The Penalty

The photograph in this post was taken yesterday. I was at the gas station grabbing what would become my latest in a long line of non-winning Lotto Max ticket. There was chaos inside — the kind that can only come from four little boys with an allowance to spend on candy on a hot Friday afternoon.

This is the stuff of legend. Took me right back to doing the exact same thing forty plus (plus) years ago. Some things never change and I'm glad. What made me smile hardest was their bikes lined up outside, ready for whatever the sugar was about to fund.

Those kids have a system. Bike, dollar, candy.

Me? Apparently, I need paperwork.

My summer fun is one hundred days of writing and doodling. It's a decent-sized task, albeit a sugar-free one, and what I've found so far is that I can fall off the wagon the moment the day-to-day gets loud. So I need an accountability partner.

But I need help. But I suck at asking for it. But I need it. And will never ask.

So here is the deal: I, Michael Dargie, being of somewhat sound mind, hereby declare that a 10% drift allowance on the hundred days is acceptable. Ten days of "something came up."

Bit, if I, Michael Dargie, of said questionable sanity, blow past those ten days, I will donate $25 for every extra day to the Alexandra Writers' Centre Society and/or the Quick Draw Animation Society, both here in Calgary.

Five of the ten are already gone.

To be fair to myself, I've written every day. I just haven't published everything. Which raises the obvious question of whether the deal is writing or shipping. It's shipping. Anything else and I'm just grading my own homework.

There's been a lot of writing, including the start of a new work of fiction inspired by my first full video game project.

A video game? Yes.

Not my first, mind you. If you haven't played DuckSmith™, go try it. And there is, of course, the super secret equally stupid GBOACS game currently in development. But this is the first full one — a 1-4 player, first-person space-mining-pirate-adventure.

I am learning a lot.

The doodles I've done and haven't posted are from that game. When it's out in the wild, I promise to share the early art and the bad ideas, so we can all see how far the thing travelled. Or didn't. Or how close we got. Or didn't.

From stupid idea to Scrooge McDuck money bin.

That's it for today. Off to noodle a doodle to go with these words and keep the dream alive.

Thanks for reading.