F@¢&!%g Christmas Raccoons
Okay, this one’s running a little late. I had this week’s schedule all worked out with the newsletter and book edits and seeing my parents and then... raccoons. Every couple of months a group of them traveling through the canyon will discovers our back yard (and the garden) and then we’re up for a couple nights in a row making sure they don’t, y’know, destroy everything in their glee at finding this little oasis of food and water and safety. So that’s how this pre-holiday week began. Weirdly enough, it can get really exhausting shooing raccoons away until three thirty in the morning.
But enough excuses...
Wow. It’s the last newsletter of the year. Holy hell, how’d we get here so fast? I mean, for me it was four sick cats and covid and editing two books and politics. That’s enough to eat up many months of the year. And it did. If you’ve been reading the newsletter for any amount of time, you’ve probably seen me talk about some of this already.
On a related note, because I dared to brush up against politics in the last newsletter half a dozen people unsubscribed. No, seriously. One even sent a weird email that sounded more like a cut-and-paste wiseass twitter reply.
Look, I totally get it if you don’t want to hear about politics. I don’t want to hear about politics. I really just want a functioning government I can not think about, one that isn’t actively threatening to wreck my livelihood, my health, or otherwise trying actively to destroy the lives of me or my friends and family and even, yeah,a bunch of strangers I don’t know who still deserve to be treated like human beings. But unfortunately, that’s almost certainly not what the next couple years are going to be like, and it’s only natural that people are going to say something about it now and then. Yes, including people with newsletters about “what’s going on in my head this month.” If me mentioning politics once in two dozen newsletters is enough to make someone unsubscribe, well... I’ve got to warn you, there’s a decent chance it’ll happen again sometime in the next four years.
Random other thing, speaking of the newsletter. Buttondown (the company that hosts this fine ongoing peek into my head), recently sent out one of their newsletters and it brought up the principle of least inbox interruption. It’s the idea that the more times a newsletter shows up in your inbox, the more likely you are to ignore it—no matter how much its tailored to your needs and interests. I’d never heard the term before, but that was basically my thinking when I decided this would only be monthly at most. I don’t know about you, but for a while I was subscribed to a few newsletters that were... well, flooding my inbox sounds excessive, but these folks were definitely putting out newsletters and updates faster than I got around to reading them. Which usually just meant I didn’t read them.
So, heading into the new year, my goal here is still going to be just showing up now and then to let you know how things are going. Maybe share some book recommendations or toy photos. And maybe squeeze in one extra newsletter if there’s actually something important going on. Again, least inbox interruption.
Which, hey... let me tell you how things are going.
As hinted at above, I just handed in my revised edits on God’s Junk Drawer. It was a tiny bit more tightening, some clarifying, and overall I’m feeling really good about it. Barring any last minute tweaks, next stop will be the copy editor, which will probably happen... well, next year right around the time you get the next newsletter. Guess we’ll see where things are then. And hopefully by then I’ll also have some preorder news for you.
I’m also still doing my own initial edits on TOS. It’s also going well. This stage is just lots of little cuts, a word here and there. Basically it’s me trimming all the obvious fat from my initial drafts, but that’s already knocked over a thousand words off this and I’m maybe halfway through. Plus there’s a few larger cuts I already know I have to make. The goal is to have all of this done by the start of the next year. Like, first or second week of January. Again.
Also working on some stuff I want to pitch to my agent early next year. One small project, one kinda big one we keep circling around. I think it might finally be time to pull the trigger and say, yeah, we’re doing this. It’ll be a lot of work but I think it could really be worth it, from a storytelling point of view.
And hey, speaking of next year... you may have heard that a few contributors (including me) are going to do a sort of mini signing tour for Combat Monsters, the upcoming anthology that has my latest Carter & Kraft story, “The Night Crew.” We're going to be at- Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego (1pm, Feb 15), Dark Delicacies in Burbank (3pm, Feb 22), and Artifact Books in Encinitas (3pm, March 1). Preorder the book through one of them, get it signed by us. Or be there and talk with us about it. And if you’re a few hundred miles away and can’t make it, I'm pretty sure they all deliver.
Also, Weird Tales #370 is out right now with my story “Straw Man.” Go grab a copy! You can even get an audio version of it, in which case you can listen to it read by the amazing Ray Porter. See, no excuses!
What else do I have for you...?
Cool Stuff I’ve Been Watching
My beloved and I watched Transformers One and it was surprisingly solid. So many Transformers movies just devolve into story/ visual chaos and this one was kind of fun and a little emotional and well done. We also watched Hot Frosty, which was fairly goofy and harmless and competently made and hey, for a holiday romance movie that’s 3/4 of the battle right there. Also watched one of my own seasonal favorites, A Prince For Christmas. Yes, it’s one of those, and yes, I really like it. It’s by a director I worked with years ago, Fred Olen Ray, and it’s remarkably good for a movie about a secret prince finding love with a diner owner in middle America. I’ve also found myself watching a YouTube channel called Wheelie Yellow, about a sort of... well, yellow puppet racing around in a little delivery van and offering some honestly nice thoughts on life.
Cool Stuff I’ve Been Reading
This hasn’t been a great year for reading (see above: how’d the end of the year get here so fast?) and the past month I’ve only read two books. One ARC for a blurb—the amazing Two Truths and a Lie by Cory O’Brien, out next year). One book for fun—the delightful A Brief History of Flowers by Advolly Richmond, which was so much fun it was a last minute add to my list of holiday recommendations.
Cool New Toys
In the weeks before Christmas I try not to get myself anything just so I don’t risk undercutting anyone’s Christmas gift (it happened one year and I felt awful). But I still had a few long-term preorders show up, and one or two eBay auctions for things. I’m afraid I may be slowly sinking into a Cosmic Legions collection, which is funny because for the longest time I’ve held up Four Horsemen as an example of how far I haven’t gotten into toy collecting. “Look, they’re gorgeous, yeah, but I’m not going to pay that much for an action figure.” Anyway, I’ve got... nine (?) of them now. Plus a big bear on pre-order.
And I think that’s everything I’ve got. I hope overall the end of the year is peaceful for you, and you’re able to spend a little time relaxing with friends and family. There’ll be enough to stress about soon enough, after all. For now, have a drink, watch some holiday specials, get some much-needed rest.
See you next year.
