Looking ahead

By Brian Moakley Jan 20, 2025 #jezner #thoughts

I’ve reached a crossroads in my life. It’s a strange place to be. Every part of my life now leads to different roads, and each road is entirely different. Jezner is no exception.

I started this site in 2000. It was meant to be an online film portfolio. Later, I changed it to an old time radio site and for years, it released old time radio shows every week. It briefly changed into an audiobook review site in 2014 and finally, it’s landed just as a stream of conscious blog. I’ve given up trying to figure out the purpose.

Presently, this is a place to post technical articles and while I will be posting a lot of them in the next month, this is the “last batch” of technical writing. I’m now posting some of my better technical work as a way to archive it. After which, I probably won’t post another technical article again.

Probable topics

I would love to state my objectives for this site for this year. I’ve found that’s a bad idea. No sooner when I make a public announcement, the winds of change push me in a different direction. Instead, I’m listing my probable topics. These may or may not happen.

Writing

This is a biggie. I have some books in the hopper, and I’m looking to publish lots more stories. I may even publish other stories as well. This is what I do. This is what I am. Expect lots of writing articles coming down the pipe.

Tabletop gaming

My first game of D&D was in 1983. I remember being captivated by the Sticks to Snakes spell. I’ve since spent the last four years playing D&D with the same group of friends. Recently, my D&D related articles have been catching some attention. I expect I’ll be writing more, especially on the upcoming Draw Steel game by MCDM productions.

Social media

I enjoy social media and throughout the years, I’ve formed some pretty strong opinions about it. Social media is an ever-changing ecosystem, and I found myself fascinated by all the tectonic shifts. I don’t see that going away any time soon.

Video games

I’m a lifelong gamer. My earliest memories are playing Atari games with my father. This will also connect back to my YouTube channel that features gaming content.

What I won’t be covering

For the few of you that read this blog post, you may be disappointed. While I’ve been quite active producing tech articles, this flurry of writing is only for a short time. It’s my swan song of sorts but after this spring, you probably won’t see much of the following:

Unity articles

I had the unique pleasure of serving as the Unity Team Lead over at Kodeco. I ran it for a year. In that time, I wrote a book and a bunch of articles. I’m incredibly proud of my work. Being that I’m leaving Kodeco in April 2025, I’m adding my book to the site here. I’m updating it to the latest version and that’s it. No more Unity.

Twine articles

Twine is such a wonderful resource for creating interactive fiction. Alas, I prefer plain old regular fiction. I’d rather spend the time working on a story versus wrangling with code. That said, I intend to keep the current tutorial series on Jezner indefinitely, although I have no plans to update it. It would take a dedicated GoFundMe for me to return to it. While I love the tool, my interest has waned.

AI articles

This is borderline. I use AI for a bunch of tasks such a proofing and checking grammar. I find it useful to ask questions about things related to my stories. That’s it. I have very little use for it outside those very nice areas. I also have strong opinions regarding people who employ it in their creative work.

On a side note, I stripped all AI-generated art from my site. Unfortunately, I can’t guarantee it’s all gone. I use Unsplash as my primary image tool. Unsplash does not accept AI-generated images, but some AI photos may slip by. Hopefully, I’ll catch them.

What’s next?

The road is open and vast, but at the end of the day, you have a seat at this table. After all, you are reading this. What topics would you like covered in the coming year? Let me know your thoughts below.


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By Brian Moakley

Brian Moakley is a writer and editor who lives amongst the quiet hills in New England. When not reading tales of high adventure, he is often telling such stories to all who will listen.

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