Hello everyone! It’s hay fever season and although I hadn’t really been bothered by it much last year, this year it seems to have come back with a vengeance. So, I’m writing this with my eyes full of gunk, but you know me, I can’t complain, haha. Hay fever aside, things have been great, though, and I’m happy to share with you what I’ve been up to this Monday!

On Writing

As a writer I love collecting notebooks, but in recent years they have been stacking up, laying unused in my desk drawer. Since I’m pretty big on efficient working, I used to find that I’d rather do everything digitally so I could just copy/paste everything to everywhere. But recently I’ve come back from that notion and am now actually writing stuff down for my upcoming novels. I don’t know exactly why (although I’m sure many studies have been done on this), but I really feel a need to write down my ideas on paper to make them come alive. As a result, the “new” world I’m creating is slowly getting more and more substance and I’m in the midst of putting together two warring factions, where one is seemingly hopeless to win the conflict. I’m heavily inspired by things that are happening in the real world and my study on Stoic philosophy, so I think it will be interesting to see where this path leads me. And as I stated before, I will share more about my writing experience in some upcoming blogs, but the ideas need to be a bit more fleshed out before I do.

On Reading

Bren recently gave me a new copy of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. After having finished How to think like a Roman Emperor I really wanted to revisit this wonderful book, but I couldn’t find my own copy of it anywhere. Then all of sudden Bren gives me this hardcover edition of it and I dug right in. I think this is going to be one of those books that I’ll probably re-read every year from now on. It’s like comfortfood for the soul and what’s so amazing about it, is that a lot of it is still so relevant almost 2.000 years later.

I’ve also nearly finished listening to The Obstacle is the Way, which has been, well, a bit of a letdown after How to think like a Roman Emperor. I don’t know if this is because the latter was just such a mind-blowing read, or because it just feels like a collection of blogs, but I’m definitely not as lyrical about this book as I hoped I would be. Nevertheless it is a good book if you’re totally unaware of Stoic philosophy and could be a good introduction, but all in all I just feel that it has very little substance and stays on the surface a bit too much. I’d still recommend How to think like a Roman Emperor if you want to dive into Stoic philosophy as a philosophy of life as it offers a much more thorough method of applying them in real life, as well as offering an in-depth view of Marcus Aurelius’ life.

My next audiobook is something completely different. Disrupting the Game by Reggie Fils-Aimé, former president of Nintendo of America. From what I heard this book is mainly to be read as a business book, so that’s how I will approach it as well, but I am hoping to learn a thing or two about my favourite videogame producers as well!

On Gaming

Last weekend I had quite some time to myself, so I set out to finally finish the Windwaker inspired Great Sea Map of Hyrule Warriors. I managed to 100% it and seeing as my hack & slash appetite wasn’t quite sated just yet, I continued my journey to 100% this game some day by playing the Master Quest map and managing to get to 10% completion so far. I do think that I’ve had enough of the game for a bit now, though.

I also continued my run of Axiom Verge as I said last week. I’m still not entirely on board with this game, but have made some progress and I think if I really push it, I’ll probably finish it this week. This is one of those games where I definitely see the appeal many people see, but some poorly executed gameplay elements really don’t quite put it in the top tier of Metroidvania games for me, personally. However, it is definitely a great effort seeing as this game was put together by just one person, Thomas Happ, and that is a massive feat. It does make me appreciate the game more, but at the same time, I can’t help but feel that the game could have been better.

Upcoming blogs

As you could have read in this article there’s plenty that’s been keeping me busy and I feel very inspired to write, so you can definitely expect a blog on writing, possibly a couple of reviews and more on Stoic philosophy. Since May is also Mental Health Awareness Month, we’re also thinking about writing a thing or two on just that. Seeing as it is a big subject for Bren and me and something we want to share our views on! I hope you’ll all have a lovely week.

Happy Monday!

Jeffrey