My goal this summer was to finish two books I’d been working on. By July I had some concerns, as writing wasn’t coming as easily as I’d hoped, and then I got overwhelmed by the unexpected stampede of cows. But I just completed the second manuscript, and I’ll admit I’m quite chuffed to have reached my goal.
The first book is a collection of short pieces on the variety of ways videogames are being used today, from art to tools. It’s meant as a kind of post-Serious Games book, since I refuse entertainment/usefulness distinction. The tentative title is How to Do Things with Videogames, and I’m just sorting out the details with the likely publisher. I’ll say more on that when it’s official.
The second book is my entry into the object-oriented ontology discussion. It’s called Alien Phenomenology, and it offers my variant of the object-oriented position, which leads into coverage of three techniques for the speculative study of objects and how they perceive. The book will appear in the New Metaphysics series at OHP.
There’s still work to do, of course, but I will take a small break between writing and editing these two manuscripts in order that I can get A Slow Year the #*$% out the door at long last. Wait til you see what that’s going to look like…
Comments
Ernest Adams
You write a book without having a publisher lined up? What is it with you crazy academics?
Seriously, the days in publishing when you could shop a book around are disappearing like the days in game development when you could shop a game around (which ended about 1995). It doesn’t work like that any more. Get somebody to sign on the dotted line and fork over the advance money, THEN start writing, is my approach. That way you don’t risk your labor going to waste.