Holiday Mood

OK, OK, so after deciding to stick to a posting schedule of “Every Monday” I failed to post the very next Monday. It's due, at least in part, to the holidays. You see Joey is out of school this week (and for a few weeks to come), so we've been playing together as much as possible. Last Monday we got a late start and by the time I thought about the blog I was way too tired to do anything about it. I decided to fix that by doing this post early in the morning. In fact, it's not yet 8AM here. Which brings me to the subject of the pictures of this post.

Sadly, I've been forgetting the camera about as much as possible lately. As a result the only pictures I've taken for this post are of the neighborhood at around 7AM. I want my Dominican friends to see what it's like around here an hour after I get up, lol. I'm also going to include some of the “lost pictures” that Dilian e-mailed me. Some of them are a little blurry (they were taken in low light), but I'm going to include them just the same :)

Here are a few photos of our winter neighborhood:


So, it's amazing how often I dream of Dominica. The dreams didn't set in as soon as I got home. They seemed to wait until the winter was here, lol. Last night I was walking on the tropical beach in my sleep. Of course, that may not have had to do so much with “longing” as “confusion”. (It was 78 degrees in our bedroom last night when I went to bed and we had the windows open.) Either way, I am really looking forward to this time next year. Not only are Thanksgiving and Christmas my favorite holidays, but I'll be counting down the days until we head back to a tropical paradise.

Ben and I were talking about it yesterday and we are going to change one big thing the next time we go down there: the food. As many of you know I'm cheap. Really cheap. In truth I have to be. I have a wife, seven kids of my own and a basically adopted son. I have to watch my money. That having been said, the next time we're in Dominica I'm going to buy some beef every week. I love chicken and fish, but you just can't beat a bit of beef now and again. Lord willing I'm going to have enough money that we can afford it.

We could really use all your prayers. I've put a lot of work into Worlds of Magic and things seem to be going great. We hope to have the vertical slice (what we intend to show publishers) ready by mid-January. If that works out I should be able to get an advance (which would dramatically help my current financial situation). We're hoping to have the game up for sale by July (it could happen sooner if everything falls into place right) and if that happens I should get my first royalty check by October 2014. We've just got to hold out until then.

I've probably mentioned it before but part of my work now is all about playing games. I spend between six to ten hours a day playing video games. It was my hope that playing like I did when I was a teenager would fire up my imagination with the same degree of creativity. So far it seems to be working. For years I haven't been able to play for more than two or three hours a day. I've put effort into it though and am getting to where I can play other people “under the table”. A lot of people would think that it's not much of a job, but I would say this to them: Come play World of Tanks with me for ten hours straight before you decide. (I know Josian, I know. Dilian could do it, but not everybody can lol.)

If everything works out I'm planing to put together a “think tank” of some of the best and most dedicated gamers I know. Some people will think of this as absolutely ridiculous and not at all as “work” (like my father-in-law, lol). However, this is actually a common thing in a number of industries. No one would think much about it if we were working on books or music, it's just that video games are a yet-to-be-fully-appreciated art form. Still, that's changing day by day. As more and more people play video games they begin to appreciate them. There's even the same kind of range as you get with books. Some are mass-appeal paperbacks, others are real masterpieces. Either way, I'm straying off the point and this post is running long. The point is that my work is going very well.

Here are some of the “lost pictures”:


Now, I hope to remember to do a post next Monday and remember to take some more pictures between now and then. However, for the moment, I wish you all a goodnight (and good day) from South Carolina!