A series of retweeting brought this little gem from author Joel Ross to my attention the other day: “Recently learned that the collective noun for a group of writers is a ‘procrastination'”.

I really, really keep meaning to work on revising my draft of The Prophecy! I have to admit, though, that I’ve only gotten through the first three chapters so far. In part due to the normal constraints of a full time job and two young children, but also in large part due to this:

I have never in my life had a dog before now, so this is a huge learning process for everybody involved. I knew puppies were a lot of work, but I didn’t quite realize just how overwhelming they can be. Oh, how I look forward to the time when cleaning poop no longer takes up a significant chunk of my day! Even when I might once have had time to work on my book, I literally cannot risk taking my eyes off this little cutie, for fear of something wholly undesirable happening in and/or to my house.

(Deep breath) This, too, shall pass…

And okay, okay, I may have gotten sucked into more video games, too. I have always loved adventure games for the PC. There is no longer much demand for this type of game in the US. A lot of them are produced in Eastern Europe these days, and many of those depend on crowdfunding to raise the necessary money to develop them. Even then, the games tend to be released in separate “episodes” rather than all at once. Certainly not ideal, but beggars in the world of PC adventure gaming can’t be choosers, and they are still a good deal of fun.

As of right now, these are the two episodic games I have been playing:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dreamfall Chapters follows Zoe Castillo, a young woman in futuristic “Europolis,” who finds she is the key to stopping the Undreaming, which threatens both our science-based world and the magical realm of Arcadia. This story began in The Longest Journey, followed by Dreamfall, and should be concluded with the last episode of Dreamfall Chapters.

In Life is Strange, you play as Max, a girl who has recently joined a prestigious private academy for high school seniors. Blackwell Academy has an acclaimed photography program, which is what drew Max there despite the fact that she had to move away from home and attend school with strangers, many of whom are snobs and/or bullies. In the course of the first chapter, Max learns that she can rewind time; very useful when your chosen course of action may have sub-optimal consequences.

Both of these titles present you with choices throughout gameplay, and what you choose to do affects the path the story takes and its outcome. They’re like interactive choose-your-own-adventure stories! So much fun. Both games have a neat feature at the end of each episode, where you can see what percentage of other players made the same choices as you.

On top of all this, there is my TV show obsession, The Originals, and of course I still try to make time to read for fun everyday as well.

But fear not! I promise you the day will soon come when I give myself a swift kick in the rear and get some serious work done on The Prophecy! I do tend go through periods of procrastination followed by intense writing sessions. If other people could just cut it out with all the brilliant storytelling they do in their own medium, I wouldn’t get distracted and could get to work on my own stuff! (Seriously, though, please don’t stop. There’s some wonderful stuff being made out there, keep up the good work everyone, you’re all amazing.)