A Fresh Start and Future Plans

Well, it’s been a fun year for me. A few lows here and there, but overall I think this year has gone splendidly. This is easily the best time I’ve had at school, both because of my newfound privileges as a senior and a newfound work ethic that has enabled me to become a far better student than I was during my morose early teen years. I’m currently trying to find a job and plan for college, the next major step in my life, on the path to adulthood.

            It’s strange. I really don’t feel like an adult. It’s easy to look back and wonder where all the time went, but the truth is that I’ve sort of been dreading this moment. I’m deciding what college to go to this afternoon (between Aquinas College and Grand Valley State University), I still have to get my driver’s license, try to find work and earn some money, wrap up the projects my teachers decided to spring on us for the end of the year, study for exams… it’s a lot to take in.

            Fortunately, nobody said I had to grow up entirely. I’m planning on writing a young adult novel over the next couple of years. How well this turns out, I don’t know, but the story I’m hoping to tell is one that myself and a very good friend of mine, Alex, came up with when we were kids, and since then has sort of ‘grown up’ with me. This story defined the play of my childhood, morphed and changed as I did, and now I hope to actually turn it into a clear narrative, one that will (hopefully) span five parts. Then called ‘Mujara’ (some gobbledygook Alex and I came up with), the first book is tentatively called ‘The Paths Between’. The story follows a group of teenage kids who become embroiled in the ancient conflict of Heaven and Hell, and through their proximity to this battle begin to develop magical powers, and eventually are forced to choose a side. It was, and is, heavily inspired by the kinds of fiction I read growing up, and hopefully I can make it into a worthwhile story. I’m not sure if it will ever be good enough for publishing- the story is, technically, about fantastic versions of my friends and I- but at the very least I hope to have it somewhere on the Internet (who knows, maybe even on PG’s Game Room!), and possibly self-publish it.

            Speaking of PG’s Game Room, I apologize for the lack of productivity, but there’s really not much I’m going to be able to do about that. With the ‘Blog As My Senior Project’ thing out of the way, I need to focus on other things, and as I mentioned earlier I simply can’t keep a reliable schedule for new material. Of course, the blog is far from done. New reviews will still be written and posted as I continue to play games (I’m about eight hours into Xenogears at the time of this writing, and I should have a review up sometime in May), and as I work on my story I’ll post some material related to that as well. It may be the start of a new chapter in my life, but I don’t plan on cutting loose the old anytime soon.