Slam Into February!
February's Pugsteady Update!
Hey all! January has been a busy month — much busier than I expected! After a couple of years of feeling like a damp dishrag of anxiety, I’m starting to feel more myself again. More like a bath towel. But not one of those huge, fluffy ones. Anyway, let’s get on with the newsletter!
Exercise and Wordcount
For years I’ve struggled to keep any kind of consistent exercise routine. There are a lot of reasons — some good, most bad — but at the end of the day, no matter what my intentions are, I’ll often do a routine for a few weeks and then find some reason to quit.
When the pandemic started, after the initial concern of I cannot go outside for any reason whatsoever, I started walking around 6am, when no one was around. I just needed to get out of the house, so I would walk even if it was around the block. Once we got our adorable boxer Darby, walking became more regular, so I converted my morning walk into exercise. These days I’m up to about 3-4 miles a day in my morning walk.
But rain days were my problem. It’s hard to get the desire to walk when it’s raining. And yet, I found that I felt like crap if I didn’t walk. So lately I’ve been working on a series of short exercises I can do at home. They’re often about 5-10 minutes long, but the point is they get my heart rate up and get me moving. More importantly, it means I can get some kind of exercise in every day.
The same is with work. Even though I’ve been a writer professionally for over two decades now, the fact is some days I just don’t want to get things moving. So I tell myself that I should do only a little bit of work. Most of the time, that’s all I need — once I start, the rest will flow, and I can get a decent day’s work in. But sometimes, I do maybe fifty words and that’s that. But at least I got some work in that day.
Something to think about if you’re also struggling to create in these turbulent times.
News Roundup!
It looks like my routine of getting work done has been paying off in the past month!
I mentioned this last month, but the Genreless podcast with Chris Spivey has started to kick into gear, and I’m having a lot of fun with it! It’s definitely not my usual work blah blah, but honestly it’s been fun to just hang out and talk about fun TV shows with a friend. And just recently we got to talk about one of my all-time favorite shows, Deep Space Nine. Plus, I did decide to talk about Hawkeye on the show, so check that out starting next week!
Last month I started doing Lunch and Crunch, a bi-weekly Twitch stream with Danielle Lauzon where we use our lunch hour to talk about the Storypath System and RPG design as a whole. Right now it’s only available to subscribers of the Onyx Path Twitch channel if you miss them live, but they’ll be up on YouTube in the near future!
On the “things you can buy” front, an anthology I wrote for is now online! Transgressive Horror: Reflections on Scare Films that Broke the Rules is available. On this, I wrote an essay on Hound of the Baskervilles (the 1959 version), which is a perfect intersection of my time as a horror writer and my time as a Sherlockian. I hear there’s going to be a volume two in the near future….
Finally, a personal favorite of mine: Trinity Continuum: N!WE Unleashed! This is a sourcebook for Trinity Continuum: Aberrant covering superhuman professional wrestling. I co-developed it with my good friend and fellow wrestling mark Matthew Dawkins, and I’m particularly happy with the entire mini-system for creating and arbitrating wrestling matches. If you’re a fan of pro wrestling, it’s worth checking out even if you’re not a fan of Aberrant!
My Media
After years of encouragement from Matthew, I finally checked out OSW Review, a fantastic YouTube series from three Irish lads who review classic pro wrestling PPVs. They’ve been doing it for ten years, giving me a lot to get through, but so far I’m really enjoying it. It’s not only been fun to see some of the characters I loved when I was growing up, but I also learn a ton about the nature of the wrestling business at the time. Plus, after four years since I moved away from Ireland, it’s nice to hear some Irish accents again. If you’re a fan of pro wrestling, I definitely recommend the show.
And with that, it’s time to get back to work. See you next month!
