We’re rapidly approaching the end of the 2024 and I’ve taken time to analyze my achievements and failures for the year. While I was going over it, I thought, hey why not put this online? Not only do you readers get an update on my progress, but putting my goals for 2025 should give them more power. This way I’m not just accountable to myself, but to my readers as well.

Finalize the book and decide its fate

At the beginning of last year, my book was ready for beta readers and while I thought it was of professional caliber, I decided to let the beta readers tell me what they thought of it, along with a whole lot of other questions. I’ve heard many writers talk about how in the beginning your first few books will be rough, and I left room in my goals for this book to be a failure. So I decided that if I got a confirmation that my book was worthy, I’d continue down the path of independently publishing it. If not, then I’d find some way to use the material while I pivoted to a new project.

Unfortunately, I didn’t finish the project this year so while I’m happily still working on the book, there’s no way it’ll be ready this year. This being my first professional book, I spent a lot of time learning and obsessing in between each stage. Altogether I brought the book through beta readers, beta edits, writing up a blurb and one final edit before I submit it for professional editing (In Progress). I feel like I’ve been embroiled in Walk Amongst the Stars forever. I can’t wait for the next book to go a little faster, since it’ll be much less of a learning experience than this was.

It doesn’t seem like enough work when I look at it all in one sentence like that. But I also spent time researching book covers, blurbs, editing, book betas, mailing lists, professional editing among other things.

Begin newsletter

Another tip that I’ve heard again and again is that a newsletter is an author’s best friend. An absolute necessity that allows you to directly communicate with your audience. So I rented out a post office box and then promptly dragged my feet... Well, crap. While I was waiting on beta feedback, I tried to get it up and running, but I kept hitting technical challenges. I finally learned what I was missing by the time all the beta stuff had come back. So instead of making time to do some learning and tinkering, I just kept letting this one slide. Next year.

Decide on the next book and start planning

This one was easy and came naturally. After getting encouraging feedback from my beta readers, I sat down and outlined how the next two books in the series will go. Then I added to it over the year.

Make money off my business

Since the book wasn’t out, that didn’t leave many avenues for money to trickle in. But I set up my merch store in 2023 and in 2024 I managed to make a couple of sales which technically counts.

I owe twelve blog posts and four merch designs

This was occasionally a pain in the ass. If you pay attention to the date most of my blog posts happen, it’s very close to the wire. I know it’s not vitally important to have each post in place on time, but I’d rather set the precedent of being diligent than setting a precedent where I blow past deadlines and can’t do at least twelve posts a year.

For my merch designs, I’ve posted one of these just after the buzzer, but otherwise I’ve gotten four designs up and ready. My photo editor skills are slowly improving with each design, too. I’m pretty happy with my new design.

Next Years Goals

I can tell right away that I’ve got more goals than I can probably finish in a year, but here they are:

Finish and launch Walk Amongst the Stars: Book 1.

Get the mailing list off the ground; for real this time.

Begin WATS book 2. (I think I’m most excited about this.)

Rearrange the blog so it has some structure rather than a giant list of entries.

Explore ways to monetize. Membership platform, tip system, put my merch on more print on demand stores, blog ads / affiliate programs.

I owe twelve more blog posts and four more merch designs.

And finally, I set a monetary goal on a sliding scale. From a reasonable 100 bucks (because I’m a brand new, unknown author), to a highly improbable $1000. To a completely ludicrous $10,000 because why not aim big?

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While I was putting the last I, Gamer together I found I had way too many odds and ends to talk about with the Nintendo Entertainment System to fit into one blog post. So I have a couple more topics to get to before I move on.

Every day the line between gaming PC and console get’s a little more blurry. Back in the NES era (1985 - 1995) it was all about optimizing games to work around the limitation of the time. Again, today it’s becoming harder to see the differences between console generations, but back then the differences were monumental. Here’s a picture of an early NES game verses a SNES game from the end of the NES era.

In the older console generations, you would see game quality improve until they hit the limits of what could be done. Then innovate to go beyond even that. Tricks like displaying sprites only half the time to make things run smoother and reusing sprites with a color swap. Then moving into adding battery backup saves and extra memory on the cartridge.

Speaking of bending the rules, let’s talk about the Game Genie. An addon device that acted as a pass-through that allowed you to screw with the game’s memory. If you did it right, you would end up with a positive benefit, like the ability to keep jumping without touching the ground or not losing power-ups when hit. It came with a booklet of cheats and a subscription service to get supplemental booklets. If you made up your own combinations, you’d likely make the game fail to launch or play the game with the wrong sprites and colors.

I didn’t actually use the Game Genie very much. I just ran through the cheats for games I owned, which gave me a little more replay value and then forgot about it. I do remember liking that it had a cool gold paint job like all the best NES games and it had this cool interface to enter the codes.

The NES controller is primitive compared to modern consoles, but I considered it a big upgrade from the Atari joystick I was used to. It had one extra play button and moved the pause and select buttons onto the controller which NES games utilized for a myriad of things other than simply pausing the action. For as much as I loved them, they came with some downsides. They could be creaky when you were holding down the buttons. The controllers weren’t rounded, so the squared off edges would dig into your hands. I’d walk away from an intense game with NES pseudo-stigmata.

Towards the end of the console’s lifespan, I picked up both a Four Score and Advantage controller at a used game store. The Four Score was simply a controller expansion, allowing you up to four controllers. I only had one game that allowed for four players (Super Off Road). But thanks to the Advantage, I had three controllers. The advantage was an arcade style controller with some extra buttons allowing you to rapid fire. The Four Score also had options for turbo buttons. I never used this feature as I was already lightning fast on the buttons. And due to the way some games worked, you couldn’t leave the setting the same. Games like Mega Man would allow you three shots on the screen, so the rate of fire changed depending on your distance to the target.

One thing I took for granted with the NES is that every game came in a black plastic sleeve. This gave you a built in dust cover like a floppy disk. As cool as this was, I just discarded them. All they seemed to do was add one extra step to selecting the game and putting it in. Instead, I used a skinny shoe box that was the width of a NES cartridge. With them standing upright, I could simply walk my fingers over the games to find what you wanted.

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It’s just about Halloween, so I figured I’d talk about horror. (The genre, not the intense feeling of fear.) When I started thinking up topics, I thought about horror media (games, books and movies) and I had a realization. I haven’t watched, read or played something that left me with a feeling of fear or dread for a long, long time. (So I guess I actually do want to talk about horror as in the feeling of fear.) This got me thinking about the media that gave me a lasting scare, and I realized that was all the way back when I was a kid into young adulthood.

So here’s what I recall in order, I think:

• Doom. Back when I was probably thirteen, I remember playing this one late at night. The atmosphere isn’t constantly oppressive, but it’s often creepy. Torn out hearts beating on pedestals, crazed conglomerations of faces scrolling by, tortured bodies on the walls and plenty of other dead space marines scattered about the levels. I can clearly remember being spine-tinglingly scared the first time I encountered the cacodemon and the barons of hell. Not because they were especially scary looking. It was the sound. The cacodemon’s alert sound is a loud hissing often because it could see you, but not the other way around. And the baron of hell emits a guttural howl.
• Stanly Kubrick’s version of the Shining. I watched this movie with a group of my friends and even in a crowd this movie made me feel coiling tension throughout the movie. The giant empty hotel, Jack’s descent into madness, the supernatural stuff. The sound track and use of closeups of the actors terrified expressions. By the end, I was so keyed up that the sudden appearance of the guy in the dog costume was shocking. Looking at the scene out of context, it’s just a couple of non-hetero guys patiently waiting for Wendy to leave so they can get back to it.
• Castlevania Symphony of the night. This wasn’t a horror filled game, however I found the boss the Grandfalloon to be very creepy. This takes place in deep catacombs under the castle. The area gets kind of hellish with demons and animated skeletons and a pool of lava you cross on a bridge. I remember playing this late at night, sensing that I was getting to the end of the area, just one more area to explore. That’s when the game dropped me into a colossal pit of bones and a monster rose out of the ground made of hundreds of shrieking human bodies compressed into a ball. The bodies protect an inner monster. You have to carve your way through them all while they sluff off, shambling toward you.
• Silent Hill 2. You can’t go five minutes without hearing about this one lately because there’s recently been a remake. The original came out in 2001 and I played it somewhere around there. I actually can’t remember what drew my attention to the game back in the day because the cover art doesn’t scream must-have-game to me. And I hadn’t tried the first game. But once inside, I found some peak horror. It’s a survival horror game so you face off against monsters, puzzles and item starvation. The atmosphere is immediately spooky, wandering around an abandoned town filled with mist and lurking monstrosities that are vaguely human. I could go on all day about it so I’ll just say that this was a game that I was desperate to play more of, yet simultaneous intimidated to get back into each time and it left me with a lasting fear when I turned the lights out for the night.
• Covetous. I went through a phase of playing flash games on newgrounds.com. Covetous is more interactive story than game. It’s about a parasitic twin that eats its host from the inside out. I remember for how quick and simple the flash game was. It left me creeped out afterward. Then I sent it to my friends and creeped them out. Epilepsy warning for anyone who wants to track it down.
• Eraser Head. Even though this one is much older than the other things on the list, I didn’t bump into it until I had a Netflix DVD subscription. Where do I even begin with this one? It’s like a black and white industrial nightmare. If you’re a fan of David Lynch, you’ve probably seen this. If not, it may not be for you. It’s got a little of everything. Surrealism, liminal spaces, body horror and other grotesque imagery.

I’m not sure exactly what it is, but sooner or later horror fans become inured to it. I still enjoy a good horror story. But that lasting horror that sticks to the ribs like a hearty stew has gone away.

Here’s the horror I’ve enjoyed in the last few years:

Books

• Uzumaki
• Gerald's Game (book or movie both are pretty excellent)
• Briardark
• The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
• House of Leaves

Video

• Evil
• The Last of Us.

Games

• The Quarry
• Carrion
• CONTROL

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