Control: I Took a Month Off From Everything…

Amazon.com: Crimes of Youth and Passion eBook : Trump, Daniel: Kindle Store

I, Daniel Trump, aka Dalton Lewis, took a month off. I know. Most people either have school or a real job and cannot take a month off of work or school. They have responsibilities. I am too lucky. I am blessed. I am so blessed, in fact, that I have a terrible, debilitating mental illness that prevents me from working or succeeding in school. I am mentally ill, with paranoid schizophrenia, and I am considered disabled — I cannot hold down a normal job. I can, however, write about life with a mental illness.

My month off all started with Christmas and birthday gifts. My birthday is December 30th so my birthday and Christmas gifts are lumped into one. For my holiday gifts I wanted to play new video games — I hadn’t play new video games in a long time and had played old video games for thousands of hours. I needed something new. I wanted to change with the times and not just play classic games on steam.

We tried to get me a graphics card for my five-year-old desktop computer. I went to the local store and asked them to recommend a good graphics card and install it for me. They said that they could do it in four days. So I could not play the day I wanted to play new games- I had to wait four days. Then, after four days, the guy said that he didn’t think that the games would play very well on this computer. It simply wasn’t good enough to play them.

I bought a new computer — that day, with little forethought. I know — maybe I should not have. I did get my money’s worth out of the new computer, though. I got a new computer and immediately loaded up Badlur’s Gate 3, a game that I wanted to play. This game was the newest game which was based on Dungeons and Dragons. I have been playing video games based on Dungeons and Dragons since middle school — which was over thirty years ago. I very much wanted to play this game. Dungeons and Dragons is a large part of my life, and I wanted to try the newest game based on its characters and lore.

I started to play, and wow. This game is amazing. I started to play it night and day. In it your character has a mind flayer parasite in his or her brain, trying to turn you into a mind flayer. One needs to uncover the people responsible for this and for a sinister religion worshiping something or someone called the Absolute. All the bad guys are joining forces to work for this Absolute and attack Baldur’s Gate. You have to stop them. I was good — I was a good person. I didn’t stay up past midnight. I did brush my teeth and eat reasonable meals at the right time. I just didn’t do anything other than that and play the game — for the month of January. I had spent the previous year writing half a dozen books and working like crazy and didn’t think that I had accomplished very much so I wanted to take some time to rest and recharge and develop some new ideas and plans. I didn’t want to continue with what wasn’t working.

I played every character choice — almost. I haven’t played as a bard or a druid. I suppose that I can do that some other time. I will — eventually — play every class and most of the races in an attempt to experience the full game and every ending. I get to play a fantasy realm hero who fights to defend the greater Badlur’s Gate area from a host of evildoers who have many plots to destroy and take over our beloved city of Baldur’s Gate. I have been protecting the computer city of Baldur’s Gate since the late 1990’s when I played Baldur’s Gate 1.

I took a month off from life. I didn’t go to strategy gaming tournaments. I didn’t go to very many movies — I saw the Beekeeper a couple of times with my Dad. I didn’t do much except play this game constantly. I loved this game so much. I don’t know why I enjoy video games so much — this game lets me be another person for a bit, explore a different universe for a short time, and I love that. I love the adventure that it provides.

And something very strange happened during that month. A few of you, readers, started to buy my newest book, Crimes of Youth and Passion. It’s now my third-biggest-seller of my twenty or so books. We’ll see how it does when more people read it. Thanks for checking it out to those of you who bought it.

Today I am back to reality. I wrote notes on a new novel for a couple of hours, I wrote a blog entry, I am working out during the football games, and I will read fifty pages of something. I am back to work today after about a month of a break. It was a good break, but I’m glad to get back to reality.

Thanks, and take care, friends.