The Dockworker: Author's Note: Leavetakings

• Posted by Clement Bilhorn August 5, 2012 - 438 views

  Readers--it's been real. 

  What started out, for me, as an attempt to basically play a game I was going to play anyways, take pictures, and ask people to read it, turned into something else entirely. I was surprised to find that, not only did I have readers that actually enjoyed my writing, but also that there was an actual story developing. 

  The simple act of writing about what I'd done in Skyrim actually turned the Dockworker into a character from day one, giving him an existence in word that he lacked in-game, where he's only the digital avatar of whatever I want to do. So I've heard authors talk about their characters coming to life and making decisions of their own, but I never expected to see it so plainly, like when some wayward vampirism sends me down a darker path than I'd planned or a dragon devours an entire town, effectively ostracizing me from that region for the future.

  And so I realized that what the Dockworker would like to do is take a break. He's done a lot in a few months--revived the Thieves' Guild, ended the war, become a vampire, and killed over 9000 wolves. He can't always be adventuring, or the part of him that really is just a video game will begin to crowd out the part that exists in this blog.

  That said, I don't think I'm done writing. I plan to do more--I'm just not sure what yet. Simply starting over with a new character would be too much like the Dockworker--Skyrim is a world that rhymes with uncanny frequency. So to differentiate my next project, I'm presently experimenting with a few new mods I've found, as well as working on some of my own. If all goes well, the next series will be more story-based, but still following a similar format.

  And if all that fails, well, when I left the Dockworker, he was still in Skyrim. And Skyrim's not going anywhere.

  ~Clement