Fupdate: August 2022 Edition

Here's the important news all about what I'm up to

Presumably, a lot of you subscribe because you want updates on my writing, so here is an update: I don’t have very much to say.

But it feels like it’s been a while, so let’s go through it.

The Daily Wire

First off, I’m working on a lot for Daily Wire — especially in the realm of children’s programming — and a lot is going on there. But most of that is not coming out until spring next year, and I can’t really say much until the Daily Wire announces more. I wish I could tell you all about it, though, and hopefully, I’ll eventually be able to give you some behind-the-scenes info. Anyway, this is still very new for me, and it feels like a lot of responsibility to work on shows of this nature. So I’d appreciate any prayers that I do well.

I am working on some other stuff — not for kids — for the Daily Wire that should hopefully come out soon. I’ll alert you as soon as it’s available.

Hellbender 2 and Superego 4

Hellbender 2 is to the editor. I’m working with Ethan Nicolle on a cover for it. The plan is to get that out in the next couple of months in ebook and paperback, with the audiobook coming a month or two later. I think it’s my funniest book, and I’m excited for everyone to see it.

I’m also working on a Hellbender short story I’ll release on this Substack when the new novel is out. Technically, I think it will take place after Hellbender 2, but it won’t have any spoilers and can be read without reading any of the previous novels.

Superego 4 has been a little tougher to get going on than I thought. I mostly know how the whole story ends — and have for some time — but there are a lot of details still to work out, and writing has been slow. However, I feel like that’s finally picking up — I’m used to just charging ahead and not sitting too long staring at a blank page — and I hope to have it out next year.

The Fleming VR Video Game

Since I have over two decades of experience with computer programming, it just seems a waste not to do anything with that. So, I decided to make a video game with my kids. When I asked them what type of game they wanted to make, they said a bird-watching game because they’re very boring homeschooled kids. I decided it should be an Extreme Bird-Watching game, where you try to watch as many birds as you can in a short amount of time.

A summer tanager (drawn by my 11yo) being watched (see the watch meter filling up).

I’m making it in Unity and was going to target iOS and Android, but then I realized how easy this would be to port to VR, so I got a Meta Quest 2 and plan to make it for that as well. A VR app I did a while back — At the Fork VR — is still in the Oculus store, but only for discontinued VR systems (I can’t run it on my Meta Quest 2). I did the programming for it and stitched the VR video, and I think it will be fun to do VR again.

I’m having my kids draw all the birds (they’ll be 2D) and will try to teach them some programming. Right now, you equip your binoculars to look at a bird and tap the screen rapidly to “watch” it — which I like because it’s so stupid — but I’m not sure how I’ll do that for VR. If there’s some interest, I can later share the GitHub and describe more of what I’m doing, but right now, it’s neat to just program for fun which I almost never did since I was a kid (spare time was for writing).

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Despite not thinking much was going on, I wrote more than I thought. So how are you doing? Please tell me what you’re up to in the comments.