T w e n t y S i d e d

People have been asking questions as of late. Rather than try to answer the same four questions spread throughout eight different comment threads in six different posts, I’ve gathered them all up here where they may be answered in bulk.

1. When is the Autoblography series going to end?

I’m writing the final entries now. It looks like it will end around part #34, which will be sometime next week. No, I’m not going to do my entire life in the same detail that I covered (say) my senior year of high school.

2. What’s the deal with the book you’re writing?

I actually did an interview with a podcast about a month ago, and I’ve been waiting for that to go live. In that interview I talk about the book in some detail, and I’d like for that interview to be news to listeners when it appears.

This book is an interesting challenge. I’ve got over a hundred thousand words all lined up, taking the reader well into the third act. That’s a lot of work, and now I’m suffering from a bit of self-doubt. I began the book as slightly comedic and lighthearted, but it turned a little more serious in the telling. That’s fine, but now the ending feels a little… eh. I don’t know. I feel like it needs more oomph to go with the slightly more serious tone.

I really want to make a living as a writer. That’s the dream: Produce work that I can be proud of, and earn enough to pay the bills. I can hammer out my planned ending, release the book as-is, and see how it earns. Or I can continue to polish it, and make something that I’ll like better. The longer I wait, the closer we get to the point where I have to bail and take a desk job. But the longer I wait, the better the final product will be, and so the more successful it might be.

So, I’m deciding when I’d like to roll the dice. I’m toying with the idea of putting up the first chapter and getting some feedback. That will help me as I finish things up, but it also might annoy people to read a chapter of a book that won’t be out for a few months.

Keep in mind that we’re all in this together. If I blow it, or if the book doesn’t pan out, then my taking a day job will greatly reduce the time I can put into this blog.

3. What happened to Spoiler Warning last week?

Several things. Josh was sick. Then I was sick. (Really, I was barely on this site for the last five days. The only reason the place didn’t go dark is because I’d written the AutoBio posts ahead of time.) So Josh wasn’t able to edit the episodes and I wasn’t around to make an announcement.

Also, the cast has been talking about how this season is going, and there’s been some concern that this season is falling apart a bit soon. We always get sick of a game before it ends. BioShock is our most notorious example. But here we’re hitting that “last five episodes of BioShock” point about halfway through the game. The occasional episode of trolling, puns, griefing, and nitpickery is fine, but I don’t think we should attempt a half a season of it. As I said before, Assassin’s Creed II was a compromise for us. None of was was particularly delighted with the game, but it was the one title we all hated the least.

So now we’re halfway though Assassin’s Creed II and we realized we needed to either abandon the season or put more work into it, because we can’t keep going the way we’ve been going for twenty more episodes. I’m reviving my long-abandoned play-through so I’ll be able to analyze the plot and do my thing.

4. What happened to Josh Plays Shogun 2?

Again, he was sick last week. If all goes well, he should have the next entry later today.

5. Hey! Where is your review on X?

I still have things I want to say about Deus Ex: Human Revolution, preferably before I forget them. I’m playing through Frayed Knights, which I’ve been waiting for since, uh… a long time ago. Now I’m also playing through Assassin’s Creed II.

So.. I don’t know. Maybe once I finish the autoblography I can dig my way out of these reviews.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.