poll results from last week

Have you bought my book yet? Want to read the first twelve chapters for free?

Glossolalia - out today!

I promise I won’t do that every post from now on, but I sure would like for you to read my book.

Last week I made a post with two polls and then accidentally flubbed who it got sent to, so the results may not reflect the True Will of the People, but it’s what I got.

Shockingly, a majority of voters want me to serialize a novel. This is something I’m prepared to do, but probably won’t start until the beginning of January. I’ll have more to say as that day approaches.

There was some interest in an audio and/or visual component here, so I’ll start tinkering with this as well, but don’t expect much. Definitely don’t expect much for, like, six months.

The kind of essays voters want did not entirely surprise me, but it did relieve me. You see, one of those options was sort of a test. Or, not a test, but I didn’t want you to pick it.

I do not want to write about politics. I would have, had it won. But I’m glad it did not.

I know, I know—I have written about politics and culture several times already over the last year because I cannot help myself¹. I even have one coming in literally seven days. But I do not want my life to revolve around professionally having opinions about every new topic trending on twitter.

Interestingly, someone sent me this article which does a good job of encapsulating how I feel about this.

The internet is already over

Believe me, I know that I’d have much more traction here if I focused on one topic. If I just picked a lane and drove within it for the rest of my life, an audience would form and maybe even find my opinions about whatever topic I picked to be indispensable. Stranger things have happened. And I know, too, that if the lane I picked was politics, I’d have the most success. There is a bottomless need for opinions about politics and society in the US right now because of various systemic failures and catastrophes, but I do not want my life to revolve around them.

And so even though politics/culture was very nearly the winning topic of this poll, I will not be writing about either more frequently, except to the extent that they intersect with my essays on other topics. Like, when I write about books or TV, I’m often also writing about politics, but I do think that’s different.

It is to me, anyway, and I’m the one who gets to decide how significant that difference is.

I mean, I appreciate that some amount of you wants to hear what I have to say about the new fascist PM of Italy or the concentration camps that are still at the US/Mexican border, but I do not want to write about them here.

If you’re curious what I think about a topic, feel free to ask! I’ll probably tell you (at length!), but politics will not become the focus of this newsletter.

Anyway, expect more posts about books and games! I have some fun stuff queued up for you.

Topics to expect before the end of the year include but are not limited to:

• A mountain in Japan

• Hot sauce

• Videogame manuals

• Haruki Murakami

• The boardgame Root

• and Fury of Dracula

• and Rising Sun

• Walmart Noir

• Mario’s jump

• Castlevania

• Neon Genesis Evangelion

• Lord of the Rings

Maybe some more.

Again, I’m endlessly grateful that you show up here to read my essays. I especially appreciate those of you who pay to read them. And while there is no need to pay, it does inspire me to get more ambitious with some of these projects.

As we head into Year Two and especially 2023, I may actually think up some rewards for paying subscribers. Such rewards would not be exclusive to subscribers but would rather be certain literary creations that get sent to you monthly or quarterly as a thank you for your monthly/yearly subscription.

I have some thinking to do on this. Stay tuned.

Also, I turn thirty five tomorrow.

I have not died yet, despite a lifetime of believing in my own death. So that’s pretty dang nice.

1. Someone is going to click on every link in this sentence and tell me about it. Please don’t.