Greetings all! The year is hurtling towards its end, and I hope your Autumn has proved crisp and tart like a nice, pressed cider. Several updates, do let's not dally!
Music
Dark Prairie Atmospherics Vol.2 proceeding! The other musicians are providing their pieces, and I am going through what has started to come in. If you liked Vol. 1, I think you'll really dig Vol. 2! Hopefully looking at a late November/December release for this one!
We All Float on Diseased Seas out now! Got a lot of nice compliments and several plays on the new, nearly half an hour behemoth which you can get now at
Soundscapes for a Mork Borg Novel! Once again I am teaming up with creative juggernaut John "Toothcracker" Baltisberger on a Kickstarter campaign (which is already doing GANGBUSTERS) for a new novella set in the Mork Borg universe. One of the stretch goals is an audiobook, for which I'll be providing soundscapes coming in and out of the chapters. Probably a little more dark ambient than the middle Eastern doom stuff I did for Morkabbeans, but should still be a very cool end product!
Writing
Live Action 10/28/2022 at PechaKucha Night C-U!
So a lot of my energy this month (some have said "Nicolas Cage energy") has gone into rehearsing for PechaKucha Night, which is a regularly occurring thing here in the corn belt. Presenters get 20 slides and 20 seconds per slide to present on either a topic shared by all, or just something you're passionate about. This edition was "Spooky Stories", so I naturally applied with a selection of excerpts from Olde Wyathscope's Quarterly Concern. It was accepted, and Friday October 28 was the event. I am very critical of my piece, but the audience seemed to dig it, and I even sold a copy of the Concern afterwards. Video of the event should be going up relatively soon (it's an entirely volunteer-run thing) and I'll probably include the links in the December newsletter. I don't know that I would do it again, but it was definitely an interesting and kind of fun event!
Olde Wyathscope as a perk!
One of my favorite horror podcasts is The Lovecraft E-Zine Podcast, and they have a patreon page here
Mike Davis runs everything there and does a fantastic job of providing Patreons with quality bonus items. I reached out to him, and he agreed that Patreons at the $10 and up level will receive e-copies of Olde Wyathscope's Quarterly Concern! This exposure has already gotten me a couple of new subscribers (at the higher tier no less!) and I am really excited to be associated with the podcast.
Interview and Review of Olde Wyathscope in Cauldron of Chaos!
P.J. Blakey-Novis, with whom I appeared in the Trigger Warning: Speaking Ill anthology from Madness Heart Press earlier this year, runs an awesome horror magazine called Cauldron of Chaos. Issue 2, released on 10/30 features an interview with me and a review of Olde Wyathscope! Very kind thanks to P.J. for his support and kind words. You can get a hard copy from Amazon, or an e-copy from Godless at these links:
Magic Rabbit Press news!
Creative wizard Mat Fitzsimmons is still hard at work at the first couple of releases from his boutique micro-press, Magic Rabbit Press. Start saving your coins for early 2023, and a couple of releases I am involved in.These will be very limited run and special. The first should come out in Q1, with stories by myself, Nick Vasi, and Mat Fitzsimmons.
The second is slated for Q2 or Q3, and is a collection of stories and poems titled "Frayed Black Ribbon and Tattered Yellow Knots". Here are two very gracious blurbs I received:
"Beautiful, evocative, and downright creepy; the most poetic takes on cosmic horror I've ever seen." -- Christine Morgan, author of Lakehouse Infernal
"Matt Henshaw's Frayed Black Ribbon and Tattered Yellow Knots, perfectly paired with playfully grotesque Mat Fitzsimmons illustrations, points to the future of the Dark Poetic Weird." - Matthew M. Bartlett, author of Gateways to Abomination
This also has an introduction written by the great Douglas Ford! (Little Lugosi, The Beasts of Vissaria County).
When all is ready and the stars are right, I'll be sharing links to info on these excellent, unique, scarce, and terrifying releases!!
Other Activities
The Olde Wyathscope News Report!
The less said about this, the better, but more coming soon on this!!!
Thoughts on Social Media Usage, Screen Time, and Work
This seemed to be the best place to expound on these various topics not directly related to creative output for me, but which definitely impact it.
You may have noticed if you follow my social media outlets (FB, IG, Twitter) that I have been posting there less lately. Some of this has to do with the time of year - I typically post less around the holidays as November-January are typically "tough" months for me in terms of dealing with the world and our consumer-driven culture. I still enjoy sharing the creative output of others, but I find I don't post enough that the algorithm likes to "grab" onto to give it much in the way of visibility. As a result, I don't go on the pages as much, and therefore don't post as much. I am also relatively sure that no one outside of those who get my monthly emails really cares a whole lot about what I do, and I don't have the kind of self-esteem to think that reporting about my activities is valuable to anyone but my friends who I would already be sharing that stuff with anyways. And this isn't to say I won't be back doing the normal posting stuff, but for the time being it is a help to not be doing as much of the social media thing.
Another facet of social media'ing that I am learning is unhealthy for me is the amount of screen time. I work all day in front of the computer, and then I found myself scrolling on my phone for a lot of the evening. This was making it harder to fall asleep at night, and also taking away from time when I could be reading books written by or recommended by my friends. So after my trip to Rochester in November, I have started turning my phone off around dinner time. The improvement has been significant, and I really have been reading a lot more and being just generally more present, so I will be continuing this "fasting" for the foreseeable future. No email or message is so important that it can't wait until the next day, and I would just as soon keep up my reading pace and having a generally easier time going to sleep at night (even if I find myself awake for hours in the dark early morning hours).
And I am finding as I write this that it is ALL connected isn't it? My screen is where I write, where I scroll, but mostly where I work. This gets to the last and very lengthy point about my work. In 2015 I was hired by a local hospital as a report developer, and the job has been incredibly rewarding. In 2018 I moved to an even better fit in my department, more behind the scenes, and have excelled. Even as we all moved to remote work in March 2020, I thrived with the work at home lifestyle, and my last review reflected this. Alas, change is inevitable, and over the past few years the hospital has been looking for ways to shore up the budget. Much as happened to me in 2011, we were told at the end of November that our entire department was outsourced to a company in Utah. Even though the pieces were all there, this came as a major shock to the team. Fortunately, we are all moving to the Utah company, all remaining remote, and for the time being paid the same ("nothing will change" is the mantra given by VP folks). But, ah, things WILL change. We were given offer letters to decide upon by December 15 (two weeks). Having had a history with companies that contract their talent out to outside vendors, I was extremely dubious of the offer, and set about doing research and so on to see about opportunities to stay in the hospital I am in. I had one interview but the job would not be a good fit for me (help desk duties being chief among them) and had to decline. I also searched for other jobs, but not expecting a prompt response on those, I reluctantly signed the offer letter yesterday.
I am, to be blunt, miserable about this, and am really skeptical of my future work opportunities at the new joint. Reports online from employees claim they are very happy there, but I take that with a huge grain of salt. Contract work is contract work, and contracts are broken all of the time. I am keeping one eye out for any other local job opportunities that can match my current pay and provide more stability. This is going to be my part-time work for some time now. I also am rather angry about this.
These kinds of things are not things I would care to share on Social Media, and even am dubious of sharing here, but this is an outlet that I think I can talk about this (even while not naming names of orgs, people, etc.) Needless to say, this has also been a factor in curtailing my screen time and social media presence. \
All of this to say, between job stress, and the time of the year, I am not exactly thrilled to talk about myself very much with anyone except in one on one conversations with close friends. If we haven't talked yet, it is no reflection on our relationship. It is exhausting going through everything, and I have it in my head that outside of professional therapeutic talk sessions, it doesn't do any good to wallow in the misery and stress. I don't believe for me that sharing the stressful stuff helps me to bear the burden any easier. It still comes to me to be responsible, to act in the interest of my household, and to either direct my negative energy towards creative output or stack it on my pile of negativity that will inevitably drive me to an early grave.
There is also a lot on the job front I don't know, and it is not to say that I don't reserve some hope this might be a good thing for me. It certainly may afford me the opportunity to reserve more creative time for myself than another job might allow for. The benefits at the new place are a bit better than the current place. Most importantly, I have a job. I am reminded in "American Splendor" of the scene where Harvey Pekar wakes up from a nightmare saying "I got a job", and how much I identify with that sentiment. I don't know what I would do without a job, I don't see myself ever retiring in a real way, and I am definitely in the final quarter of what I expect to live out. These are realities I accept, and not depressing things for me.
If you've read this far, please don't take this as me living in a hell of depression, anxiety, and stress. My wife and I laugh every day about nonsense, and I can still be creative. I still have a job. I will have a job for the foreseeable future. Things tend to get better even with dips in the road. I will be fine. I care, everyone cares, and I sincerely hope you have less on your plate than I do. Soon my plate will clear up, and stability will be reached. I hope you'll be with me to celebrate when things are good in the future-I know they will be too.
Thanks for reading, and happy rest of 2022, and beginning of 2023.
