I Have An Addictive Personality

Hello World,
Do you like to play video games? I do. But I don't own an Xbox or a hundred high-tech, 3D, multi-player games. I like small games. Simple games. Flash games you can play for free online.

My favorite is probably Freecell, a more-strategic version of Solitaire, but mostly I like practically every third game posted on www.onemorelevel.com and www.bored.com. At lunch I'll troll their sites, find some weird thing, and just enjoy. The problem is the I also like to play games to wind down in the evening... and ultimately instead of writing stories.

Yeah, I have a problem.

The truth is, I've played hundreds of these dumb 'little' games, and some of them aren't so little. They take hours or even days to 'beat'. Every so often I swear them off for a few weeks, and I genuinely get a crap load of writing done. So why do I go back? Why do I keep telling myself, "As soon as I beat this level... as soon as I finish this one game... as soon as I break my record... as soon as, as soon as, as soon as..."

I'm pretty sure my addictive personality likes the immediate feeling of success. Writing stories certainly doesn't do that. Writing rarely takes hours. Instead, it takes days and weeks and months and even years. And what's worse is that when I'm done, I then have that basic problem of the entire world ignoring my accomplishment.

And we authors understand why you do this. We really do. Reading takes time. And reading something a friend wrote is a chore. It's like homework! And what do you do if it sucks? God help you to avoid THAT awkward conversation. But here's the thing, whether we suck at writing or not, without your assistance, we amount to nothing. The reason we write is to share, nothing less.

But that ultimately relates to my biggest addiction of all. You see, when you read my story and say it's great, when you recommend it to a friend, when some stranger actually pays money and then puts a really nice review on amazon... well, there's nothing in this world I'll work harder for than that.

So help a brother out, why don't you world? Start with something short if you're not a big reader, but read something. And be honest if it really does suck. We can't improve if you lie to us. BTW, this story is short, and it's something I'm genuinely proud of. ;-)

[insert plug for comments/followers/etc]

Addictively yours,
-K.

Ps: Yesterday's Writing Results... no new writing, but I did rejoin Duotrope.com (an author's site for finding & tracking submissions) and even found a magazine to which I'd like to submit one of my stories. Did NOT actually submit the story, though.