Sunday, February 9, 2014

The Writer Game---Come Take A Turn

Long winter days and nights call for an evening of board games. If you're tired of Monopoly, Scrabble and Clue, maybe you'd like to try a new product I thought of recently.

The Writer Game

First, select a game piece. You have your choice of small metal object: kindle, pen, coffee mug, laptop, or wine glass.

Next, examine the game board. Your goal is to get to the "Published Book" square at the end, but between the starting line and the finish line, the path is littered with setbacks.

Roll the dice and see how you do.

Oh no. You landed on "Spends Too Much Time On Facebook" and lose a turn.

Everyone else lands on things like "A friend brings dinner to your house so you have extra time to write. Move ahead 2,000 words." Or "You're in the zone and write 8,000 words without breaking a sweat." 

Finally it's your turn again. You roll the dice and hope for a seven which would put you on "You Get a Five Star Review and an extra turn."

Sadly, you roll a six. "Someone gave your book a one star review and complained of 'all the spanking'. You whine about it on Facebook and to several friends, then drink too much wine. Lose another turn."

Geez. You're not getting anywhere.

But, you don't give up. You wait and take your next turn. 

Woohoo. You land on a lucky square and get to draw from the Productivity Cards piled on the board. You take the top one. "Kids are at grandma's and your husband works late. You write 5,000 words and move ahead six places."

Oh yeah! Now you're cooking. Another lucky roll and you land on "Inspiration finally strikes in the shower. You write 2,000 words wrapped in a towel."

What a hot streak. You get another Productivity Card: "You realize that you can use a scene you deleted from something else. You find it buried in your hard drive, give it a couple tweaks and suddenly you're 8,000 words closer to your goal."

 You can't wait for your next turn. You're just a few spaces from reaching "Published Book" and you know you're going to get there well ahead of your competitors. 

Not so fast…you roll snake eyes and end up on "Your editor/critique partner points out a giant plot hole. Go back ten spaces and delete 5,000 words."

Sigh.

Even though it's frustrating, you just can't stop playing. It's the best game in the world.





22 comments:

  1. I love this! 'Someone gave your book a one star review and complained of 'all the spanking'.
    I'm giggling over here :)

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    1. Thanks, Casey! Glad I could give you a laugh this morning.

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  2. Love this post - and you are so very right. I'm hooked on this worse than Candy Crush and I'm not even trying to give it up.

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  3. Hilarious Celeste! Thanks for sharing this! (:

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  4. Ha! Most excellent. I lost my game piece, I think, but I'm still sitting at the game table. ;)

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    1. Once I had to sell my Monopoly game piece to my brother because I was out of everything. I had to use my finger. Fortunately, he didn't take that.

      Strangely, I've considered giving him the finger several times since then.

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  6. LOL, too funny, Celeste! I wanna play! :)

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  7. I play this game every day! That's why it sounded so familiar.

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  8. Very funny. I'm glad I am not playing this game on my own. I wonder if there is an app for it :-)

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  9. Clever game, Celeste. I like the part where there's no "Go to Jail" square. Writers in jail are just too Oscar Wilde. :) I want to land on one of the 8,000 word days!

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  10. Loved this game, Celeste!
    LOL, I have actually done the "inspiration in the shower" thing, and immediately called a girl friend, while dripping wet, to work through a few plot holes.
    I think she is still my friend.
    ;)

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  11. This is Awesome, Celeste. Cute, funny, and inspirational. I too want to land on the 8000 word count and then pause the game until I finish my wip.. lol

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    1. Wouldn't it be great if all you had to do was roll the dice and get one of those big days? :)

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  12. Hey, are you sitting here next to me as I'm doing this? I think the only thing that saves me here is that you all are sleeping when I'm up to write so by the time the US wakes up, I'm ready to goof off - I mean promote - on FB!

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  13. Very clever, Celeste, and unfortunately quite true. :)

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  14. I love this. I'm very tempted to hunt down a blank game board template (This being a tool from my middle school teaching days) so you can create it.

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