Taking A Slam

I have played World of Warcraft for several years now and have enjoyed it at many different levels. At first, I was obsessive. Never having played anything like this before, I wanted to be at it 24/7. I could see why they called it World of Warcrack.

As I became used to working with the game, I entered what I called the documentation phase. I journaled each day's activities. Part of my theatre teacher "thing" I guess. I had a log for each of my toons and wrote down quests completed, the names of anyone with whom I raided etc. This became an all new form of obsession.

After more than a year in the journal phase, I became more neutral about it all. I didn't play as often and in fact could go days without even logging in to see how auctions were going or which of my friends were on.

And then I got cancer. For four montshs, I couldn't play. Just sitting up was an effort and there is just no way to play a game other than a point and click type while lying flat in a chaise. Instead, I began to write. Using the logs I had kept and characters I developed, I wrote stories about my main and they eventually became my blog--The Adventures of Shalimara.

Thinking that other WoW people would enjoy the work, I posted it on my guild's web page and on one of the off-topic forums in the WoW game. SLAM! Was I ever wrong! I got criticized for everything--for blogging, for not being original (although the stories don't follow a WoW plot line but one I created). I got annihilated for posting it at all. And I was told that people don't want to read "cool stories" and that just the word "blog" turned people off.

Well, getting hammered like that makes you think. I should be writing, not playing a game, just as much as they should be reading, not playing a game. This is one of the problems with society. We play too many games. I don't mean just online stuff, but games with each others' emotions and with each others' lives. We have become to comfortable just downing someone else's creativity. Shouldn't all creativity be recognized and applauded, even in this mind-numbing society in which most social interaction comes in the form of electronic print? Yikes.