At times in my life, I have given consideration to putting my love of writing to work as a journalist.
In fact, one of the first things I ever did as a writer that wasn’t for school was mock up a fake newsletter on the computers in my elementary school’s old IBM lab.
That was fun, at the time, but then people thought it was real, and reality isn’t something I like dealing with all that much. I’m not found of nonfiction. I like stories, not articles.
Not that long ago, I did give journalism another try. I was able to get a position with a locally oriented online news site, got hired to write about video games.
I thought it was right up my alley.
The thing is, though, I was not current on most video games. I also have a distinct preference for role-playing games, not so much the platform or first/third person shooters that are far more popular. Add in being broke at the time and unable to afford new games, there wasn’t a lot for me to write about. I just didn’t have access.
Oh, and it was locally focused. So not only did I need to report on a game, I needed to make it connect to my region.
That was kind of… difficult.
I also had issues with their site, couldn’t take pictures of my games easily on my Xbox 360 because I didn’t have a modded one, and I had issues with converting the videos I made from my computer games to upload them. I never got any notification for comments on my articles or anything like that, and their interface made connecting the articles frustrating and near impossible.
Strangely enough, I still get emails like they expect me to post articles, even though I haven’t been on there in over a year. I don’t understand that, and I admit, when Star Wars the Old Republic came out, I was tempted to write an article.
Of course, at the time, I was also working on two novels and posting a bit of The Not-So-Super Superhero every day. Fiction writing is my writing of choice, and that is never going to change.
I do blog these days, making me a sort of journalist, but at heart, I’m a novel writer, and I always will be.
