In the year 2022, I have determined to become a Metaverse Writer. I don't know what a Metaverse Writer, but I have a plan to become one. It will involve:

• Understanding video games, AR/VR/MR/XR, and blockchain technology
• Learning new storytelling paradigms, borrowing from immersive theater, escape rooms, improv theater, music, interactive design, and more.

I will document my daily or near-daily progress here and in other Mirror posts. Updates will appear directly beneath this text. Older posts will be pushed ever downward. At a certain point, all posts will be repurposed into a long-form essay.

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January 2, 2021

What is a Metaverse Writer?

I don't know what a Metaverse Writer (MW) is exactly. It might look something like LaTurbo Avedon, but who’s to say? but I do have a plan to become one. What follows is what I think it will involve to become an MW and where I stand on the road to being one.

• Learning tools like Unreal Engine and Sandbox
  • I don’t have any real computer skills, especially not coding or design.
• Understanding video games
  • I was terrible at Mortal Kombat in 6th Grade.
• Learning about the world of virtual reality
  • Experience a VR shark attack once four years ago. I’ll buy a headset soon, though.
• Augmented reality
  • I did the Apple art walk once!
• Digital spaces
  • I walked around Decentraland and The Sandbox for about 15 minutes last night
• Getting involved with NFTs and DAOs related to writers.
  • Done! I'm in Jenkins the Valet Writers Room.
• Learning how immersive theater writers do it.
  • I'm enrolled in workshops through Culture Hub and Third Rail Projects in January and February 2022.
• And a number of other things!

Here's my most immediate plan to become a Metaverse Writer.

January

• Be active daily in the Jenkins the Valet Writers Room Discord while updating "In the Jenkins Writers Room: Notes for an Essay" on an ongoing basis.
• Participate in and document my experience with Culture Hub's Writing for Electronic Formats workshop led by playwright Erik Ehn
• Join Third Rail Projects' Winter Experiential Practices Workshop Series with Tom Pearson

February

• Continue with the Third Rail workshops
• Take "Online Games: Literature, New Media, and Narrative" through Coursera
• Publish one interactive story made in Twine on itch.io

March

• Finish "Online Games: Literature, New Media, and Narrative" through Coursera
• Adapt one or more unproduced short screenplays through Unreal Engine
• Publish one interactive game on itch.io

I'm probably planning ahead too much, but I'll continue to update my progress here! Until tomorrow.

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January 1, 2021

Happy New Year.

Let's get into it, then, eh?

2022 is the year that I become a Metaverse Writer.

What's a Metaverse Writer?

That's part of the problem. I don't quite know.

I know that I love writing screenplays, but it's started to feel a little zero-sum lately.

I know that I'd love to write for TV, but I'd prefer to not live in Los Angeles.

I know that my storytelling is the thing I most want to give to the world.

And I think that us writers have a new opportunity ahead of us.

My history is that of an obsessive writer of time-honored media: movies, primarily, with some short stories and aborted novels thrown in there for good measure. A handful of plays that never went anywhere. A small Alexandrian Library of high school and college-age poetry. Some songwriting.

NFTs and the mainstream birth of the Metaverse made a big to-do about themselves this past year. And I noticed. I noticed that artists and musicians are finally finding ways of getting paid, and that thriving and energetic communities are burbling from nowhere to build amazing things. I noticed that there wasn't much to say for writers, surly misunderstood bastards of the art world ever still.

I'm going to write a bit every day about my journey. It won't always be here, but if you check my Mirror page, you'll see many ongoing "Notes for an Essay" posts that are associated with my sidequests to become a Metaverse Writer. Until tomorrow.