Nothing to Say (That Isn’t Incoherent Screaming)

I’ve long used the blog for long-form rants, and then more “oh yeah I have books” as ranting made me tired, and or general check-ins, but I tend to confine a lot of the usual blog stuff to Patreon updates and posts now (because a) it’s walled, and b) folks there pay to hear from me). And lately every time I think “I should update the blog” I think, “Dear god, what is there even to say except ‘Oh yeah I’m facing an existential threat from the US govt that has dozens of jolts of adrenaline hitting my body and brain every time I check the news, every time I’m on Bsky and getting a clip of that stupid motherfucker speaking or some hapless blue-wave-resist-Dem with an ironic I STAND WITH URKAINE banner on their profile enters my feed with a thought experiment about how annexation would benefit them, and now I can’t really think about future books without also considering whether I’ll be dead in a fucking drone strike because I’m too poor to just move away from the border.'”

So, you know, normal thoughts.

I’m not sleeping, I have no appetite signals, I’m withdrawing, I sit with my word processor open and forget how words work, and it all just makes me even more irritable and constantly in fight mode. (Amazing that weeks ago I was apologizing to Bsky followers for being in a rage constantly and yelling at Americans and now, well, sorry but this is not going away, you’re getting nonstop “It’s not a war crime the first time” from me.) (Also note: I’m anti-war crimes and make jokes because of dread.) I’m doing extended periods offline to quiet my brain and focus, but I need the internet for work…and socialization…and dopamine.

I wish I could get out and do stuff and interact with humans outside of a computer screen, but my social bubble consists of me and cats, because though they shorten my lifespan with their shenanigans, at least they can’t get me sick when I can least afford it.

I was doing a digital landscape tutorial every Sunday for my mental health and now I’m doing them midweek as well to have a few hours of calm and not thinking about…*gestures*

I guess it’s okay, then, that I’ve just got the one book out this year, because clearly my brain can’t handle more even though it’ll hurt financially later this year. I’m hoping the audiobooks will fill the financial gap a bit, and I’m going to try large print versions of a few books (right now Dweller, Solomon’s Seal, The Silent Places, and The Killing Beach, to see how they do)–even a couple selling might help.

Still preparing for May’s release. The new one actually has more preorders than the previous ones, which is still nowhere near the height of Livi or the horror books, but the readers finding Waverly are ride or die, which is incredible for a dark, weird, deeply niche series with a typical “unlikable” heroine.

I still need to do the cover art for the hardcover and I may have to pull out the short story (though I’ll leave the novella) as an extra because the damn book is so long, I already need to shrink the font to accommodate the page count limits and it’s cutting it close. But it’s getting closer to being done.

Also, I have this.

The artist did a fantastic job and I got the stickers ordered to go to patrons, assume the US is going to let stuff through (I have a package out to a friend in TX and it’s currently stuck as “inbound into customers”, so who knows).

In addition to stickers, I can put them on other stuff.

And this:

She’s working on another piece against a background right now that I can have for a poster (and use for post cards) and I’ve got other stuff I want to ask her to do, but I kind of want to do all the characters, including the dog, as adorable die-cut stickers, although that might get kind of weird to have this silhouette holding a knife or something as a serial killer.

Anyway, that’s where I am and why I’ve got nothing to talk about that’s not just screaming at the top of my lungs. I’m going to do some more meal prep for the freezer so I don’t waste anything that I have no appetite for.