Tearing your own writing to shreds is a wild experience. As I previously stated in another piece, I am preparing to apply to MFA programs focused on writing, including at Emerson. I can’t afford Emerson without some help, mind you. I am hopeful that my grades and non-traditional attributes will propel me to one more big scholarship, but time will tell. It is a leadership scholarship in particular and I think I can pull it off. If not, I have a bunch of other programs in the queue and I can just submit the same pieces in many cases.

Some programs want 20 pages of creative nonfiction, creative fiction and/or poetry, but Emerson only wants 15. These are double spaced and need to be creative nonfiction, but can be more than one piece, as long as the page numbers add up. As such, I am working on a pair of pieces that will complement each other nicely no matter which order they are read in.

I am exceptionally lazy and for schoolwork I edit once, maybe twice if it’s a midterm or final. Applying to these programs, that shit does not fly, so I have been really getting deep into the toolbox.

I don’t know how to edit the “correct” way or if there even is one. Even so, I have my own system. Basically, I write the entire piece and then go through it paragraph by paragraph while deconstructing each one and then putting the more efficient and clean version together in its place. If this sounds easy, it isn’t. I dissect every word, make sure I am not making the same statement multiple times or hanging around too long on a subject. Other times, I realize I didn’t give a subject enough breathing room and end up writing a bunch more shit. It’s crazy and fun, but dissecting my own stuff tires my brain out.

To help recharge, I have been working on a pretty interesting project. This project required me to record some gameplay footage from the game Ninja Gaiden for the Nintendo Entertainment System. I am looking to make the footage as authentically early 2000s YouTube as possible, so I am playing the game myself on a CRT, which is a fancy acronym for an old tube TV, with an old Elgato capture device that captures RCA. The footage came out pretty sweet, but it also came with a price. My night. Or more accurately, two nights

This is one of those games where as a kid I could make it to the last boss but never beat him. I didn’t realize that playing this game would reignite this rivalry between the evil Jaquio and myself, but here we are.

While I own an NES and at least 200 cartridges for it, I play so many old man strategy games on Steam now that my reflexes were shot. I bought this mint condition Famicom top loader (Japanese NES) recently, and I wanted to take it for a spin. Now though? Ninja Gaiden has me by the absolute balls, in large part because all of my skills came back in like 2 hours. We are way past the point of return and all the weird stuff I am cooking up is now in the backseat while I put Ninja Gaiden to bed. Tonight is the night and I have definitely had my Nintendo running for 24 hours so I don’t have to start over. I am stuck on some asshole in level 5-3 that throws lightning at you, but I’ll figure it out.

As an aside, the dog bone style controllers that the Famicom top loader came with that I thought I would love have already been replaced by the rectangular ones from the early NES. The dog bones felt small and flimsy, and I couldn’t do some of the cool wall jumping that Ninja Gaiden allows. Food for thought if you are ever in the market for an old system.

That is where I am at. My Ninja Gaiden footage is for a project but not the only one. I also have another NES centric piece coming your way! Don’t worry, it isn’t a review and I won’t be getting deep into any storylines or anything. I love games, though, and I am excited to share.

Until next time,

JTC