The Geek and the Vampire

For those who don’t know me well or are new to the page, then you may not know that in addition to being a lover of all things dark, spooky, and vampire-y, I am also a goofball and a huge geek. I’m a gamer, and have been since before games were graphical (hello my fellow text-based MUD gamers — yeah, I’m that old!), and I love tech almost as much as I love the dark spooky things or a cool, breezy late-fall day.

Also, if you haven’t been following me long, then you may not know how badly I’ve been struggling to get words on the page in 2023. 😔

It happens, and it wasn’t even the dreaded “writers’ block” (which I don’t believe in, btw)… it was quite simply that my life — like many others — changed massively in 2023, and frankly all but drained me… and not in the good, vampire-y sort of way. But no sense in dwelling on that… not when I have a butt-ton of things I want to do in this year! So, let’s jump ahead to the good parts… oh, and just as a head’s up, this is going to be a series of posts as I’m bringing you through this journey of discovery together to see how it turns out! I was goofing off on my VR headset, nothing too fancy, an older model that I inherited from my son when he got a new one. And I remember reading something a few years ago about “working virtually” — not remote working a.k.a. the “Covid era” — but actually working in a virtual reality setting.

Think… writing on your laptop while sitting in a cafe in Paris (while actually sitting in your PJs in your own house).

The idea grabbed my imagination, and from a practicality standpoint, seemed like a possible solution to some of the problem I’ve been struggling with writing for the past year+. So techie-brain hopped on the job and started researching different VR apps that would accomplish what I wanted. I looked at several and finally landed on Immersed. (https://www.immersed.com) (and no, that is not in any way an affiliate link – just sharing my experiences in this series!) Here’s my basic setup (so far):

• Oculus Quest 2 (hand-me-down from my son)
• ImmersedVR app (free version currently)
• Scrivener 3 for Windows (my writing software of choice)
• Windows PC (I won’t bore you with all the gamer stats, suffice it to say it’s capable of running a VR headset and yes, this can be done on a Mac, as well)

I was able to get the Immersed app setup relatively easily, though it took a couple of tries to get my physical keyboard to “show up” in my virtual reality location so I could type. But, that was the only real “hiccup” I experienced in getting it set up, which, I’ll be honest, surprised me a bit. Additionally, although the clarity of the keyboard is a little lacking (it doesn’t show up as clearly as the rest of everything I can see in VR), unless you are a ‘must-look-at-your-fingers typist‘, this isn’t really much of an issue. (Edit to add: apparently, the new Oculus Quest 3 has a MUCH higher resolution rate and will display it much clearer… but for me, that is not enough of a drawback to warrant a $500 expenditure – at least not yet!) I did not think about recording a video of my VR setup process, because this wasn’t going to turn into a series of blog posts until after that step was done, but I will be recording video of my actual VR experience moving forward to help others see what it’s all about and determine if maybe this can be a viable route for their own writing process. But for now, I’ll leave you with this sneak peek of the view I had in my first outing with my new VR writing environment… this is just the early stages, and I am quite sure it will change a fair bit as I muddle my way through this and get it set up in the perfect environs for me!