A Liminal Month
Oh, hey there...
The past month has been kind of weird for me. It’s just felt like everything’s have been on hold while I’m waiting to hear about this or that. Waiting to hear back from my editor about TOS. Waiting to hear back on assorted release notes and book tour confirmations for God’s Junk Drawer. Waiting for the book to release and the signing tour to begin. I had a quick trip to San Francisco that got delayed multiple times—both-ways—so that pretty much turned into a whole day of waiting.
And it’s not like I don’t have lots of other stuff to do. New book ideas. Blog posts and newsletters. A half-finished stone path in the garden. Toy soldiers to paint. New bookshelves for my office that I’ve been waiting about nine months to assemble and set up. But it felt like starting anything was a bit of a risk. I didn’t want to be halfway into a project—especially a big, messy project—and suddenly find out it as time for me to focus on something else.
But after three weeks of this (and some gentle prodding from my beloved) I finally decided to go for it and redo my office shelves. For years they’ve just been this odd collection of random ones we found in the alley or bought super-cheap somewhere, and I wanted to have some that A) all matched and 2) were a little better suited to my needs. So I decided to risk diving in and hoping nothing else ended up demanding my immediate attention.
Wow, did it turn into a mess. First, the shelves weren’t actually the right color, so they didn’t match the rest of the office. Just paler enough to be very noticeable. To me. I walked around grinding my teeth for a day and finally said, okay, I can live with this. Then there was assembling said shelves. Emptying out all the old shelves. Bringing the first of the new shelves in. At which point I discovered I’d mis-measured or miscalculated at some point and the new shelves took up exactly one inch more wall space than I thought. Which wouldn’t be a big deal... if there wasn’t a door involved. Much more grinding of the teeth. Some angry declarations. Some sulking.
Anyway, it took about five days altogether, but it’s done. Not exactly what I’d hoped for but... it’s pretty good. Still a definite improvement. And it only happened because I finally stopped worrying about all the things that could go wrong and possibly interrupt the process. I just did it. And, y’know, found other things to interrupt the process. Because that’s life. Things are never going to fit into a perfect time slot and be perfect and go smoothly. There’s always something. Always.
So, hey... might as well go for it.
Anyway, that’s my enlightened thought of the month. Let me tell you about some book stuff.
I got my first box of author copies for God’s Junk Drawer and it is a gorgeous book. Like, seriously beautiful. I can’t wait until you get to see it in person.
I knew I said I was going to try to get you a bonus newsletter with all the signing tour details but, well, there were a few last points that took a lot longer to hammer down that expected. I didn’t want to send out a partial list soooo... sorry for the wait.
But here they are! Starting on Tuesday, release day—
Nov. 11th – I’m going to be at Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego chatting with Jonathan Maberry about the book, dinosaurs, lost worlds, and more, starting at 7:00.
Nov. 12th – I’ll be signing* at The Last Bookstore in Studio City (LA) from 6:30-7:30
Nov. 13th – Signing only* at Borderlands in San Francisco from about 5:15 until they kick me out
Nov 14th (Friday) – I’ll be at Eureka Books in, well, Eureka CA from 6:00 until 8:00.
Nov 15th – Signing only* at Powell's in Portland OR from about 7:30 until I run out of things to sign or folks to talk to.
Nov 16th (Sunday) – I’ll be at Brick & Mortar Books in Redmond WA chatting with Django Wexler at 5:30.
Nov 17th – I’ll be at the Barnes & Noble in Medford OR at 7:00
Nov 18th –I’ll be at Capital Books in Sacramento CA starting at 7:00
There might be a few last things after this-- a few folks have mentioned things, I’ve mentioned it to a few folks, but as of yet nothing went past those first early comments soooooooo these are it as I’m sitting here writing this. I know some of you suggested other stops and locations-- if they’re not here, that may be why. Sorry. If anything pops up, I’ll try to get another quick newsletter out and I’ll definitely mention it on Bluesky.
Big reminder!!! If you’re going to stop by one of these, please preorder the book through them. Preorders give the bookstores a sense of how many folks are going to be at a given event, which tell them how many extra copies to order. And they’re probably making that order a week or two in advance. This is especially true at the places that are “signing only”—there’s no event, so all they’re going to have is regular store stock (maybe three or four copies) plus preorders. That’s it. Yeah, there’s a chance you could skip preordering and still get a books, but it’d suck to miss out, yes? Plus, preordering just helps the book overall. So... hoping to see you there, please get your preorder in!
Also, looking at that list of dates, yes, next month’s newsletter may be a few days late. Didn’t think of that until just now. We’ll see if I can get any writing done on the road
Also, also... if you’re in Southern California and (for some reason) can’t wait that long to see me, I’m going to be doing a few things before then. On October 28th I’m going to be at Mysterious Galaxy talking with Eric Heisserer about his fantastic new book Simultaneous. Then on November 1st I’ll be at Artifact Books doing one last signing for the Dread Coast anthology (this was supposed to be a few weeks ago, but it got pushed). And on November 8th I’ll be back at Mysterious Galaxy to talk with my dear friend Elena Taylor about her new book, The Haunting of Emily Grace. Please stop by any of these and pick up a cool book.
Oh, and one last thing! I promised you newsletter folks a bonus a while back, so here it is. Respond to this email with proof of your God’s Junk Drawer preorder-- a preorder from anywhere, not just to these stores (although seeing lots of those would make me feel more confident about this tour)--and I’ll send you a free short story. It’s called “The Unassembled Victims” and it first appeared in The Reinvented Detective anthology a few years ago. It’s also a loose tie-in to God’s Junk Drawer—just a loose one—and you might get that little extra “aha!” when you realize how.
So yeah, respond with a screenshot or photo of your preorder receipt (black out all your personal/ financial details, of course) and I’ll send you the story. I’ll probably send them out in batches each weekend, so if you send in your proof-of-purchase (so to speak) on Tuesday, don’t complain on Friday that you haven’t gotten it yet. And naturally, this ends on November 10th—you can’t preorder after the book’s already out, think it through! Also, if you were one of the folks who rushed to send me this before... you’ve got to send it again, sorry. The bonus freebie round begins now, earlier submissions do not apply.
And that was a lot of book news, wasn’t it?
What else could I tell you about...
Cool Stuff I’ve Been Watching
I hate to admit such a gaping hope in my pop culture cred, but I’d never seen a single episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender until three weeks ago when my beloved and I decided to (finally) start watching it. We also started watching Haunted Hotel on Netflix and we’re absolutely loving it. Watched the final season of the new Quantum Leap and, like the first season, liked it overall. And I’ve been binging the long-lost Micronauts animated series from about eight or nine years ago.
Cool Stuff I’ve Been Reading
Idle Gods by Iain McKinnon was a quick, classic Lovecraftian novella. Finally checked out the Void Rivals comic series and I’m enjoying it as a kind of stand-alone/ tangential Transformers storyline. As I mentioned above, Simultaneous by Eric Heisserer is fantastic. For that matter, so is Wearing the Lion by John Wiswell which I just finished the other day. And I also got an early peek (well, it was early then) at Dead Acre, a fun weird western graphic novel by Cullen Bunn and Riley Brown (adapted from the novel by Rhett Bruno and Jamie Castle)
Cool New Toys
I got a pair of “character heads” from Four Horsemen which let you mix and match to create new custom figures (I made a big orange space dragon-man and a blonde space bounty hunter). I also picked up a tiny Funko Pop Tron arcade game, which has been on my desk pretty much since the second it was out of the package. And I’ve got a whole box of Operation: Monster Force figures to open this coming weekend.
And I think that’s everything, yes?
Four weeks until God’s Junk Drawer!
