Things I Wrote in 2017

Hello! With 2017 coming to an end, I figured I should put together a short list of what I wrote this year, and briefly mention what I’m hoping to write going forward, now that I’m actually a lawyer and no longer a law student and thus have less time for this sort of thing than I might have, once.

On January 3rd, Kotaku republished the article I wrote about my late father’s love for Civilization IV. This marks the very first time I’ve been published on Kotaku, and I’m very proud of this piece.

Starting in January, and on and off throughout the first half of the year, I wrote The Silliest Take of the Week, first on my Tumblr and then here, once I bought this space. I loved this project, and hope to go back to it some day, but I’m trying to keep regular writing commitments to a minimum right now, so I have no particular ETA for when this project might return. I had a really good time, though, and you can find the whole 12-part series here.

On January 20th, Unwinnable Monthly published a short piece from me about how FTL’s rebels are the badguys, not the goodguys, in defiance of the usual tropes, and how these rebels remind me a lot of certain political movements and figures.

On April 20th, for this blog, I wrote a brief history of #boatfacts, the running gag I’ve been doing on social media for some years now.

On April 28th, for The Ontological Geek, I wrote about what it’s like to play Devil Daggers, an exceptionally weird first person shooter that I’ve fallen madly in love with.

On August 16th, The Ontological Geek posted a very short piece from me about why the best part of Hearthstone is the little orange glow that appears around cards when your opponent is looking at them.

On October 16th, for Unwinnable Monthly, I wrote a piece about why the politics of Mass Effect make me uncomfortable, now that I’m a little older and more politically literate.

Most recently, on December 13th, I published my first piece over at Zam, and had a lot of fun doing it. The Toast used to do a series called “If X Were Your Y” about what it would be like if various celebrities were your boyfriend or girlfriend, and Zam has been continuing that tradition, albeit focused on videogame characters. I, naturally, wrote about what it would be like if the Skull Spider Monster That Appears at 39 Seconds in Devil Daggers were your boyfriend. People seem to like it, and it was definitely a lot of fun to write!

In all, I’m about on pace with the last few years, in that I only published about four or five full-length essays (other than those written for law school, of course). That said, I’m actually pretty proud of them, and had a lot of fun with the Silliest Take of the Week posts and other such projects.

My hope for next year is to get some short stories out into the world, and to refocus some of my writing efforts away from videogames (which I still love, and will probably still write about) and towards other media or, blech, political matters.

Thanks to all of you who have been reading the dreck I put out on the Internet over these last seven years, and here’s to a happy and successful 2018!