Up late talking games & writing? You're...

When I started this blog, I was thinking that it would be a personal goal to put something up here at least once a day. It's not necessarily that I think my life is all that eventful or interesting, but I saw it as sort of a discipline thing that I would challenge myself on. Things went good for the first few days, but then work started popping up unexpectedly and not only did my blog go out the window, so did everything else.

As a freelancer, some of the positives are that I can set my own schedule, I can sometimes choose where I work or who with, and the best thing of all is that I don't have a boss or supervisor breathing down my neck. The downsides? There are more than a few, but the one on my mind this week is that sometimes work can be a little thin, leading me to take any and every thing that pops up out of necessity.

Hence, total abandonment of all blog, review, and fiction writing for the last few days. I know what side my bread is buttered on and it doesn't escape me that my wife and I need to eat regularly, so it's never much of a choice between working for something that will pay me now or writing for something that will pay me later. That said, today is a day to get back on track.

Quick updates:

Games-

Zack & Wiki: still loving it, but it can be extremely maddening sometimes. The game has a nasty habit of surprising me with "hurry up or you're going to get f'ing killed" challenges when I least expect them, so I usually get f'ing killed and lose all progress. It's not a major thing since most levels can be done in just a few minutes once you know what you're doing, it's just completely irritating when you die because it feels like the game didn't give you a fair shake. Thinking of doing a review for this one on GameCritics, and so far it's still a thumbs up.

Phoenix Wright 3: I know NightDreamer loves this one, but so far (I'm on case 5 of 5) I feel like it's been the weakest of the three. Phoenix himself has only been the main character in 2.5 of the 5 cases, and I feel like a lot of the trials hinge on some pretty hair-splitting pieces of evidence that aren't very convincing or decisive. I haven't finished it quite yet, but I'm having a hard time imagining that the ending is going to redeem some of the softer sections.

Comics-

Fables: Finished the first book, and it was pretty good. I'll pick up Book 2 next week.

Death Note: Started reading this manga (again on ND's recommend) and it didn't disappoint. I was initially leery because I feel like the whole manga/anime thing has been played out, and it's really getting hard to tell what's quality and what's hype. This particular book is about a demon who drops a magical notebook and a boy who finds it. The book has the power to kill anyone whose name is written on its pages, and the story soon becomes an exploration of ethics as well as setting up the characters for a sort of showdown between the boy writing the names and the police inspector who's out to catch him. Some of the questions posed here made me think a little bit, and the characterizations (especially of the demon) are pretty entertaining. Coming back for Book 2 on this one also.

Speaking In Forked Tongues-

Only about five more chapters to go over for quick edits before going back in and tweaking a few things on a slightly larger scale. I'm getting to the tail end of monkeying around with the text, and I'll be creating some submission letters pretty soon. If any publishers reading this are in need of a snarky urban horror comedy, email me.