Jack of all trades, master of all….

Have you guys ever heard of Solid Snake? 

Now you’ll either have reacted to that question with 1) Errr…no? or 2) Oh yeah, isn’t he that guy from…that game… or 3)Duh, of course I have, he’s only the most badass video game character of all time!

It’s no secret that I love video games, and as I’ve previously looked at two characters from novels, I thought I’d shift gear, Snake being a beautiful analogy to how I’m feeling right now.

So let’s start things off with a brief bio to get y’all up to speed. Now this is pretty complicated so I’ll try to keep things as simple as possible. Solid Snake is a soldier, he is the soldier, facing down entire armies and their evil commanders…right, I hear you say, just like every other video game character.

Ahh, just wait. You see what makes Snake special is that more often than not, he is sneaking past his enemies rather facing them head on, using his wits rather than his guns to infiltrate the enemy stronghold and save the day. Throw in political intrigue, the negative effects of warfare and more plot twists than all of M. Night Shyamalan films put together (but please never talk about The Last Airbender, I still wake up crying at the inhumanity of it) and you have something that has long regarded been one of the greatest characters of all time.

Right, so what does this have to do with anything?

  

You see, as well as being well known for all of that, Snake’s game Metal Gear Solid is also legendary for its boss fights. Over the course of the story, Snake has to face down his old unit, the elite FOXHOUND, six men and women who are each the complete masters of their chosen area.

Psycho Mantis – Psychic forces

Revolver Ocelot – Small arms  

Vulcan Raven – Heavy weapons  

Decoy Octopus – Camouflage and Deception

Sniper Wolf – Sniper

Liquid Snake – Snake’s twin brother, and genius tactician.

Over the course of the game Snake has to take each one and beat them at their own field, a sniper battle across a snowy field with Sniper Wolf, a mental struggle against Psycho Mantis, a “fastest gun in the west” stand off against Revolver Ocelot and so on.

I absolutely loved this, and can remember it with blinding clarity even now, eleven years on. I loved the way Snake adapted and took oneach one, beating each master of their discipline, and coming out stronger. I wanted to be Snake, Jack of all trades, master of all.

Well, eleven years on, I’m twenty three, and being master of all is proving far harder than I thought. To be honest most days, I pretty much feel like this,

So it’s no secret that although I have been training to be a doctor for almost five years, I don’t really want to do it as a career. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’m bad at it, I’m actually pretty damn good (well some days at least, at other times I feel like the aforementioned picture) but it just takes so much of my life up. I’ll leave home at 830 and won’t get back till 1830, then I’ll need to study for around two hours at home. Argghhhhh.

And the more I put into medicine ( I really don’t want to fail) the less I have for my TRUE passion, my writing. My editor is currently looking over my manuscript, and I’ll have lots of edits to do when it gets back (fun….).

I’ve also just finished planning my next novel. I don’t know how other people plan stuff, but I really go to town, ended up writing around 11,000 words for it. That’s almost as long as my dissertation last year,

 

 I know Psyduck. It hurts my head too. 

So I guess that’s why I feel like sometimes it’s all a little too much. It’s not like I can talk to anyone about it either, I don’t know any writers. On the other hand if you wanted to talk to a nurse, a physio, a healthcare assistant, a medical student, a doctor (any kind, trust me I’ve met them all) I’m your man.

I guess I just feel kind of alone sometimes, struggling on, trying to juggle all of this, some semblance of a social life and of course find time to play Skyrim (for what is life without Skyrim???)

Do you ever feel like this? Writer or otherwise? I guess you’ve just got to keep true to your vision and remember what you’re doing it all for. And don’t even get me started on whole neuroses on “will anyone even want to read my book???”

Thanks for listening to my rant. I promise that in my next blog post I will actually write something pertaining to my actual novel. Till then, let’s take a leaf out of Squirtle’s book and just chillax, huh? 

 

 If only Squirtles. If. Only.