I’m finding it difficult to believe it’s a mere two weeks from e3.  I’m lucky, I’ve only ever attended e3 since the great e3 collapse in 2007.  So I have not yet learned to hate it like Van Halen fans hate Van Hagar, or [INSERT THE OPPOSITE OF YOUR POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY] hates freedom.

Like most of us at Xbox I’m crazy busy in preparation.  But I thought I would also provide an update on some personal projects currently underway as well.

I’m very excited to formally announce that I am working on an audio version of my book, A Microsoft Life.  Much like the Kindle and Nook versions of the book I have been surprised by the number of requests for an audio version. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your perspective) the audio version of the book will be an abridged version.  This was a very difficult decision to make because when I find out an audio version of a book I enjoy is abridged I get upset, because I typically want the content in its entirety and I’m willing to take the time to listen to it all.  However, I think it is the right choice for this book because of three key reasons.  First, in two places in the book I transcript speeches I have given.  It makes no sense, in my mind, to record those again given they are readily available on Youtube.  Second, a couple of stories rely on visual gags that would be impossible to do in an audiobook.  Lastly, there are certain stories, specifically Hennessey, that I will not be able to get through reading aloud without crying like a gassy baby.

However, taking this into account I am working on surprises and extra content that I think will make the audiobook something that both people who own the book already will enjoy, along with new “readers” who have been waiting for a listenable version.  Therefore, I am please to make announce the title of the audiobook is: “A Microsoft Life: The Audiobook Expanded Edition with Bonus Material and Surprises (Abridged)”  I’m going to be rehearsing pretty much all this week and starting the initial recording next weekend.  My goal to make it broadly available is dependent on some of the special surprises but a summertime release is the time table.

I’m hard at work on my second book, A Geekster’s Paradise. Like my first book this will be non fiction stories and articles about, well about being a geek.  The timetable for my second book is Winter 2011 and it will most likely be larger than my first book.

Lastly, and this is the part I’m so scared to talk about I just peed a little, is that I am working on a fiction project. It will be a collection of short stories and it is titled “After: A Collection of Stories Following The Events of 2.12.14”  The overall length is around 25,000 words so it’s not very long. In fact, you can read the rough draft of the first story RIGHT NOW.  It’s a project I have been having a LOT of fun with in my head, and I’m really worried and really excited to share it with you.  Look for this project to land hopefully sometime between the release of the audiobook of A Microsoft Life and my second book.  The format for release is yet to be finalized, but it will most likely be primarily ebook with a limited edition (meaning I will only make so many) hardback edition.

So that catches us up to now at least. Now I go back to LA Noire.  You are playing LA Noire right?