In Which I Gesticulate Wildly At You For A Variety Of Reasons

Why yes, it is time for one of those shotgun-blast slapdash news-updates. I have more, um, cogent bloggery in mind, but I am currently under

*does a quick count*

the yoke of FOUR DIFFERENT PROJECTS right now, and am a little bit

*eye twitches*

overburdened.

(To explain, the four projects are: first draft of the Evil Apple book, second draft of my TBA new writing book, page proofs of Wayward, and outlines for a secret li’l comics project. Three of these things hit this month, while I am, as noted, trying to write a first draft of the new book. AHHHHHH.)

But! There be news, just the same, should you care to bear it —

First up, The Book of Accidents has been nominated for a Locus Award in Best Horror, holy crap. (That’s now in addition to being nominated for a Stoker, as well, hot damn.) You can find the list here — I’ll note that in horror I share the space with some amazing finalists: Premee Mohamed, Grady Hendrix, Stephen Graham Jones, Stephen King, Rivers Solomon, Daryl Gregory, Caitlin Starling, and Champion Joe Lansdale. It’s fucking cool. I’m very lucky. TBOA has gone back for another printing in paperback already, by the way, and continues to sell really well and that’s thanks to you, and to all the great booksellers and librarians who are out there shoving my MIND VIRUS I mean COOL HORROR NOVEL into people’s eyes. Thank you for that. If you’ve read the book and care to leave a nice review somewhere, I’d be thankful.

Second, the SFWA is running their silent auction with Worldbuilders, and you can find that auction right here. But you’ll also find a couple WENDIG-SPECIFIC auction items, including this lot of signed/personalized books, as well as seats for a virtual kaffeeklatsch (which is German for, “a caffeinated chat in which you are trapped in a virtual room with me and you cannot leave until your time is up”). The auction runs for the next four days, so get in and bid to support the good work done by the SFWA. Good work like, for instance, the #DisneyMustPay initiative, which LA Times just did a piece on — read it here.

Third, we’re looking for new ideas for cool WENDIGIAN VOIDMERCH. You can find what we’ve got already cooked up thanks to designer Jordan Shiveley right here — Black Swan shirts, Art Harder, Welcome to Ramble Rocks, and so forth. But! If you have cool Wendig- or terribleminds-themed things you want emblazoned upon clothing or bags or YOUR VERY SOUL, umm, you know, drop a note in the comments below. A new Certified Penmonkey shirt maybe? An Ashe & Grim Solemnities logo shirt? Scream it so the cheap seats can hear.

The Elden Ring Update

So, Elden Ring ended up one of my favorite games. Had a lot of fun with it. Again, my goal was basically this: run all the way past the scariest shit, and then scoop up all the good items I could while also leveling up along the way, and then when I was of significant level, I’d go back to the scary shit to basically just kick the big bosses’ assholes inside out. It was a fun way to play — focused largely on exploration and late-game conquest. It worked. It ended up not being a very hard game at the end of that, really. Except, well, at the end.

The end game of Elden Ring is, in my mind, bullshit. I know, I know: GIT GUD. Well, I thought I did “git gud.” I was able to basically waltz my way through nearly all of the late-game bosses — Melania stumped me, couldn’t beat her to save my life, no matter what strategy I used. But then I came to the Elden Beast and no matter what I do, no matter how pumped up I am, the Beast fucking slaughters me in a hit or two. I can kick Radagon’s ass easy. But then the EB shows up and just rains hell on my face while my Mimic Tears kinda… just waits around. It sucks. I hate it. So I gave up on that. The end.

AND THAT’S ALL.

More when I have it. Or when I’ve climbed out of this WORK HOLE.

*waves*