It’s bloody cold isn’t it? The last two days I’ve been staring out my window watching constant snowfall, the kind that lies and blankets the ground. It’s been a veritable winter wonderland round my way. What is there to do in such times, when going outside is foolhardy? [1] My own plan is to crack on with volume three of my memoir, provisionally titled Younger Hotter Tighter [2]

But why should such fun be limited to me?

In my last post I did a first impressions of Alex Shrub’s Thicket’s Jungle’s Forrest’s daygame memoir. I’ve since finished the book and rather enjoyed it [3]. I wasn’t joking when I mentioned in the comments to that post that I wish their were more such memoirs [4]. Considering how many man-hours are invested in this wild seducer’s ride across the globe and how many amazing stories there are to tell, there are precious few books about it [5]. Frankly, the daygame community is under-served for good books [6]

Surely somebody somewhere has been daygaming a while, has a story to tell, and has been thinking about writing it down. Allow me to encourage you with the Winter Memoir Challenge.

You’ve got three months ahead where the daygame is shit. You’ve got this season’s stories fresh in your mind, and the background context of how you got into this game in the first place. You have Print-On-Demand publishers where it costs literally nothing to get your book into print. You have Fiverr.com where people will design book covers from $5 a book.

There is nothing stopping you from writing a memoir.

And here’s the other thing – it doesn’t matter if it turns out to be a bit shit. You can always just give it away on PDF if you really feel bad charging money for it. C’mon, tell your story! Get it down into posterity. Let the feverish hordes of your fellow daygamers who are thirsty for action have some fresh meat to sink their teeth into. It doesn’t need to be a classic [7]

I’ll do my bit. Here’s my proposition…… I hereby solemnly swear to…..

• Read your draft and give some feedback
• Advise you on the details of finalising and publishing a book
• Announce your book’s existence on my blog when it’s done

All you have to do is open your laptop and type up all those stories you’ve already told your mates in the pub. Add a little context. Ruminate a little on what it all means. And then when you hit 50,000 words (the lower limit for being a real book) let me see it.

I have no idea if there’s any real interest in any of you writing such a book, but if so talk a little about it in the comments here. Tell me what’s holding you back. Pitch a theme or a hook [8]. If there’s enough real interest I’ll do a post giving more precise advise to a would-be writer.

ANNOUNCEMENT – And in other news, I’ve confirmed with Eddie of Street Attraction that we’ll be doing a joint event in London on Saturday, December 16th. Go here for the sign-up. I’m there for a book launch and I’ll be talking through the concepts in Daygame Infinite. I may also take pre-orders on the blog beforehand so copies can be handed out at the event [9]. I’ll have another post up once the book arrives so you can all see it. Details will be in there.

[1] Aside from play video games, of course.
[2] This will complete the quadrilogy and may also be the final Game book I ever write. It all depends how I feel next year after having finally cleared my 2014 grand project.
[3] My favourite lines being, “So I struck out on my own path. I decided to ‘go solo’. I was a wolf, not a lamb. A lone wolf, just like the sinister reprobate Nick Krauser, the notorious daygamer with unsavoury views whom every man admired and respected but disliked.”
[4] This was before all the ‘tards came in and shifted the conversation entirely away from Alex’s book, doing him rather a disservice I think. It could’ve been a fun discussion on the topic of memoirs and his journey.
[5] I’ve been pestering Roy Walker for a memoir as he has perhaps the funniest stories. I suggest you all pester him too and maybe it’ll happen.
[6] And no, that’s not dissing some of my fellow-traveller’s work. Even including these within the ‘good books’ population, there’s still not many. You could read everything within a couple of months easily.
[7] That territory is already occupied by Balls Deep, Deplorable Cad and Adventure Sex.
[8] Most first memoirs follow the zero-to-hero template of the monomyth. This is fine, but it would be nice to have more variety.
[9] Signed, if you really want it. It depends on how the colour test print looks like that I’m currently waiting to be delivered. The timing is a bit tight.