A Personal Response to The Last of Us

I finished The Last of Us last week. It was a delight of a game. No, I take that last statement back, it was a delight of a narrative and the game was fine. Let me explain, and I will try to mark spoilers as such but I cannot promise anything so read at you own risk. The Last of Us has great characters, amazing characters. The end of the world plant-zombie apocalypse plot is honestly a little too cliched and the stealth, third person action game play is solid even if combat gets a little old by the end of the game. But both the cliched plot and the good, albeit redundant, game play doesn't even matter because Naughty Dog (the team that developed the game) created some of the best characters that I have ever played. The voice actors do a great job, the script feels natural, and the characters' facial animations are amazing. 

What have I been up to?

Currently, I have a good bit of spare time on my hands. Well, not literally on my hands, but I'm sure you've heard the commonly used phase, right?  Luckily I don't have access to many video games during this stretch, so I'm forced to do something besides play The Last of Us, which is pretty amazing. So, in the spirit of self-betterment, I'm trying to be more constructive with my times and write a bit more. I'm also trying to edit Derek's novel (Derek is my pal from high school; you can read his blog here). While his prose is impressive--it's making me doubt the quality of my own work--my editing is slow. You'd think with all the papers I grade that my editing skills would be like at LV 99, but, nay, I'm still a mid-level editor. So that's taking some time.

Move on or stay and work things out?

Man, I'm currently at a loss for what I should do with my novel. As I begin the steps towards publication, the more I begin to question if my book is ready. And if it's not ready now, I  have to wonder if it will ever be ready. Then I wonder if I will ever be prepared for the rejection that comes with attempting to publish. After an afternoon of these ideas tumbling over and over in my mind, I just want to give it up and start working on another novel, or better yet, stop writing and go do something I'm good at like napping or video games.

Post Tanzania Perspective

I recently went to Arusha, Tanzania on a mission trip. It was--as you may have guessed--an amazing trip that was both personally and spiritually fulfilling. The team worked with a Tanzanian Christian school. We shared in eight or nine different churches. And we went on a safari and saw some of the crazy stuff that people see when they go to the Serengeti-Masai folks, elephants, hippos, lions, and the like.

What really struck me about the trip was how much I missed my life back home with my family. I'm not trying to be corny, but I felt lonely when I was on this trip, and it wasn't because I didn't have good company because I had great company. I spent a lot of time with long time students, graduates, colleagues, and church members. I just didn't have my family and everything that goes with that.

Things Shouldn't Be So Hard

This makes me smile. 

I think I'm nearing the completion of my first novel. I don't really know when to stop editing it or when to start sending it off to try and to find a publisher or an agent (I'm obviously floundering). I've slowly made my way through the novel a few times, I'm getting feedback from friends--who are too positive with their comments, and I'm getting sick of working on it. But I know I have to push on. After beginning to research the publishing process, I've quickly become overwhelmed with the idea of selling my novel. Because publishing is not about my lofty aspirations, nor is it about some semi-autobiographical theme in my book; it's about sales. And I don't know if what I've wrote is marketable.

I don't even know if it's good.