October 2024 Dispatch
First off, welcome new people who subscribed from the “Dude, Where’s My Pack?” audiobook Kickstarter! Glad to have you here. The way this works is: the first Monday of the month, I’ll send you a Dispatch (that’s this thing you’re reading now) which will catch you up on what I’ve been doing, what projects I’m working on, what’s just been released or is about to be, and what I’ve been watching. The second Monday of the month, I’ll either send an excerpt of something I’ve been writing or I’ll write up a spotlight on a book of mine or someone else’s. The third Monday of the month is for writing tips, so if you have any writing questions, please leave them in the comments or send them to me on Twitter/Mastodon/Bluesky. I only answer one per month but I do remember them from month to month.
The big news this month is that the Titles audiobook is out! It’s been a long time coming, but you can finally have Savrin bring Dev and Lee to your ears again. Kit has been working hard with multiple narrators to get audiobooks rolling out again, as you know, so expect more to come!
This month, after a hiatus, I went back to recording the Price of Thorns audiobook. I’m pleased with the progress and how it’s going—we just passed the halfway point, so if all goes well, I hope it’ll be out by spring or summer next year (it’s a long book).
Otherwise, I’ve been working mostly on revisions to Azure City, and drafting Weasel Under the Sun. Both going pretty well, although the end of September came with a pile of stuff that took me away from writing—literally, in that we were trying to clear out our storage unit and I had to go through lots of old boxes. In addition, the volunteer work I do for SFWA got very busy at the end of the month, so I spent a few days tending to those things before getting back to it this week. The new chapter of Fast Break comes out Thursday (for $20+ Patreon members) and Azure City continues to post every Wednesday (for $5+ Patreon members).
October’s going to be busy as well, continuing with the above-mentioned projects (Price of Thorns, Azure City, Weasel Under The Sun). We are moving forward on a cover for the second Wolftown book, Dead Right, and anticipating that that one will be ready for MFF. And as I write this, we’re experiencing our fourth or fifth day in a row with 90+-degree temps—but it should be the last, hopefully of the year. Wherever you are, I hope you stay safe from the weather and that fall brings lots of delicious and spooky treats.
Books:
Squeak Thief: A rich mouse hires a fox thief to steal from his own family, but the job quickly spirals out of control. You can get it as a print book on FurPlanetor Amazon, or as an e-book on BadDogBooks or any other major retailer.
The Price of Thorns: buy at Argyll and review at Amazon or GoodReads. In a fantasy world where stories are woven into the fabric of magic and life, Nivvy the thief is hired by a mysterious woman, and this job will change his life in ways he could never have anticipated.
Audiobooks: Titles is out! Find it on Audible or iTunes.
We are working on getting Love Match 2 out the door now. Work on the Price of Thorns audiobook continues; we hope to have this out next year. The Dude, Where’s My Pack? audiobook is also in process.
Other upcoming releases:
Dead Right: Late fall 2024. Jae gets tangled in the life of a ghost activist who endangers his relationships and his future.
Azure City: 2025. A book full of blank pages might be the key to another world, but the more Athos reads, the more he disappears from this one.
In progress:
Robin Hood fan fic (two books) — draft complete, awaiting revision
Third Wolftown book — draft complete, awaiting revision
Ty the Knot — draft complete, awaiting revision
Fast Break (a gay basketball player story on Patreon) — first draft ongoing
craft book — first draft ongoing
Weasel Under The Sun (mystery) — first draft ongoing
untitled fantasy world project — outlining
Streaming:
Kevin Can F*** Himself (Netflix) — Annie Murphy (Schitt’s Creek) stars as beleaguered housewife Allison in a domestic sitcom set in Worcester, Massachusetts. Only…when she’s not with her boorish, goofy husband (the titular Kevin, inspired by Kevin James), her own life is less funny and more dramatic. The balance between the two works well, and while the sitcom seems hacky at first, as the show goes along, you start to think about how the sitcom lines would sound in the drama—and vice versa, sometimes. The show ends up being about Allison’s relationship with her neighbor Patty (Mary Hollis Inboden), her unlikely ally in the quest to find the life she wants. I like Annie Murphy a lot, and she—and everyone—does a great job here, with some very sharp writing. It’s complete after two seasons and I recommend giving it a try.
After finishing that, I bounced around between a couple shows, neither of which I’ve finished yet. Shrinking (Apple+), about a therapist (Jason Segel) dealing with the death of his wife, started slow but I am really enjoying it now. And The Gentleman (Netflix), a Guy Ritchie series about an English soldier who inherits his father’s title and estate and then discovers a drug enterprise on his grounds, is…very Guy Ritchie. Is there boxing? Violence? People screaming in various British accents? You know it, plus Giancarlo Esposito too. If that’s what you want, even after only three episodes I feel comfortable telling you it will deliver.
Speaking of Guy Ritchie, did I tell you guys about Uncut Gems? (It was a Netflix movie but now might be on Max, I think?) Adam Sandler stars as a jeweler with a gambling problem, and it plays out a lot like a Guy Ritchie movie, with Kevin Garnett as himself and Lakeith Stanfield as the guy who brings him to Sandler’s shop, setting off a train of events that culminates in “tensely watching a game that happened over a decade ago,” like Silver Linings Playbook did for us. Anyway, it was engaging and though I feel bad saying I enjoyed it, I was for sure entertained. Sandler is great, if that’s what you’re worried about.
And we saw Megalopolis. I don’t know what I can tell you about it that a hundred other people haven’t already. It is a spectacle for sure, but it feels like the grandest spectacle of the seventies in a lot of ways (the costumes, the cinematography, the effects sometimes). It works better, I think, if you go into it not expecting any of the characters to be people but to be metaphors for the message, because nobody’s motivations are very clear from a human perspective. Adam Driver stars as Cesar Catalina, an architect/city planner who wants to build Magic Disneyland in the middle of New York—sorry, it’s New Rome, and there’s a lot of imagery and naming to remind you of that (Cassius, Claudio, Cicero)—while a lot of people aim to stop him politically and financially. Why does he want to build it? Why do they want to stop him? Those questions are not treated as important by the movie. It felt honestly to me like someone telling me about a dream they had, because it had such strong imagery and such weak story. I’m glad I saw it, but I don’t think it’s important that you see it in the theater (FWIW, there’s an interactive scene that is being talked about a lot, but our theater showing did not include that scene, so I think your experience watching it at home will be just fine).
We’re seeing Wild Robot tomorrow, don’t worry! What’s on your calendar as the leaves turn and the ghosts come out?