Ever since I can remember, I have loved systems. I’m an INTJ personality, after all! This is what drew me to roleplaying games and to computer programming and table-top games. Games have a defined set of rules which are fascinating to me. Programming was an outlet for creating a system of rules that a computer follows. Sometimes I wish I’d goe into games programming, but I never really had the skillset. I was always one step behind where all the cutting edge programmers were at.
When I met and married NE, I thought myself an excellent writer and was a bit arrogant in that regard. I’d always got top grades in English classes and I was always admired by my teachers. I never had aspirations toward writing, however. I was smug in my little world of non-writing. Then NE came along and she’d always dreamed of writing; was in fact very passionate about it. She took up writing and I didn’t want to be left out. And, of course, I wanted to show her how brilliant I was. When I actually wrote a few short stories, I found it was a lot harder than it seemed. My prose was florid and overwritten. It was everything that I didn’t like in fantasy and it was coming out of my pen! The bubble was well and truly burst.
I perservered, though and after a time my writing became somewhat better. NE and I even worked on a project together, a fantasy world, which never actually entered the writing stage. What entranced me immediately was the world building. As you can imagine, I could build world after world, especially systems of magic or belief. I was never happier than when designing and crafting and creating.
There is a danger in these waters, however fertile they are. I can create and design for hours and hours and hours, but I don’t enjoy writing more than I enjoy the building. So I tend to create worlds without end.
On a positive note, I have written a whole novel. A humorous fantasy along the lines of Terry Pratchett, but neither the two agents or one publisher wanted to buy it. I tired of rejection too quickly, but maybe I’ll dust it off to send out again.
Wish me luck.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: briggs, intj, world building, writing
