Tax Day
Well, for those of you in the United States, today’s tax day (depending on when you read this). Also guessing half of you did them weeks ago and the other half of you are reading this instead of doing them. Or maybe you’re being semi-responsible (for somebody doing their taxes at the last minute) and reading this is your reward for getting everything in the mail twenty minutes ago.
I admit I’m in the first group. Mine were done weeks ago and I got confirmation they’d been accepted four or five days back. I did them myself for years, but I’ve hit the point now (in a few senses) where it’s well worth it to spend an afternoon organizing my box of receipts and letting someone else take it from there.
Truth be told... I don’t mind paying taxes. No, seriously, I don’t. The government does some stupid, awful things with tax money, yeah, but it also does a lot of really good things. If any of you have followed me through the ranty writing blog for any amount of time, you know that my beloved and I spent about three years living well below the poverty line in Los Angeles. A huge part of how we got through it is because of things people paid for with their taxes. We used the public library’s internet (and to be painfully honest, sometimes stole rolls of toilet paper from the library bathroom). We qualified for discounted utilities and even a free replacement fridge (which worked SO much better than our old one). Public transit. Public parks. Someone else paid for it when we needed it, and I’m glad to be paying for it now when someone else may need all of it (and more).
And someone on Bluesky pointed out recently... that’s true of so many things. Big things. The Center for Disease Control? Yeah, we all paid for that. People all over the world envy it, the government runs it, but it’s ours. Same with NASA. And the Department of Education, Department of Transportation, Veteran’s Affairs, and more. It’s all stuff we funded. We paid for it with our taxes to serve the public good, so other people would have it when they needed it.
And I think that’s why it’s so frustrating to see some bozo taking a chainsaw to all of it. We all recognize that’s our stuff being destroyed. Stuff we paid for! Can you imagine if I smashed your front door off the hinges and then told you it’s better because you can go in quicker when you get home from work? Oh, and I unplugged your fridge so it won’t take as long to warm up those leftovers. Yeah, those examples make me sound really stupid (take that as you will) but more to the point... I shouldn’t be messing with your stuff in the first place.
Grrrrrrrrrrr...
Apologies. That turned into a little more of a rant than planned.
Happy tax day, everyone!
In more interesting news...
God’s Junk Drawer is still in copyedits. There was a slight delay, but things are back on track. I should have the copyedited manuscript back in two weeks, which means it’ll probably already be back to the publisher by the time you get the next newsletter. We’re also probably going to be talking about covers sometime soon. And hey, you can still preorder it from your favorite local bookstore, your second-favorite regional bookstore, or that gigantic South American river website.
My agent has TOS. I went through everyone’s notes. Rethought a few things. Thought a lot about a few other things. Moved a few things around. Cut some others. Added a bit more. In the end, the draft he’s got is only about 500 words shorter than the one everyone else saw, but I think it’s a lot stronger and tighter. Guess we’ll see...
David (my agent) and I also talked about another possible project which I’ll probably just call A2Q for now. If you’re a fan of the ranty writing blog, you may have some idea what that is. And what that might mean. So I’m trying to do some work on that before those copyedits come back.
Also doing a little more work on the comic. This is an awful time to try to be doing something new, but I’ve always wanted to do a comic book and never thought it’d be a secret gateway to untold fame and fortune. If this ends up breaking kinda-sorta-even… I’ll be happy.
Oh, one other thing. Some of you may know I’ve got a short story collection, Dead Men Can’t Complain, that’s been audio-only for a few years now. One of the original stories from it--”Flesh Trade”--is going to be part of a new anthology. Dread Coast: So Cal Horror Tales is going to be out this August and the proceeds go to benefit victims of the LA wildfires from the start of the year. This’ll be the first time “Flesh Trade” has ever been in physical print, so if you don’t do audiobooks... here’s your big chance to read it. And a bunch of other great stories, too.
And there’s something REALLY cool I got to see that I REALLY wish I could share... but that’ll have to wait for now.
What else can I share with you... ?
Cool Stuff I’ve Been Watching
This might sound silly to some of you but my beloved and I sat down and watched Paddington 2 and it truly is a wonder. I’d heard so many people say how good it was. I figured there had to be some catch or something but no... it’s just that good. Doctor Who is back and I thought the first episode was so friggin’ clever. We’ve also been doing a rewatch of Grimm and it’s holding up really well so far. Also kind of surprised to learn we’d missed about eight or nine episodes when it originally aired, so we’re getting to see those too.
Cool Stuff I’ve Been Reading
A lot of work-ish reading this past month. Read two books to give notes and two to give blurbs--one of which is an upcoming Fantastic Four collection from Marvel. So hey, I guess we’ll finally see my name on a Marvel book. Deephaven by Ethan Aldridge was a great little YA story about kids at a mysterious boarding school. I also picked up the collected GI Joe: World On Fire comic storyline by Paul Allor, Chris Evenhuis, Niko Walter, Emma Vieceli, and Ryan Kelly. It was one of the last arcs IDW published, and it’s a dystopian alternate world where Cobra won, the US is an occupied country, and GI Joe is an underground resistance group. Really good, and parts of it hit pretty hard right now.
Cool New Toys
Oooof. The past two weeks I’ve seen a lot of indie toy companies say “we have no idea what’s going to happen, sorry.” One Kickstarter I backed canceled the whole project, saying they couldn’t move forward in good faith. I did grab two more Horrid Infantry figures at WonderCon (giving me a total of “far too many”) and got to hang out at the Spero booth for a bit and talk with the folks there. I also just picked up the McFarlane DC Universe camouflaged Tumbler. I don’t collect DC figures, or 7” scale figures, but this spoke to me. For reasons I won’t bore you with here.
But feel free to ask somewhere else if you really want to know.
And I think that’s everything I’ve got for you. As always, thanks so much for reading. See you next month.
