Vengeful Ghost

Today’s treat was a “penny pie”, a sort of tiny, homemade pop tart. I think this coffee shop is my new home base. Anyway, here’s how the week’s been!

WORKING: I’ve been editing up a storm on Vengeful Ghost work over the last week. Project NYC went out to editors, and I completed a pretty basic rewrite on Project Manila. I’m going to let Manila sit a few more days and then it will be ready to start going through with a finetoothed comb, tearing it apart according to Shawn Coyn’s Story Grid and making sure it does what I want it to.

I also finished my first draft of Project Shanghai, which is terribly, terribly exciting. It’s the first time I’ve tried, really tried to be funny. I’m going to need some sharp, funny editors to help me actually pull it off, but I think the core of something good is there. Speaking of editors, do any of my readers happen to know any sharp folks who are into comics and are also Sikhs?

PLAYING: Snow in Los Santos is terrible, but Grand Theft Auto is still high on my play list. I also picked up Battlefield 1. Some friends bought it for me as a Christmas gift in order to guilt me into playing it with them. It’s pretty fun! One of my friends pointed out thatthere’s no version of ranked play, no ELO, no real player skill ranking but for achievement and “levels” you can grind. That feature, combined with the fact that matches are massive 32 v. 32 bloodbaths, means that it keeps a much more casual style of play. It’s nice.

Speaking of casual, I’ve also been playing a lot of 16 Squares on my phone. As a piece of mobile software, it’s terrible. It’s life cycle management is nonexistent, there is no persistent save state, and no matter how high you score, the game always tells you you lose. As a game, though, it hits all the same dopamine switches as 2048 and Threes, this slow building of something that becomes too complex, too big to handle. Come to think of it, those games all have a bit in common with the classic Snake, now that I think about it…

CONSUMING: Social engagements have meant I haven’t consumed much of other people’s art recently. I’m working my way slowly through my comics backlog, which is good. I’m no longer three issues behind on anything.

I did watch Deadpool this week (thanks, HBO friend!), which I liked much more than I expected to. That seems to be a theme recently–maybe I should stop being such a snob.

Anyway, what have you been up to?