This is a catch-up post. It is intended to let everyone who asks me ‘what have you been up to?’ know EXACTLY what I’ve been up to – much to their regret. There will be swearing, and discussion of my personal life. There will be discussion of elder care and health scares. Just… there’s been a lot.
In short – things sucked for a while. They were scary and uncertain, but now they are much, much better.
Sigh. Let me get the dumb jokes out of the way so I can get to the review:
There! I had more but I’m tired. Note: I might not be at the top of my game right now with this viewing and review – I might revisit the movie in a few months to see what occurs then.
Anyway -Let me clear something further up – I didn’t hate MEN. I enjoyed it! I will own it when it’s available for purchase! I’ll break down what it did right and wrong in full later, but what you should understand now is that I am NOT hating on MEN.
MEN’s ad campaign set high expectations: there were blurbs like ‘GAME CHANGER!’, high marks from the Onion AV Club and other respectable review sources. I was expecting the film to do for discussions about the patriarchy what Jordan Peele’s GET OUT did for discussions about racism. Instead, it avoided that discussion and settled for being stylish and posing more questions than it answered.
There’s room for film that provokes conversation; it is refreshing to talk through concepts with other filmgoers, thereby expanding an otherwise solitary enjoyment to a group one. A24 does this time and time again, making (pleasant, sane) discourse all but necessary for their works. But MEN pushed right past that and brushed perilously close to incoherence.
As always, spoilers down below:
Good morning, Friends!
Today’s a big day – an image reveal for Virago.
I am still on target to release the Print version Friday, October 15th. I believe the Kindle version will be available the same day. Both will be available through Amazon.
The podcast of the first episode should be available on Spotify the same day, too, although you can always listen to all the episodes here, on my Escape Into Storytelling page.
Join me under the cut, won’t you, and see the fruits of many labors?
The New Normal in the house involves much less dry food, available throughout the day, a bigger water fountain, and a serving of wet food at both 7:30 AM and PM. At the same time as the wet food, I also administer an insulin shot.
Greetings, friend!
I was musing on all the things I’m dealing with at the moment, and realized it’s a lot. Rather than try to fit all this shit into a tweet or a tweet-thread, I decided to indulge myself and fill the vasty white fields of a blog post with swarms of words. I have an awesome mechanical keyboard, let’s bang on this thing.
(CW: Pet health, needles, harsh language)
Feel free to skim the Herzog paragraphs- there is a bullet list at the bottom detailing the other mountains in my range of Recent Anxieties.
(Author’s Note: Once I was done with this emotional barf party, I dithered on whether or not to even post it since it’s a few thousand words of just BLAAAAAAHHHHGGGGHHHHH. But I decided to go ahead and post it – let things that need be said, be said. At another point in the future, I will do a post about all the things I am looking forward to, in order to voice to the positive as well as the negative.)
There’s definitely more to come concerning this world, and more short stories will be posted as well.
Monday saw the posting of the last chapter of the Virago Podcast – so what’s next for readers and fans of Adelaide, Neville, Winston, and Gordon?
October 1st
I don’t have a start date for The Secret Wilderness chosen yet, but I quite like the Spring/Autumn schedule of this year – I know common-held belief for creators is that I should keep posting content or risk losing the audience, that people demand constant content, content content content, but I’m not on that schedule. And these aren’t stories you blow through in a weekend and never read again. When I find something I really like, I spend time on it. I re-read, re-watch, explore fandom, discuss with friends, etc. Also, I have a full time job and a life outside of writing, so as much as I’d like to just write all day, I can’t.
Also, that will mean more time for revising Barghest, the third book in the series. It’s completed, but it needs some work.
So! There’s definitely more to come concerning this world, and more short stories will be posted as well.
In the meantime, I’m making a resolution to focus more on actual writing – the podcast has been fun but without the writing, there’s nothing to share. I’m resolved to spend less time On the Couch, the gravity well toward which I drift so I can watch movies/TV while knitting.
So for now – I want to hear from you! I’m open to observations and suggestions for improvement! Please like, share, subscribe, and let me know what you’re thinking about the story overall, or just say hello!
Until next time, be seeing you!
