Well, 2026 has been a huge swirling mess, hasn’t it?

With so many bad things going on, it’s really easy to feel overwhelmed. Even when you know you’ve done all you can, helped all you can, given all you can. We hit a point that we’re just drained physically and mentally, no resources left, and then we take a quick scroll through the timeline and, oh, check it out, nothing’s changed. Nothing at all.

It’s okay to admit we just need to step away for a bit. Honestly, I’d be a little worried about someone who didn’t step away for a bit. Breathe. Sleep. Relax. Take an hour or three to just enjoy life and have some you-time. Listen to music. Watch a movie. Build a model. Take your dog for a long walk in the park. Maybe while you listen to music.

And let’s be honest. We all know we need these moments to relax and recharge. To give our brains a minute or three to to just stretch. It’s not great to keep going at peak stress and worry 24/7. The only possible outcome there is something breaking, and when we’re talking about us, well... that break probably won’t be healthy.

Last year I had a serious problem with down time. I had lots of things I wanted to do, but that ongoing, overwhelming wave even reached me on my day off. I’d be so determined to do something to relax I’d kind of freeze up trying to figure out how to relax. Did I want to do something toy-related? If so, did I want to organize them? Open some? Take photos? Maybe something with my assorted little toy soldiers? Which ones? Am I building or painting them? And whichever I pick, am I going to finish an old project or start a new one I’ve got a little more enthusiasm for? Work on the front lawn? Work in the back yard? Work on the garden path? And by the time I figured out what I wanted to do to relax... well, I’ve only got an hour or two now. Maybe I should think of doing something else...

So at the start of this year, I wrote up a list (creatively titled ‘the Weekend List”). It’s just a bunch of stuff I want/ need to do. I’ve added to it a few times already. The big thing for everything on the list is that they’re all single projects. They’re all “just do this” sort of things. If there’s something more complex I need to do, I may have broken it down into two or three steps. Now I just look at my list on Friday night or Saturday morning, pick something, and say “oh yeah, I can do that.”

It’s a silly thing, sure. But it helps me make sure I relax on the weekend. Which means I’m refreshed and recharged on Monday. Or even Sunday, when I write the newsletter.

If you’re feeling burned out—and I think anyone with a shred of empathy probably is these days—maybe take a few minutes and figure out what kind of things would help you relax. What is it that would let your brain do something really different, even if that means just zoning out and doing nothing for a little bit? And then maybe take another minute and figure out if there’s something simple you can do to make sure you relax. Even if it’s just something simple like making a list.

Anyway... let me give you some bookish updates and news.

God’s Junk Drawer is now out in audiobook format (as well as hardcover and ebook) and it had a very nice release. It spent a few days as the number one time travel book on Audible/ Amazon, beating out the number two book, 11/22/63 by Stephen King. Yes, his book’s been out for almost fifteen years and yes, so many of those sub-sub-genre lists don’t really mean anything when you break them down that far. Shut up. I don’t care. I was outselling Stephen King for most of a week. God’s Junk Drawer even made it into the overall Audible top 100, spending a few days in the 90s and ever so briefly reaching the 70s. So many, many thanks to all of you. I hope you’ve been enjoying it. I have. Ray Porter’s absolutely nailed this one.

And hey, if you really wanted, you could always thank him or me with a review. Goodreads. Audible. That big river site. Whatever bookery webpage you frequent. Heck, just telling all your friends on social media how much you liked it.

Oh, and as it turns out... Audible gave me a handful of codes for free copies of the God’s Junk Drawer audiobook. I thought about doing some kind of raffle or contest for them, but let’s just keep it really simple. As we talked about above, it’s a crazy, stressful time. It also sucks financially for a lot of folks. So if things have been tight for you and books are one of the places you’ve had to cut back... just reply to this newsletter, let me know, and I’ll give you a code. One free audiobook for you. You don’t need to explain why or prove anything, I’m doing this on the honor system. I think the only requirement is you need to have an Amazon or Audible account.

So let me know and we’ll get Ray Porter talking in your ears about dinosaurs.

As for new stuff... TOS has been through another round of edits (by me) and is back with my editor. I cut about 13K words out of it—just shy of twenty-five single-spaced pages. It’s a lot leaner and faster, and a couple things are going to hit a lot harder, I think. We’re probably going to do one more back-and forth pass before it heads off to the copyeditor.

We’re also already talking about release days and signing events. I’m probably going to know soon how much of this is locked down so I can actually start, y’know, telling you things instead of vagueposting about them. Vaguelettering? I can tell you the time between God’s Junk Drawer and this is going to be a lot shorter than the time between The Broken Room and God’s Junk Drawer.

And... I’m working on the next book. But we’ll keep quiet about that one for now. Even though I’ve sort-of mentioned it before.

Oh! And I’m going to be at Wondercon in Anaheim next month! I’m still waiting for final details, but I’ll share them as soon as I can.

What other cool things can I tell you about...?

Cool Stuff I’ve Been Watching
As I write this, we just watched Predator: Badlands last night (Happy Valentine’s Day) and really enjoyed it a lot. We also watched Edgar Wright’s version of The Running Man and found it... well, fun but a little too believable, y’know? We’re about 3/4 of the way through Wonder Man and loving it. Also loving Starfleet Academy for eight or nine different reasons. But I think the runaway favorite this month has been School Spirits (also on Paramount+) which my beloved and I watched two episodes of on a whim and then ended up binging well, all of it in two weeks to get us caught up to the currently-airing season three. Ridiculously good in so many ways

Cool Stuff I’ve Been Reading
Got to read a lot of blurbish, promo stuff this past month and, well, really enjoyed all of it. I got an early copy of Emily Zinnikas’s I Am the Monster Under the Bed which comes out this fall and it’s just fantastic. Django Wexler let me see all of his new project, The Thirteenth God, which he’s releasing one chapter per day on his patreon. And Scott Sigler sent me a copy of his second Crypt book, about the crew of a haunted prison ship that might actually be alive (think Suicide Squad meets Das Boot in deep space, except it’s the deep space of Event Horizon). And I’m about to dive into Cullen Bunn’s Bones of Our Stars, Blood of Our World.

Cool New Toys
Not that much, although there’s a huge BigBadToyStore shipment on the horizon because I’m been pushing my pile of loot to the breaking point again. I did get the Jazwares Total Anime MHA Dabi for myself, and it’s a fantastic figure with tons of accessories (why haven’ tthey made half the MHA cast by now?!?). I also grabbed the Shalla Bal Silver Surfer from Fantastic Four: First Steps, partly because I really loved the movie, partly because I have that massive HasLab Galactus and I figure he can use all the heralds I can get. And my beloved got me the new Transformers Studio Series Windcharger, because she always tries to get me a red robot for Valentine’s Day.

And I think that’s everything? Everything for now, anyway.

Thank you all so much for reading. Will have more news and updates for you in a month or so.