Hey! So very, very sorry this is late. Yeah, it’s free, you can’t really complain about it, but still... I told you it’d be the middle of the month. As the title may have suggested, this is running late because I ended up with two deadlines that both landed pretty much right when I’d normally be composing this and sending it out (more on that in a bit).

On the plus side.. now you don’t have that long to wait until the next one.

But first... where am I at?

Well, I know some of you are going to roll your eyes at this but... I broke a cat bowl the other day and ended up sobbing in the kitchen for about ten minutes. I’d had it for... jeez, almost half my life, now that I think about it. I got it for my first cat, the Terrible Cookie Monster, and she ate from it for many, many years. Then Howard and Charlie. Then when we moved it became the outdoor bowl that Doctor Salem and Julius and now Goose would all happily munch from.

And I broke it. Crap night of sleep, brain somewhere else, trying to carry too many things and the jar of cat food slipped out my hand. Landed right on the bowl. Shattered it. Over a dozen pieces. Some of it turned to actual powder. I stood there and cried for a bit, angry at myself that I’d screwed up and broken something, but more so that I’d destroyed a little link to the past. A memento of almost three decades of pets. And I just stared at it and cried.

This also led me to realize how tired I am. Which shouldn’t come as a shock to any of you. I mean, half these newsletters begin with talks of how draining and exhausting and stressful it is just to exist in the world right now. But I’ve also been getting crap sleep for a few weeks and dealing with another possibly sick cat and a terminally sick friend and deadlines and...

To paraphrase an online acquaintance, “I don‘t think this is about the cat food bowl.”

A few years back (2021, I think) my beloved and I decided we were just going to take a month off. Just a long overdue vacation. It went... okay? It was oddly tough to break a lot of habits and routines and just do nothing. Neither of us was inherently good at relaxing. We said we’d do it again next year and do better.

We didn’t do it again. Not next year, or the year after that, or the year after that. If you’ve been reading these newsletters you may have even seen one or two “okay, we’re really doing it this year!!! Okay, we didn’t do it because...” I think we all know how often time off just ends up being “time to catch up on things.” Get a week off at home and we’re all going to clean, do laundry, maybe finally organize that drawer, and oh, hey, vacation’s over. We’ve all done it.

But after several years I seriously need some time off and so, as of, well, two days ago... I’m on vacation. Yesterday I actually made a point of doing nothing. No plans, no goals, I really wanted to give my brain a hard reset and do... nothing. I watched a movie in the middle of the day. On a weekday, even! I plan to be on vacation until the next newsletter’s due, in fact. And in that time I have maybe three things I want to get done. That’s it. Three day projects. And the rest of the time I’m going to try really, really hard to just... relax.

Guess we’ll see how that goes.

Anyway, what was I working on before becoming a slacker drain on society?

Well, as mentioned last time, I finished up my latest draft of ATCS and last Friday I handed it off to my editor (who is also on vacation, but likes to read while he travels). It’s still not perfect, but I think it’s a very strong skeleton that maybe just needs a little more meat here and there. A few friends gave it a quick look and they thought the same so... I’ll be working some more on that. After vacation.

Layouts are also done on The Off Season. That was the second deadline that got dropped in my lap a couple days before Comic Con. Essentially, it’s a big PDF of the final book, page for page, special fonts, special spacing, cool images, everything. And part of my job is to go through the whole thing line by line by line, making sure there’s nothing going on that might ruin an effect I was going for or to spot any mistakes that might’ve slipped in somewhere between copyedits and layouts. It’s also one of my very last chances to tweak anything. Y’know, like if I suddenly realize the same word gets used a lot in this short exchange, or realize oh, crap, I’ve given two different numbers for that distance at different parts of the story. No, these are just random examples, why do you ask?

Can I also say... holy crap I know I’m biased but this is going to be a good looking book. I’m a big fan of reading however you want to read it-- physical, ebook, audiobook-- but this hardcover is going to be really spectacular. All the chapter ends and page turns are in just the right place that it’s going to bump the whole story up maybe seven or eight percent. Forcing you to pause here, letting you slip right ahead here. I’m very happy with it.

Although, speaking of formats, three weeks ago it became official that Ray Porter is going to be narrating The Off Season. “Narrating” feels a little flat for all he brings to a book, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s pretty much a one man show. Performing? Dramatic reading? I’m just thrilled I get to work with him again. So now you have to get the hardcover and the audiobook. Sorry, things just work out this way sometimes. I don’t make the rules.

Finally... many thanks to all of you who came out and said hi at San Diego Comic Con. It was a packed, exhausting couple of days (there’s that word again) but also tons of fun. Got to see a lot of cool stuff, say hi to some friends I only get to see once or twice a year, and also meet some very cool folks. Oh, and if you weren’t at SDCC but still wanted a signed book, I think Mysterious Galaxy might have a few copies of God’s Junk Drawer and the Combat Monsters anthology. Give ‘em a call.

Oh, crap, no, not finally! One more thing! I found out a few weeks ago that God’s Junk Drawer is up for a Dragon Award for best science fiction novel. If you wanted to vote, it’s completely free and open to everyone (look, here’s a link), and I wouldn’t complain. Although, there’s a lot of good books on that ballot. And holy crap, the best tv choices? Anyway, I’m not actually going to be at Dragon Con this year, no idea if that matters, but it’s so rare for me to get any sort of awards nod I had to mention it.

So what else do I have for you...?

Cool Stuff I’ve Been Watching
We finally got to see Supergirl and enjoyed it a lot. Not fantastic, not groundbreaking, but very fun. Strange New Worlds is back and holy crap this season’s already hitting us from a few different directions, isn’t it? Also Ted Lasso, which is always like a breath of fresh air. Oh, and I’ve been slowly introducing my beloved to episodes of The Tick (the classic animated show).

Cool Stuff I’ve Been Reading
Honestly... not a heck of a lot. With the deadlines, most of reading time became “squeeze in some extra work” time. I tried to get a few more chapters into Year of the Mer, but I was enjoying it a lot and I felt like I was doing it a real disservice reading it in such a piecemeal fashion. But I’ve got a nice stack of things I’m hoping to get through during this vacation.

Cool New Toys
So many things piling up by my desk (many of which I’ll be opening shortly after hitting send). I was kind of stunned to get the SDCC semi-exclusive Cursed Templar from Four Horsemen. I got the Marvel Legends classic Ghost Rider (with motorcycle) on a great sale. I’d been kind of torn on it, but at 25% off... well... Grabbed a Power Ranger figure off eBay just because I thought she looked pretty cool. No idea who the character is, what iteration of Power Rangers/ Super Sentai, I just thought it looked cool. Also, Jada Toys finally released their My Hero Academia Dark Deku/ Demon Deku/ Vigilante Deku. I’ve heard this look called a bunch of things, but if you’re a MHA fan you know what I’m talking about. It’s a great figure and the whole Jada Total Anime line is very budget-friendly and kind of fantastic for the price.

Anyway... that’s enough of all that. I have some important “doing nothing” to get to. Many thanks, as always, for reading, and I’ll talk with you again in September.

But sooner in September, because that one will be on time.