T. K. Arispe

Howdy everybody! I hope your summer has gone well. Or your winter if you are in the Southern Hemisphere! I am so ready for autumn. I live in California and this triple-digit-weather madness has got to stop.

Just thought I'd drop an update! Work is progressing on the children's book, although right now it's going a little slow because my client doesn't feel satisfied with the story, so we're brainstorming solutions. Which is totally okay and to be expected. It just makes my work schedule a little weird because I have to wait to hear back from her before making any more progress.

In spite of that, I don't really feel like starting Earthkeepers yet because I don't like having too many projects going at once, especially because I have been really busy taking care of my family lately. (Turns out 2-year-olds are exhausting, who knew? *all the parents raise their hands*) I don't want to further divide what is already a limited amount of work time in my day. So I'll probably wait until after I finish posting Worth Searching For to plunge into another novel manuscript. Maybe I'll challenge myself to NaNoWriMo this November? We'll see. 

Speaking of, I hope everybody is enjoying WSF! (And if you're not, that's okay, you can just skip those posts.) Things are about to ramp up in the plot. Also, one of the lessons I wanted to get across in this story is that it doesn't matter how friendly someone acts to you--if they do things that don't seem right, or even just seem a little off, listen to your gut and stay away from them. 

I'll try to post more chapters as I can! Sometimes it's a little slow because I have to draw chapter illustrations (okay, I don't have to, but sometimes there are original characters that I want to give everybody a clear picture of, or important scenes that I think merit an illustration), but we are steadily working our way through!

Also, since I mentioned it earlier, can I just rant for a moment about Paper Mario: The Origami King? Specifically how I really loved it up until the ending, which just kinda completely ruined the game for me and left me with no desire to ever play it again? I'll avoid spoilers, so hopefully those of you who have finished the game know what plot point I'm talking about, but c'mon, seriously? How could they do that to us? I don't know if the writers were trying to be profound or what, but it just felt cheap to me. Like all of my hard work and effort through the game, my shaking my Switch Lite like a madwoman during the final boss fights (I may or may not have also been yelling like a madwoman...), was repaid by an emotional slap in the face and a mocking, "Well, technically you saved the Mushroom Kingdom, but...". 

Why. So unfair. So arbitrary. So dumb. It kinda makes me not want to play any subsequent Paper Mario games if this is how I, the player, am going to be treated. I played through that game because I wanted a happy ending. And if an ending isn't happy for a character that the game urges you to get emotionally attached to, then to me, it's not a happy ending.

Well, at least the Crown Tundra DLC for Pokemon Sword and Shield should be coming out soon. I appreciate Pokemon because it knows how to not be depressing.

(Yeah, this is why I don't actually play many video games these days.)

I shouldn't leave this post on such a negative note. I'm glad I write non-depressing things for people like me who like non-depressing things! And I'm grateful for chocolate.