Vengeful Ghost

I (that is, Parker) am totally stealing this idea from Judd, who runs a terribly fun blog called Githyanki Diaspora. Every Friday he makes a post about what he’s been Reading, Planning, and Writing. I’d like to put a little more personal stuff up here and figured this was a good way to do it, so check it: here’s how I’ve been Working, Playing, and Consuming this week.

I chose Tuesday because it’s a chance to sit and reflect at a time I normally don’t take it. I used to “start” my week on Wednesday because it took some pressure off Saturday and Sunday, and gave me the energy boost of having a good plan right when other people were hitting their midweek slump. This is going to be kind of similar.

WORKING: When not writing comics, I work as a Standardized Patient for medical, pharmacy, and nursing schools. I take on a role and test students on their interpersonal and clinical skills, and give them feedback based on how I think real people would respond. This week I trained on a specific case used to expose students to social situations they may not be familiar with. The training was well-run and included feedback from students who had taken the lesson last year, so I’m optimistic about the actual testing event.

On the Vengeful Ghost side, I’ve been working on a social media push to come in November and getting Project Jakarta ready for publication. I also drafted some of Project NYC, and got rough outlines ready for Projects Seoul, Shanghai, and Makalu–it’s been a busy week!

Project Makalu is going to be especially interesting. It’ll be my first project with a cowriter, which is an entirely different form of collaboration from anything I’ve done. I’m a little apprehensive, but my partner definitely fills in the gaps in my own knowledge and skill and we’re both committed to open and honest communication, so there’s a lot of excitement too. Not to mention that I’ve teared up every time I’ve told someone the ending I’m planning for Project Makalu…

PLAYING: Over the weekend, I got together with a bunch of friends to take over an office building and play some roleplaying games. In one game, I was Dr. Dimension, a Mr. Terrific or Blue Marvel-style science superhero who was actually an overbearing research director who abused his staff terribly. All his super-tech, even the nonviolent stuff, looked like hand grenades, which caused a fair bit of PR trouble. The game was With Great Power, by Michael Miller.

In the second game I played a member of the Medieval Crossover band Atypically Beautiful, who created love of all kinds through the power of music. I was Robby, the theremin player, and I contributed to the end of all war in the world by playing funereal theremin music while our lead vocalist, who also played a 3/4-sized cello like a guitar, sang about love. In other words, this game was pretty great. It’s called “Outrageous Youth” and I’m not sure how much else I can say about it now because it’s a playtest, but it was a ton of fun.

I’ve also really been digging the latest update to Grand Theft Auto Online, which adds the ability to create Sons of Anarchy-style outlaw motorcycle clubs. Somewhat embarrassingly, my GTA buddy and I spent most of our time in the game playing darts. Virtual. Darts.

CONSUMING: I am further embarrassed by how much time I spent watching a recorded stream of Civilization VI. Embarrassment++ because I wasn’t even watching people play–no, I was watching eight AI players duke it out in a game of Civ 6 for over an hour. On the upside, now I really want to own Civ 6!

I’m also chugging my way through Red Mars. You can read some of my thoughts about it in the VG newsletter, which you can sign up for over on the righthand side, but the short version is: I like it so far, but it’s about to get weird.

Anyway, what about you?