Getting Paid To Play

And by that I don’t just mean video games.

It’s a bit weird how the summer months always seem to turn into the good ones for creative work that you end up actually getting paid for. I’m still kind of shrugging my shoulders in a half-assed, “Finally!” sort of way over the fact that I’m writing a comic script–and getting paid for it–even if it’s only 48 pages and primarily for kids, but I’m looking at it as a warm up for Nowhere, the comic that the Wife and I are quietly working on in the In-Between-Times of projects.

Then there’s that pilot script for an animated program. Writing scripts for animation is a neat experience, so I’m always pleased when I get another project along the same lines. One of the nice things about a pilot is that you’re at that stage where you can define the stuff, rather than just coming into an existing series and having to get up to speed on the rules and continuity of the program. I can do it, but obviously being there at the ground floor and creating continuity is more interesting.

And finally, GameAxis, the magazine I write for, is taking the tenuous step of going from a free to a paid publication in June. Strangely, this doesn’t actually mean more work for me despite the increased page count, it just means less of my articles get editted out during the submission process. It’s going to be interesting to see how it does in the stores. One of the bizarre things about GameAxis in its current incarnation is that few people know about it, the reason being that because it’s free, regular readers who are aware of it will go down to their favorite gaming store or cafe and, when they see the new issue, help themselves to 5 or 20 copies to share amongst their friends, so the magazine tends to disappear within a few hours of going public, meaning that only a small, niche group that grabs up as many copies as they can in one go are actually aware of its existence. You ask anyone else about it that’s not a hardcore gamer and they blink and mutter, “There’s a game magazine in Singapore?” because they just never see it around.

Hopefully the next few months will change that.