It’s Robo♥beat’s 10th Birthday!

Today marks 10 years since I started this blog Robo♥beat. It began as a side project to discuss my nerdy interests — especially video games — as I hoped for a writing job in the video game industry.

And it worked! I ended up working in the games industry for over seven years. My first gig was an unpaid writing position for a small gaming website. Next, I interned at a creative services agency, where I wrote video game instruction manuals. (Remember those booklets included with the games?) This led to a full-time job there. Eventually, I transitioned to a dream job at PlayStation, where I designed web pages for Playstation.com. I had so much fun in this career, and there are many days when I miss it.

But now I am on to a new career as a novelist, which is my true dream job! I have been writing fiction all my life, and I am happy to say I am officially a published author. My first novel, Song of the Shieldmaiden, is a Viking historical adventure about three sisters seeking revenge for their family. You can find it digitally on Kindle, Nook, Apple Books, Kobo, and Google Play Books; I’ll be publishing physical editions later this year too.

As for Robo♥beat, this blog will continue to live here for may years to come. Even though I don’t update it as often as I used to, I plan to share my thoughts on video games and other geeky interests here whenever I have something I feel is worth sharing. It’s so fun to connect with all of you here over our shared interests, and I love hearing your thoughts on our favorite games, movies, and books!

Speaking of gaming, lately I have been playing Horizon Forbidden West, after sinking dozens of hours into Elden Ring. (I didn’t finish Elden Ring, but I watched my husband play to the end.) There are also a few indie games I’ve been meaning to play, so I hope to have time for those soon too.

But right now my main project is writing book 2 in my series of Viking novels. I’m participating in National Novel Writing Month’s Camp NaNoWriMo for the month of July, where I set my own goal to complete by July 31st. My goal is to write 50,000 words to complete my zero draft of book 2. (That’s basically a barebones version of the book, where I can skip a scene here or there where needed!)

I also have a few posts for Robo♥beat in mind, so I hope to share those here soon. Thank you to everyone who has read this blog, followed along, and shared their thoughts with me here. I never imagined having a blog could be so rewarding. Connecting with you here over the past decade has been my favorite part.

What have you been up to lately? What games are you playing? I’d love to hear what’s going on in your lives these days too. :)

— Ashley