Towards 10 More Years of Epic

It's the end of a decade, and what an interesting one it has been. For me personally, this has been the decade of education, as I spent 4 years in high school and 4 in college. 2010 will be the beginning of my first decade in the "real world." It's been a great decade for entertainment, with dozens classic games released, and noteworthy movies released. Hell, just the release of District 9 and Avatar makes 2009 the best year for sci-fi movies this decade, I'd wager.

Tonight I'm not going to bore you with a long introspective post about my life, or recount ten years of facts about the gaming industry you already know. Instead, I'm thinking to the future, and what the next 10 years will bring. What will happen between my 23rd (2009) and 33rd birthdays (9/12/2019)?

This isn't an episode of ThrawnOmega Predicts the Future, and I'm not concerned about the gaming industry. We'll continue to have our faces melted by at least 4-5 incredible titles every year, and plenty of other great games. But what can I expect to be doing during this time?

1. For as long as x360a continues to exist, I will be writing reviews for them. I'm going to assume that the admin Scooby Gang is going to update the site to stay relevant with the release of the next xbox (since we already know the achievements system will continue on), so barring some obscenely unlikely site buyout or total admin fallout (both of which could happen in theory but most likely won't) I will continue to work for the site. I've proven writing abilities, and demonstrated a good work ethic and willingness to help others as much as I can, so I don't anticipate being "fired" unless I became a total douchbag... and I don't see that happening either.

2. I will be getting FAR more serious about my writing. Everything you've seen from me, whether it be this blog or my reviews (or the rare few who have read my research or scholarly essays), is all "side projects" to me. Creative writing is my bread and butter, and 2009 was actually an incredibly slow year for me in that regard. I only wrote two short stories, both for a college class, and haven't gone back yet to retool them to publishable quality or try to send them out. Both stories have a hell of a lot of potential, so I will be revisiting them. One was a horror story based on Japanese Urban legends, with an emotional/psychological bent to it and themes of alienation. The other was a sci-fi satire of the modern obession with having "do-it-all" devices like the iphone.

Besides retooling those stories, my major new years resolution is to write a minimum of 3 pages a day, or spend at least two hours writing, on each of my off days. (It's simply not a good idea to try to write quality after a 12 hour work day... take this post as an example LOL). In 2010 I will finish the world building I'm doing for my sci-fi universe, and start my novel idea with the goal of getting significantly close to completion by years end. How can I ever achieve my dream of being a published novelist if I never put in the work to write, right? Since I'm unpublished and under no contractual obligation to hurry, I may work on two projects at once, since I have another novel idea that's pretty compelling to me too.

As I go, this blog will likely become a space for more discussion of writing, and posting excerpts of my projects, as I go. This may not interest everyone, or have anything to do with gaming, but hey, the gaming content will still be there, and I'm going to do what makes me happy. (And what I think will keep this blog an interesting and diverse place).

3. Who knows where I'll be in 10 years? Hopefully I'll be married. Maybe I'll have a kid or two. Maybe my gamerscore will be over 400,000 by 2019. The thing I'm most certain of, beyond anything else I've said here, is this blog will still be around. The frequency of posts may change. The nature of the beast may change, but I'll still be here. Blogging is way too damn fun to stop.

One this New Years Eve, I hope you're all having fun with friends or family (I'm actually relaxing alone since I worked 12 hours and will do so again tomorrow, but that's beside the point). I wish you all the best. Lets raise our glasses, celebrate all that is good in life, and look forward to 10 more years of EPIC.

See you next decade!