January 2022 Dispatch

Happy New Year!

As I’m writing this, there’s some uncertainty over whether FC will happen in a limited capacity or even at all. Omicron variant cases are spiking and it doesn’t seem advisable to gather a bunch of people together in one place, perhaps even vaxxed and masked people. But also FC might not have a financially viable option to postpone. We’ll see what happens in the coming days.

Me, I’m flying to Michigan tomorrow to spend a week with some writing buds, which also seems less advisable than it did a month or two ago, but at least we’re going to be all isolated on a farmhouse anyway, so if despite my precautions I catch COVID, we’ll all be quarantined. Everyone’s vaccinated and boosted so we’re doing all we can to stay safe.

December is always a down month for me productivity-wise. The holidays give me lots of other things to think about, and as a consequence stories suffer. That’s not necessarily bad; taking a break now and then can be good for the spirit, and the holidays are a good thing to focus on, reminding me/us of the wonderful people in our lives and the joy we all share. So I mostly worked on Patreon stuff and edits to The Price of Thorns, which I’m looking forward to getting ready for beta review early this year.

How did you all spend your holidays? Any memorable experiences to share?

We watched both Venom movies and I enjoyed them more than I was expecting to. The banter between Eddie and Venom gets a little over the top in the second movie, but overall they were funnier than they were violent, which is a good mix—they got the Evil Dead 2 formula pretty right (less bloody though).

We also watched Free Guy, which we enjoyed a lot. It seemed to go right up to the edge of asking and exploring some interesting questions about AIs and what constitutes “life,” but never quite got there, falling back instead on a superhero sort of ending with a big fight. In fact, there were two or maybe three different possible movies it could’ve been and wasn’t, but Ryan Reynolds and Jodie Comer are enjoyable enough to make up for the structural flaws.

And of course we watched Hawkeye. I am a big fan of the Fraction/Aja comic run this series is inspired by (if not outright based on in parts), and I wish those creators had gotten more credit and any money for the design and story elements they contributed to this series. I really liked how the series went; they built up genuine character conflicts and resolved them in ways that felt not only realistic (within the parameters of the superhero genre) but satisfying as well. Apart from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, all of the Marvel series from Disney+ have been very good to great this year.

For the new year, I’m trying to build more community among my fans. I know that this newsletter hasn’t really encouraged feedback, and it’s ok if you just read it to keep up with things, but I’m going to start encouraging replies in the comments (as you may have noticed above). So what did you watch over the holidays? Any recommendations to add?

Lastly, I’m not sure if I’ll be going to FC now. I’m still figuring on TFF because it’s a couple months away and who the heck knows what might be happening then. It feels foolish to make any plans more than a week or so out, but I guess we’ll see how things go. Hopefully you’re all staying happy and healthy and vaxxed and boosted, and I’ll look forward to seeing you at a con somewhere down the line.