This is a semi-regular update on my progress to document the history, perspectives, and narratives of the metaverse.
Current book word count: 137,305
Happy New Year!
It has been a year since I decided to embark on this silly side quest. And so far, playing a full-time author has been awesome.
As I dug deep into the history of the metaverse and virtual worlds, I encountered a lot of interesting stories buried in old newsgroups, articles long taken down, and in books long out of print. Hunting down that information was a really nice challenge and very rewarding.
Through several interviews, I was also able to verify (or dismiss) some urban legends, as well as document completely new stories. That felt even better.
But what really takes the cake is the book itself. The Microsoft Word app for mobile has this really neat “Read Aloud” feature that recently got an update with new (and finally good sounding) voices. I started taking “breaks” to go for walks and listen to my current draft as an audio book. Weirdly, this way it doesn’t feel like the text was written by me and I can focus on just the experience and flow. And I start to really like what I hear. That feels amazing.
From the start I wanted the book to be as unbiased as I could write it. That meant I had to dial my own opinions and experiences back, which was sometimes harder than I initially imagined. I gained a lot of empathy and understanding for other narratives and perspectives. For example, I never was into the academic side around immersion, presence, and involvement. Or the very early works around mirror worlds and reality simulation. Crypto and Web3 was also a chapter I rewrote maybe a dozen times to give it a fair treatment. What helped me was the self-imposed rule to back every fact and statement with a proper source. I might not be factually correct about the history, but I have the receipts to show why I think I am.
But what I didn’t like is the intellectual isolation. I don’t read for fun anymore, I don’t watch movies or series, my podcast consumption has steadily dropped. As the book progresses, I find myself surrounded only with media relevant to the book. Consuming other information becomes mentally taxing as I try to keep the entire structure, flow, and content of the book in my head.
Maybe that’s a me-problem. Maybe that’s normal as a book nears completion. Or maybe that means I’m not that good at being a full-time author. That’s fine. I don’t think I want to write another book once this one is finished. As awesome as this project is, I know that my goal with the book is not become an author, but to contribute to the ecosystem around the metaverse and virtual worlds. And once that specific contribution is done, I want to get back to actively shape the future of it in a more active way.
Anyway, I document my progress, additional context and the interviews over there on the project blog. Drop me a note if you have feedback, or want to see something end up in the book.
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