courses themselves was the immediate change I noticed.  Being back in school awakened a long dormant part of me.  It gave me direction and more importantly I was learning again.  I’d forgotten just how much I loved doing that, and bringing it back into my life showed me what I’d been missing.

As much as I loved going back to school it was an enormous amount of work.  I’m employed full time, and homework on top of a job was brutal.  I learned a lot in both classes, but I knew there was no way I was going to go back to school for eight solid years.  At two classes a semester that’s how long it would take me to get a B.S in computer science.  It just didn’t seem worth it.

Knowing that school wasn’t the answer I considered my options.  Learning was something I passionately loved, so whatever my purpose was it must involve that.  I looked closely at my life and asked myself when I was the happiest.  What did I enjoy most?

Those who’ve read the site for a while already know the answer, but at the time I was clueless.  I meandered around for a couple of months, and in late February I started writing again.  Within a few days a lightbulb switched on in my head.

I loved learning.  I also loved writing.  Why not learn to write?   Some of my earliest memories are of wanting to be an author, and it’s a dream I’ve chased my entire life.  I’d given up that dream, because somewhere along the way I stopped believing I could accomplish it.

That’s normal for most people, but not for me.  When I was a child I was blessed with the sort of arrogance only gifted children demonstrate.  I believed I could do anything, because by and large I could.  I succeeded at everything I set my mind to, and this was even more true at a young age.  In short I was used to being a genius and I took it for granted.

My early to mid twenties were a series of kicks to the balls that rudely disabused me of that notion. I divorced the love of my life, my high paying engineering job was outsourced, my cat died, I wrecked my brand new car and to top it all off I had to move back in with my parents for the first time since I was eighteen.  The next couple of years were brutal, and shifted my entire world on its axis.

Somewhere along the way I stopped trying, and started acting like a beaten dog.  My arrogance was gone, which some would say is a good thing.  The problem is that it took my fire and my confidence with it.  I became overly cautious and less willing to take risks.  I stopped believing in myself.  I stopped thinking I could achieve my dreams, that I was a badass capable of anything.

This understanding of what I had lost was both powerful and profound, and it only came about recently.  Everything snapped sharply into focus, and I saw myself with a clarity that had been lacking for a very long time.  Practically overnight I reclaimed what was missing.  I found my fire, and it still burns with the same intensity it did when I was younger.

I can’t even express how good that resolve feels.  I can do anything.  I am a badass.  I don’t care what other people say.  I know who I am.  I know what I can accomplish.  In three years I went from the mail room to Executive Vice President of a mortgage bank.  I’ve won just about every MtG tournament I’ve ever entered.  In an afternoon I made a program that revolutionized my department at work.  I wrote a novel and published several short stories this year.

I am filled to the brim with potential, and never again will I forget that.  I can do anything, as long as I try.

  

Goal #3- Put together a new gaming group

The vast majority of people reading my site are gamers, so many of you will understand my next goal.  I’ve played pen and paper RPGs since I was six, and I am still just as passionate about them nearly three decades later.  I take my gaming seriously, because I like telling amazing stories.  Doing so requires the right kind of players, and the sad fact is that not all of my friends fit that mold.

My old gaming group suffered from three major problems.  First, there were just too many of us.  If you haven’t played a lot of pen and paper games it might not be immediately apparent why that’s an issue.  Playing an RPG is kind of like watching a movie.  The more characters you have the less screen time each character gets.  We had six players, which meant most of your evening was spent ‘off screen’.  As you can imagine this gets really boring as you are essentially watching other people play while you sit around.

The second sticking point was that our group’s style tended more towards combat and rules mongering and less towards story and character development.  We played our games more like a boardgame and less like living, breathing characters in a fictional world.  People didn’t get into character, they talked about what their characters did.  Both styles are good in their own way, I just prefer the latter.

The final kiss of death was that our group liked to get good and loaded before gaming.  I ran more than one of these games so trust me when I say running a game while innebriated does not a good story make.  For me these games are all about the stories, so this drove me nuts.

Don’t get me wrong.  I had a great time with my previous gaming group.  Most of them are very old friends, and I can’t think of a finer group to sit and round BS with.  I love hanging out with them, and some of the games we played were a lot of fun.  I loved playing with them.  I just didn’t like running games for them.

Goal Resolution:  10/10

My own style tends towards smaller groups and more intense roleplay.  Nor do I enjoy gaming while inebriated, so I had a difficult choice to make.  In the end I decided to leave the gaming group and build my own.  When our current campaign ended I started the long hunt.

I created a campaign website, a Meetup Group and I started advertising in local gaming shops.  Within a few weeks I had three players who’s style matched my own, and my new Exalted campaign was under way.  I miss hanging out with the old group, but my current one is amazing. 

Our sessions are an absolute blast and I’ve been running the same game since July.  Things only seem to get better the longer we play, and if I have my way this is the group I’ll be gaming with for years.

 

Goal #4- Get in Shape & Lose Weight  

I’ve battled with my weight since I was eighteen.  I’ve never been morbidly obese, but I’ve carried between 50-75  extra pounds for nearly my entire adult life.  Every year I resolve to get in shape, and some years are more successful than others.  This is a goal I think many can relate too, so most of you know how difficult it can be.

At the beginning of 2009 I weighted 250 pounds.  My goal was to lose fifty pounds, and ending the year 200 pounds would have made me ecstatic.

Goal Resolution: 7/10

I didn’t come anywhere close to my weight loss goal.  As of this writing I am 235 pounds, which is where I imagine I’ll finish the year.  Still, it’s hard to be too disappointed.  I did lose weight  even if it as only fifteen pounds instead of my goal of fifty.

What’s more I started going to gym again in May.  I was lucky enough to find one a few blocks from home, and have worked out pretty steadily for the second half of the year.  I’ve started going every day and really notice a difference in the way I feel. 

 

Goal #5- Get Back into Paintball

I was never the last kid picked for dodgeball, but I wasn’t the first either.  I ran varsity track in high school, and played about ten years of little league.  That was pretty much it as far as sports goes other than the occasional pickup game of basketball growing up. 

Imagine my surprise when I found paintball.  The very first time I picked up a gun I tore up the field.  In my third game ever I took out seven opponents before they brought me down.  This was done with a crappy rental gun that shot about as straight as most politicians.  I fell in love instantly, and dumped a couple grand into a nice gun and a big pile of gear.

I played religiously for the first year, but after that I started going less often and eventually stopped entirely.  Since moving home almost three years ago I keep telling myself I want to get back into it, but the thing is it’s hard to play if you’re fat.  The weight loss goal goes hand in hand with this one, so you probably know how this is going to end.

Goal Resolution: 1/10

I gave myself a single point for actually getting the paintball gear out of storage and taking apart my gun.  Unfortunately that’s as close as I got to actually playing paintball in 2009 =/.

  

Goal #6- Deciding whether or not to Date

I’m 33 years old, have no children and very little baggage.  I’m not bad looking, intelligent, reasonably witty and I make decent money.  I’m a published author, have lived all over the country and am a good conversationalist.  I’ve been in several longterm relationships, and many short term ones.   I don’t have any problem meeting new women.  I’m not shy and have never had an issue landing a girl when I set my mind to it.

So why have I been single for the last two years?  Because I’ve had no desire to get back into the dating game.  Not because I’m afraid or because I worry about being rejected.  I’ve stayed single because I’m just so weary of getting burned.  I’m tired of winching up the gates to my heart, only to leave myself open to inevitable heartbreak. I know that’s a rather cynical view, but in my case its accurate.   I’ve been burned badly, and I’m not eager to repeat the experience.

I’m one of those people with the good fortune to have fallen in love not once, but twice.  I don’t mean the kind of love that grows over time, the way warmth seeps into you when you lay in a nice hot bath.  No, I mean the all consuming passion of knowing you’ve met your other half.  The person you were meant to spend your life with.

The first was my ex-wife Darlene.  After my divorce I had a hard time getting back in the game, because Dar was something special.  She connected with me on so many levels that we regularly finished each other’s sentences.  Looking at her filled me with something beyond happiness, beyond contentment.  I loved her with the purity of innocence, and she returned my feelings with the same ferocity.  It was heady and intense, like a drug.

My second love was a straw haired beauty named Jen from the corn filled state of Iowa.  Not only was she gorgeous, but she has the kindest soul I’ve ever met.  There was a gentless to her like dew on a spiderweb just before the sun crests the horizon.  Fragile and fleeting, but beautiful in a way that catches your breath. 

She was too perfect for this world, or at least too perfect for me.  In our case the long distance killed the relationship, and when I lost her she took something that I haven’t been able to recover since.  Something precious and unidentifiable.

Jen and I broke up almost three years ago.  Since then I’ve dated other women, none of which lasted more than a few dates.  None of them kindled the fire that I felt with Dar or Jen.  None  caught my interest, and while the sex would have been nice I cut each of them off before it got to that stage.

So that’s the story.  Now you know why I asked myself whether or not I wanted to date, or wait for the Japanese to perfect robotic women instead.  It’s a question I spent a lot of time mulling over this year.  Even as pain fades I still remember the horrible damage the end of those relationships wrought. 

Yet I often wonder if such a negative outlook keeps me from seeing the positives.  When I was in those relationships I woke up every day feeling like I wanted to sing.  I loved with an intensity that defies description.  So the ultimate question, then, is the pain of the inevitable breakup worth the initial bliss?

Goal Resolution: 8/10

My final answer is yes, it is worth the pain.   I want to find a woman who makes my heart sing.  Someone who cups my soul between delicate hands, whose smile makes the sunrise pale.  If a relationship with such a woman eventually ends it will have been worth it for the wonderful memories.  If not, maybe I’ll find ‘the one’ and actually grow old with her.

Unfortunately this decision wasn’t reached until I flew out to Atlanta a few weeks ago, so I haven’t had a chance to act on it.  I gave myself an 8 out of 10 anyway, because even before I knew the question I was working on a solution.

I knew that if I was going to date there were many things about my life I’d want to change.  You’ve read where I lived.  How many women do you know who’d walk into a house like that and not immediately turn around and walk out?  That wasn’t my only problem of course, but it was a big one.  It was fixed by moving into my new place, which any date I bring home will love.

I also am wise enough to know that the crap we’re taught about women is just that.  Crap.  Women aren’t after a man who’s funny or nice.  Those are both perks, but the fairer sex are just as shallow as we are and don’t let them tell you otherwise.  They want Brad Pitt not Danny Devito.  A nice set of abs goes a lot further than a funny joke.

That’s why I hit the gym so heavily this year.  If I want to meet the woman who’s going to blow me away I need to look my best.  In addition to working on the weight loss I redid my wardrobe, dropped my glasses in favor of contacts, and snuck into the dentist for the first time in over a decade.

I feel and look better than I have in a long time.  I live in a nice place.  I drive a nice car.  I have a nice job.  My fiction is finally taking off.  More important than any of that I have the resolve to keep bettering myself, because I know she’s out there somewhere and I think I’m finally ready to go out and find her.

I sincerely hope 2010 is the year I meet her, but if not at the very least I will be in a position to snatch her up if she appears.

  

Goal #7- Work on my FICO

If you’ve ever had bad credit you know the fear that lives in the pit of your stomach whenever it comes up.  From hunting for a new apartment to applying for a loan, if your FICO sucks you feel that awful mix of embarassment and despair that comes along with bad credit.  I know, because in my mid 20s my FICO dropped to 580 and lived there for several years.

When I bought my car in 2005 I was genuinely worried if they’d approve me at all, and was quite relieved when someone did.  They charged me 23.9% interest, and if you work anywhere near the world of finance you probably cringed when you heard that number.  If you didn’t then you should have, because it means I would have paid about 180% of the car’s value in interest.  So my $13,000 Elantra would have cost me over $30,000 once interest was factored in.

Goal Resolution: 10/10

Fortunately, I worked for a mortage bank and understood the important of my credit score.  I also knew how to raise it, and that part of doing so meant suffering through my horrible interest rate.  Within a year my credit improved, and I refinanced down to a 16.9%.  I kept up the hard work, and last year I refinanced my car to a 4.99% loan.  It took nearly five years, but I finally have good credit.

My FICO as of this writing is 776 and for someone who’s long suffered from a dismal score you have no idea how good that feels.  For the first time in my life I have good credit.  I don’t stress when the subject comes up anymore.  I don’t worry about being able to get a cell phone, or an apartment or a loan. I even set my sister up with a cell phone, because her credit was pretty poor.  This is one of the areas I am proudest this year, because it’s the culmination of a five year journey.  I can’t believe I finally made it.

Way to go me!

 

Unexpected Achievements

If you’ve made it this far I’m both surprised and impressed.  You’ve waded through a 4,000 word wall of text!  Don’t worry we’re most of the way done.  My unexpected achievements section is the final one every year.  It came about because I realized that much of what I accomplish happened either by accident, or happy coincidence.  Not everything I achieve is a goal, so this area recounts the unexpected things that happened this year.

 

UA #1- My writing carreer

Every English teacher I’ve ever had has told me that I was meant to be a writer.  By the time I was 18 I was so certain of that fact that I had all but cashed my first royalty check without even picking up a pen.  There was only one problem.  My writing sucked.  I was devestated when I belted out fiction, only to realize it was flat, lifeless and boring.  None of my friends and family were even willing to read it, and as this was before the advent of the web I couldn’t even go online for help.

So I gave up.  I’d given in to the Big Lie, which is that writers are born not made.  Oh what a lie that is.  Some writers are born with talent, but even the best of us needs to hone our craft to realize that potential.  My problem wasn’t that I lacked talent.  I’d just never learned how to tap into it.  So this year I decided to remedy that.

In February I started working on an Exalted novel, since it was an established world and would be a great place for a new author to practice.  Up to that point the longest piece I’d ever written had been 35,000 words and that was over five years ago.  I wanted to see if I could better that, and resolved to learn as much as I could about writing.

Six months later I’d read a dozen books on writing.  I learned about characterization, plot, and many other fundamentals that helped me learn how to tell a good story.  These principles have transformed my writing, but none as much as the last book I read.  It was called Line by Line, and is only 150 pages long.  After reading that book my command of the English language leapt to a whole new level.

I put my new found skills to work and belted out a 160,000 word novel.  The average novel is only 100,000 words long so that’s quite an accomplishment.  I’d have been happy if that was the only thing I wrote this year, but it was just the tip of the iceberg.

I completed the rough draft of my first original novel, The Bond of Jhordil.  This is the novel that’s been kicking around in my head since high school, so that’s a major, major feather in my cap.  Especially when you consider that I wrote TWO novels in one year.  That’s nothing short of amazing.

Nor is it the only thing I wrote.  Revenge of the Gamer was born this year, so every article and page on this site was created in the last twelve months.  The same holds true for my other two blogs, the Unconquered Sun and The Bond of Jhordil. 

I submitted a story to the Dragonmount Anthology, which looks like it will be accepted.  I also sent several stories and a slew of Evil GM articles to the Rifter, all of which were accepted.  I wrote a column for one of the largest gaming sites on the internet www.rpg.net, and continued submitting my Evil GM series to Gamegrene.

All told I wrote more than 1,000,000 words in 2009.  That’s right, a million words in a year.  That’s about 3,000 words every single day for a full 12 months.  For the first time in my life I can call myself and author, and know that it’s true.

 

UA #2- Meeting Brandon Sanderson & Harriet McDougal

This achievement is tangentally related to my writing.  Back in high school one of my favorite series was The Wheel of Time by a guy named Robert Jordan. In 2007 he passed away, leaving his masterpiece unfinished.  His widow Harriet selected a successor, and she chose Brandon Sanderson for the job.

This year Brandon released book 12 of the Wheel of Time, A Gathering Storm.  I applied with Tor books to be a Stormleader for the book signing.  Basically I worked the crowd while he signed books, and afterwords we got a chance to go out to dinner and play Magic the Gathering.

It was an amazing experience, and it gave me a glimpse into the shoes I one day hope to fill.  I got a chance to see Brandon, and realized that he wasn’t much different from me.  That made me more sure than ever that I can publish novels, and in a year or two I’ll stand beside him as an author.

UA #3- Getting Promoted

I’ve been working for Redwood Credit Union for a little over two years now.  About eight months ago I was drafted into the Financial Assistance Department, which is a nice name for collections.  At first I dreaded the work, but in time I adjusted.  I’ve done cold calling before, and this is far easier than calling brokers ever was.

A full time position opened in that department, and as I was already doing the work I decided to apply.  They accepted me, and I ended up with a nice fat raise while still doing the same work I was before.  Now that’s the kind of promotion I can get behind!

 

Overall Score: 9/10

2009 rocked.  It was a far better year than either 2008 or 2007, and has paved the way for 2010 to be even better.  I still can’t believe that I wrote over a million words, or that I wrote and submitted a novel.  This has been the best year for me in a long time, and I’m entering the New Year not just thankful for what I have but also excited about the possibilties in store for me!

Keep an eye out for my next post, 2010′s goals!