J. Martin

January 9, 2022

A Busy Week

While I’m waiting to hear back from the literary agent, I’m not twiddling my thumbs. I began to sketch the dramatic structure of my follow-up Voidpunk novel, its chapter layout, locations, characters, and theme. And before I start to write, hopefully in March, I want to do the same thing for a second follow-up novel, so I can try and write two books at the same time. Why? In academia, as in my agency days, I switch between projects when I get stuck, which always gets me swiftly back on track. Will that work with fiction as well? Stay tuned!

Then, I wrote a blog post on my novel’s “pool office” beginnings over at Voidpunk, and one linked-list item on Ken Levine’s “Managerial Lego” at my secret level just drafts.

Also, I revived my Instagram account betweendrafts, albeit with a different concept and more verbosity. (Everything travel is now on Flickr and Glass.) I thought Instagram had marginally improved, but no. It’s basically the same unpalatable inferno it was when I left almost two years ago, thoroughly disgusted. But it’s an important platform that I once loved to death (before it fell to Facebook).

But wait! There’s more! I also created a brand-new, second Instagram account for the voidpunkverse. There, I’m posting images, quotes, and thoughts around Pulp & Golden Age science fiction & fantasy that I find inspiring, curious, or revolting, whatever the case may be; plus infrequent nods to more contemporary SF&F writers I enjoy. If you’re interested in such arcana, you’re welcome to follow!

Also, talking about images, I uploaded a new album with ten images from Kamakura on Flickr and two monastery re-edits on Glass, one from Pingyao, China, and one from Kamakura.

My game recommendation this week is the web-based word-guessing game Wordle. It’s neat, clean, and fun, and you can play it only once per day. You can post your result on social media, but even that’s a very clean and neat affair, without even a backlink. Terrific.

In this week’s fun section, two web comics: “How to Destroy the Internet” by Gail Simone & Cathy Brett and one comic about Winnie the Pooh entering the Public Domain by Luke McGarry. For the latter, though, the red sweater thing can be disputed—Pooh already wears a sweater in some of E. H. Shepard’s original black-&-white drawings, and this sweater is indeed red in Pooh merchandise from the 1930s on. Also, fuck Disney in any case—not only do they mine our cultural heritage and never give a fucking thing back without being fucking forced to. Lately, they’ve also begun to try and cheat writers out of their royalties. Fuck Disney. (If I incant this often enough, maybe Robin Williams’s Genie will appear and grant me three wishes?)

Finally, I can’t close without linking to John Scalzi’s adorable cat break picture.

Y’all take care of yourself!
J.