Brraaarrgh he roared, shitty but somehow glad of it all. It is the 73rd of Jactobuary and I am feeling the pinch.

It occurs to me that the trick to writing is to have something to write about. I know what you're thinking; "Has he been wolfing members of that delicious, fragrant and chatoyant yet highly toxic species of forest frog again?" The wanser (better than an answer!) is yes. I mean, no. What I mean is, frogs have just as much right to churn out an aimless blog post as the rest of us, unladen with the ability to write much less comprehend though they might be. I press on.

What separates us from the humble frog is a distinct sense of self; while the cockily lustrous amphibian may outreach humanity where sheer toxicity is concerned, this frankly useful characteristic is just no match for that vital self awareness when it comes to writing. Aristotle himself would no doubt agree with me; he was a prat though. Back to my original point.

If one needs something to write about, one must engage in activities, carry out tasks, interact with the world and those in it. In short, a writer needs experiences. Sam Keith taught me that, bless him.

These experiences your average writer must, um, experience fill that cavernous void, heretofore empty, begging to be furnished with a glut of rippling dates, names, conversations, impressions, fears, joy, impudent gesticulation, each washing over the other in a subterranean ocean of material.

Or, there's the alternative. I am currently engrossed in fleshing out this lesser known technique. I will explain.

Rule number one: Do (now this is important) nothing. That's it, more or less. Your first inclination will be to do something, anything; surely to write, one must have something write about (for the crab eyed, that was in the first paragraph. The likelihood of crabs reading this thing is roughly equal to that of people, an irony not lost on me despite my occasional references to an audience I know full well does not exist. If any crabs are reading this, well done). Aha, but that is the real trick isn't it? Do nothing, then write. The words will flow like the verdant juices of a freshly crushed frog, though they will hold little meaning.

That's what it boils down to. A total absence of anything resembling experiential content will inevitably lead to sparkling prose about dead frogs. If this withering burst of insight does not floor you, then I have no idea what to write next.

In fact, forget all that.

Gamer's fatigue

I'm worn out. That is to say, virtual me is worn out. He's been under constant fire for weeks and at turns has tired of it, but without fail has returned to the battlefield for more, reasons for which known only to himself. Eventually, it dawned on him that this endless conflict was just that, endless. Fucking interminable actually. His accuracy was improving but his kdr was jammed at around 0.87 and the myriad random deaths routine was wearing awfully thin.

Once this epiphany was properly played out (this was not the typical epiphany where you see a moose hit by a beer truck and suddenly realize at that very moment that you want to be a fire spotter; this was more gradual, a supple twisting of sinewed gears) he gradually dipped a pixelated toe into waters unknown yet utterly familiar.

His first sojourn beyond the borders of modern combat led him to barren wastes, though they teemed with mutated insectoid life. His reflexes sharpened by months of intense yet farcical weaponized tomfoolery had left him jittery; the thud of rock on soil as a skittering cockroach dislodged some nearby debris caused him to whirl expectantly, holographic scope primed and grenades at the ready, though he had neither.

The slower pace eventually settled his frayed nerves and he set about actually communicating with the local inhabitants rather than atomizing them with laser guided ordnance. On entering proper the wastes, he quickly discovered that weapon and foe were primitive, though no less deadly for it and he eventually succumbed to a 6 foot long scorpion.

The fallout from this disheartening turn of events was largely positive; he determined that this transition was viable and a return visit was warranted. In the meantime, his horizons expanded, he set about assisting the plight of a rebel cell on a Mars colony. Armed with his mighty demoltion hammer, he cut bloody swathes through callous military, special menace reserved for those directly responsible for the death of his brother whom he had only just made the acquaintance of. The red dust of Mars swirled around him, coating his figure in thick Martian burgundy and leaving blood red his fellow faction members as they stood, earnest, at the precipice.

The shackles were off; the chain, dragging and whipping, snakelike, though the dust of differing universes behind him. His future before him; varied, prosperous, ripe with choice and unencumbered by noob toobing fuckshits that spoke in broken timbre and hadn't started shaving yet.