Mabily “Mab” Jones’ life has returned to normal. Or as normal as life can be for a changeling, who also happens to be a private detective working her first independent case, and dating a half-fey.

But then a summons to return to the fairy world arrives in the form of a knife on her pillow. And in the process of investigating her case, Mab discovers the fairies are stealing joy-producing chemicals directly from the minds of humans in order to manufacture their magic Elixir, the dwindling source of their powers. Worst of all, Mab’s boyfriend Obadiah vows to abstain from Elixir, believing the benefits are not worth the cost in human suffering—even though he knows fairies can’t long survive without their magic.

Mab soon realizes she has no choice but to answer the summons and return to the Vale. But the deeper she is drawn into the machinations of the realm, the more she becomes ensnared by promises she made in the past. And in trying to do the right thing, Mab will face her most devastating betrayal yet, one that threatens everything and everyone she holds most dear.

SEQUELS DON’T HAVE TO SUCK

It is a truth universally acknowledged that movie sequels are (almost) always dreadful, yet that isn’t necessarily true of second books in a series. Perhaps what dooms most film follow-ups is that they try to stay within the well-worn tracks of the beloved original; when they succeed, it’s often because they go darker. The same is true for book sequels.

If the first book is too gratuitously grim however, it leaves the series nowhere to go, no way to up the emotional ante. Luckily, ELIXIR, the first book in my CHANGELING P.I. series, is notably less dark than what’s fashionable for urban fantasy. While it deals with serious and disturbing subject matter there’s an underlying optimism; it’s a “cozy urban fantasy” as one reviewer put it. Thus, the second book, UNVEILED, gave me a lot of room to go psychologically darker, while still maintaining that sense of hope. So much of a first book is taken up in world-building, introducing characters, and laying a strong foundation for the series that follows. With some of that heavy-lifting already done, I was now free to really focus on the internal development of my characters, forcing them to grow as people. I’d always heard that writing a sequel was hard, so much harder than writing a first book, and I had braced myself for the difficulty of this task. What no one told me is that writing a sequel can also be really fun. Maybe I’m a sadist, but I relished the freedom a second book gave me to really push my characters to the point of breaking them, to find out who they become when they experience more than they think they can bear.

TASKS EXPAND OR CONTRACT TO FIT THE TIME AVAILABLE

Because ELIXIR was my first book, I didn’t write it under a deadline. I could take my sweet time to work on the story, waste hundreds of pages on tangent plot lines that went nowhere, stop and start as inspiration ebbed and flowed, and revise indefinitely. All told, I spent almost seven years on that first book. And then the publishing gods smiled on me and I found myself with a two-book contract which allowed me a little over seven months to write the follow-up, UNVEILED. Given my writing history, this task sounded almost impossibly daunting. What I realized, however, as I successfully completed the manuscript well within the deadline, is that tasks expand or contract to fill the time available. I took seven years to write ELIXIR because I could. I wrote UNVEILED in seven months because I had to. More time does not necessarily make for a better book, either. When there was all the time in the world, that time was most often unproductively frittered, whereas the deadline had a way of sharpening my focus, making me more attentive. And attention begets inspiration.

THE OUTLINE CAN MAKE YOU FREE

In order to meet my first deadline, I had to break down the mammoth task of producing a manuscript into small, manageable chunks. This meant learning to outline. Not because I thought outlined stories were inherently better, but because outlines are a time-management tool, and adulthood no longer gave me the luxury of last-minute all-nighters. Yet at the same time as I saw the need for an outline, I was afraid of it. I had “pantsed” my first manuscript, and even when I became more of a plotter, it was an amorphous, at-least-I-know-the-ending sort of plotting, not a minute chapter by chapter plan.

I thought outlining would crimp my creativity. Instead, it saved my sanity. Nothing can cause writer’s block like the panic of not knowing where your story is going, or realizing you’ve pantsed your way into an enormous plot hole. My detailed outline gave me a time, a place, and a cast of characters for each scene – but beyond that point I was free. It enabled me to focus in on the moment, explore the nuances of the setting, and– because I wasn’t worried about what was going to happen— really let each conversation shine. It turns out my muses work best when given a bit of a structure.

THE EDITOR IS ALWAYS RIGHT

The first professional writer I ever got to know personally was a 60-something, veteran journalist, a larger than life character to whom the phrase “tough old broad” seemed both complementary and apt. I was a wide-eyed recent college grad who’d been lucky enough to get to house-sit the apartment next to hers in a renovated tenement on New York’s Lower East Side. At that time, it never occurred to me to even dream of writing novels. I had set my heart on freelance journalism, and it was through my neighbor’s generous networking that I had my first article published. I also got my first experience of being professionally edited, and it was not pleasant to watch my most beloved paragraphs be summarily plucked from the piece. There was one change I was particularly unhappy about. I asked my neighbor if I had the right to refuse the editor’s request? I’ll never forget what she said to me, in her gravelly Long Island accent: “I’m going to give you the best advice you’ll ever get in your career as a writer.” “What?” I asked, rapt and eager to hear this wisdom. She leaned in, as if whispering a secret: “the editor is always right.”

I was disappointed to hear this, but I followed her advice. I saved my original draft, and kept it alongside the clipping of the piece when it was printed in the newspaper. When I read them both ten years later, I could only smile to myself and shake my head. That paragraph that I’d thought was so eloquent at the time? Turns out it was merely over-wrought. The editor’s changes had simplified it, made the story shine through without being bogged down by bombastic prose. In short, the editor had been *ahem* right.

I recalled this memory as I did revisions for UNVEILED with my wonderful editor at the time, Rebecca Lucash, who proposed a few changes that pained me to accept. I must confess I doubted her judgement at times, and clung tenaciously to my creation as it was, but in the end I realized that this person was a brilliant professional whose instincts I should trust. I can’t tell you what the change was without revealing a huge spoiler, but when I look back on UNVEILED now with the perspective of time, I must admit the advice of my old journalist friend still holds true. We as authors are often very poor evaluators of what’s working or not working in our own books; we’re just too close to it. I’m sure there are exceptions to the editor being right…but I haven’t found one yet.

YOU GET TO BE A LOCAL INSTEAD OF A TOURIST IN YOUR “WORLD”

One of my favorite parts of writing the CHANGELING P.I. series has been getting to make New York City into a magical place – because, in my experience of my adopted hometown, the real city is stranger than any fictional version. New York is its own character in this series, with all the quirks and flaws of any of the other characters. Since the first book was an introduction to this world, I had to take a tourist’s eye-view, as if I was introducing readers to the real city as well as my take on it. ELIXIR gleefully riffs on classic New York landmarks – for example making the Times Square New Year’s Eve ball drop into a portal to fairyland, with the focused attention of millions of people unwittingly powering the spell. But with most of the quintessentially New York places already touched upon in the first book, UNVEILED allowed me take the reader farther afield, beyond the boroughs and into both the glamorous and the gritty Tri-State commuter towns, the areas that tourists never see, the areas that frankly seem the least enchanted. But I set out to change that (perhaps because I’d moved out of the city and into the suburbia over the course of writing this series, and I was determined to find the magic here.) And plenty of weird, unexpected, magical things exist in the New York suburbs amidst the split levels and the strip malls, but you have to look harder to find them. The more mundane my settings, the harder I had to work as a writer to make them feel magical, and I think that challenge made me a better writer. Because a too-magical world is like a too-powerful character – boring. And while I admire the epic fantasy writer’s craft of made-from-scratch universes, personally, I’d rather believe that fairyland is no farther away than my own backyard.

* * *

Ruth Vincent spent a nomadic childhood moving across the USA, culminating in a hop across the pond to attend Oxford. But wherever she wanders, she remains ensconced within the fairy ring of her imagination. Ruth recently traded the gritty urban fantasy of NYC for the pastoral suburbs of Long Island, where she resides with her roguishly clever husband and a cockatoo who thinks she’s a dog. Ruth Vincent is the author of the CHANGELING P.I series with Harper Voyager Impulse, beginning with her debut novel, ELIXIR. Ruth loves to hear from readers.

Ruth Vincent: Website | Twitter

Unveiled: Amazon | B&N | Google Play | iBooks

Last night, B-Dub came into the living room where we are ensconced, and he said, somewhat poutily, “I want a new stuffed animal.”

Our response, practically canned at this point, was: “Christmas is coming up soon, and also, you just got like, 300 stuffed animals in Hawaii. And, you have so many stuffed animals at this point that we took away your bed so we could and we replace it with a giant sack stuffed with stuffed animals. You’re good. Relax.”

He became more indignant, then. Generally, he’s tantrum-averse these days, but he still gets grumpy, as any five-year-old is wont to do. And he asserted, with a stomp of his foot, “I want a new stuffed animal.”

So began the classic parental speech of, blah blah blah, if you can’t appreciate the things you have, why would we get you new things and also perhaps you don’t want the things you already have, blah blah blah.

Panicked, he said, “So, I’m not getting any stuffed animals for Christmas?!”

“We don’t know,” we said, shrugging. “We’ll see.”

(Another popular parental phrase: We’ll see. It’s the two-word equivalent of kicking the can down the road so you don’t have to deal with the can right now.)

His little face screwed up tight, not with grief but with a special kind of mischievous anger, and he said, quite confidently: “If you take my Christmas presents away, I’m taking your Christmas presents away.” (Here, echoes of my own father on the phone with the power company. They had him overdue on a bill, which was not his way. He said he paid it. They said he didn’t. The power company told him they’d turn his power off, and his response was: “If you turn my power off, I’ll turn your power off.” A nearly impossible threat, and probably unwise. But it worked.)

Anyway, we laughed. He wondered why we were laughing, and we said:

“We already had our Christmas presents. Our trip to Hawaii was our present to us.”

This boggled him for about three seconds, obviously stymying his plans.

But then, a new plan stirred.

“I will take Hawaii out of your head,” he said.

“What?” we asked, uncertain what we just heard.

“I will take the memories of Hawaii away from you.”

Wh

uh

ah

Holy shit, what the actual fuck? That was an astonishing threat. That he actually said. We kind of warily acquiesced, ha ha, okay, and then he promptly went to his drawing table (where he draws pictures nigh-endlessly), and he began to draw for about fifteen minutes.

After those minutes had passed, he delicately tore something out of a piece of paper with pinching fingers, then signaled for our attention. We looked over, and he stood there with a piece of paper hanging above his head. On this piece of paper was a ghost. (More a Pac-Man style ghost in design, if you need the visual.) B-Dub held it above him, then he dramatically fake died and fell to the ground. With fluttering hand, he helped the the paper ghost arise from his supine body.

B-Dub said, the paper fluttering, “I AM NOW GHOST ME.”

And “ghost him” proceeded to go grab a couple more pieces of paper. The cut-out-ghost brought us these pieces of paper, which were drawings that clearly illustrated the ghost hovering over two people (the words Mommy and Daddy written over these two people), and around ‘Mommy’ and ‘Daddy’ were images of palm trees and the ocean and other Hawaiian icons. Those icons were all pointing, via arrow, toward the ghost. Then — then! — in the next image, the ghost exploded those things with fireballs. “GHOST ME IS IN YOUR HEAD, STEALING YOUR MEMORIES,” B-dub explained. “THEN I EXPLODE THEM WITH FIRE.”

I was impressed, and said so. He was having fun drawing it. He was channeling his art into this… well, this terrifying act of him somehow turning into a ghost that is able to get into our heads and steal our memories in order to burn them up, but I mean, what can I say? I loved it. He seemed happy and content, and was no longer angry, and now Mommy and Daddy have precious art we can hang on our fridge of our memories being stolen and burned by an angry ghost child.

Kids are fucking weird.

And I love it.

Look at that little lizard dude-slash-dudette.

(An anole, I believe.)

Very surprised this critter let me get that close. But, it did, and I am enamored of the texture captured over that eyeball. It feels real enough to touch. I had another cool anole shot — one who again was willing to pose for me — or, rather, I wish I got the shot that I wanted. This next lizard was covered in water droplets, and I never really got any shots that captured what I wanted. They either captured the droplets but not the lizard, or like this one below, it captured the lizard but not really the droplets. (DOF was too narrow, should’ve opened it up some.)

Alas.

I’ll post some more Maui shots at the bottom of the post, or you can check out the (still-growing) set of them that I’ve posted in an album over yonder at Flickr. But first, some news —

First: INVASIVE is $2.99. Why is it on sale in e-book? I have no idea! Let’s just go with HEY, IT’S A CHRISTMAS PRESENT or something. If you’ve been wanting to take a chance on it, please nab it up. And spread the word, if you so care. And, if you’re willing to leave a kind review, I’d appreciate that. Or, if you have a surly review, please scream it into a hollow stump somewhere. Anyway, go and getchoo some antpocalypse.

Second: My agency sold rights to my writing book, 250 Things You Should Know About Writing, to the Russian publishing house, Alpina! And then —

Third: We also sold the next three Miriam Black books to Beijing White Horse Time, who hold the rights to the first three. If you haven’t seen the very cool Chinese cover for Blackbirds, well —

Love that cover.

Don’t forget about the AWKWARD AUTHOR PHOTO CONTEST, still ongoing.

Also check out my Gifts For Writers 2016 post yesterday.

I think that’s it for news. I’ve got a couple other pieces I’m sitting on, but can’t really talk about yet, so — *stitches mouth shut, screams from behind flesh gag* — onward to a few more Maui pics. Please to enjoy.

This sunset pic is from 10,000 feet. At the top of a volcano, you can see the coast and ocean:

Here’s another sunset pic from Haleakala:

Looks like Mars up there —

I’m quite partial to this photo. Someone is hiding in this pic, though…

HERE IS A SASSY GOAT.

Hey! Beach! Sunset! Pretty!

Last one for the day — LOOK AT THESE STUPID ROCKS.

(Gifts for Writers 2014 here.)

(Gifts for Writers 2015 here.)

(Please check those out, too, for cool ideas.)

1. A Good-Ass Carafe

(Vital to note hyphen placement. Please do not buy a “good ass-carafe”) Here’s how my writing day goes — I stumble out of bed, I water the dogs, I kill whatever giant spiders have nestled in the eaves of my cathedral, I make eggs, I give my child his magical growth serum, then I brew coffee. I brew about twenty ounces of coffee, I stick it in a thermal carafe, and then I’m off to my day, and I bring a proper mug, and pour when I need it. That coffee is kept warm all damn day. So go buy this thermal carafe for your writer pal, and make them happy.

2. Customizable Notebook

Check out Wrights Notes notebooks. You tell them what you want your notebook to look like, and boo-bam, you get two of them off the bat. They are not the only game in town, mind you — Google “customizable notebooks” and you’ll get a veritable plethora.

3. Litreactor Courses

ALL Y’ALL’S WRITER PALS NEED SCHOOLING ON HOW TO DO THIS WRITEY-FLAVORED THANG. EVEN ME, BECAUSE I SAY THINGS LIKE ‘WRITEY-FLAVORED THANG,’ WHICH IS NOT HOW ANYONE SHOULD REFER TO ANYTHING, AND THEY SHOULD NOT DO IT IN ALL CAPS, YET HERE I AM, BLITHERBLATHERING IN ALL CAPS. But seriously, hey look, these LitReactor courses are cool as hell. And I know a lot of the people giving them (Delilah Dawson! Melissa Olson! Ania Ahlborn! Weston Ochse! Brad Beaulieu!), which is nice because it’s clear these people and these courses are legit. Lots coming in the new year. The writer pal in your life will appreciate it.

4. Comixology Unlimited

I read differently now that I’m a writer — and I also try to read more diversely and outside of my own format. Bonus: I write comics now, sometimes, when I am able to steal the key and escape my cage. Sometimes writers only have a few moments here and there, and comics make for snappy, zippy reading on any mobile device. Get them a Comixology gift card which can be applied to their new Netflixian service, Comixology Unlimited.

5. Audible Subscription

Related: get them an Audible Subscription for maximum audiobook goodness.

6. Tequila Mockingbird

This is a book about literary-themed cocktails. And given the ever-burning septic system fire that was 2016 — and given what’s likely to come in the smoldering fuckstack that will be 2017! — I expect we’re all gonna be doing some drinking. So, for your writer pal: Tequila Mockingbird. Or just buy them booze, I guess. I’ll take a VW bug full of gin, please and thank you.

7. Spa Day, Motherfucker

Being a writer means crumpling up your body like a dented soda can and hunching over your creative brilliance until your spine bows and your shoulders melt into a crooked pile and all your bones are like twisted vines. It’s great. But sometimes that means you need some help just… y’know, working that out. Throw in stress from our various creative industries compressing our body and mind and I dunno about you, but I could use someone to massage all that out of me. I could use a manicure, a pedicure, one of them fancy face-wraps, a foot massage, a nipple shellacking, a tummy tickle, a chin scrub, a butthole buffing, everything. I’d love a spa day. But if you won’t buy me one, maybe buy one for the writer pal in your life.

8. I’m Just Saying, Jeni’s Now Has Flat-Rate Shipping

Listen, in my earlier GIFTS FOR WRITERS posts, I advocate the gift of ice cream, and that’s because ice cream is amazing. And Jeni’s ice cream is the best of them all. Thing is, Jeni’s used to be hella ‘spensive to ship to most of the country. Ah! Not so anymore, my dubious friends. Now, flat-rate shipping to the states (well, 48 of them). Just $13. So go get some ice cream for your writer pal. I can make recommendations if you need it.

9. Dark Chocolate Subscription

Dark chocolate is magical and mysterious. I’m sure it’s not actually healthy, but we can pretend it is, can’t we? Look, I’ll even spin it and say that “dark chocolate is brain food.” Is it? Who fucking cares? We live in a post-truth age, dontchaknow? Ha ha ha! Behold the Cocoa Runners giftbox. Give your writer pal some, ahem, cough cough, brain food.

10. A Manuscript Consult

A writer of a novel is writing blind, and may need some guidance or editing from another capable writer. Kat Howard, for instance, will do a developmental edit of a novel. As does Laura Anne Gilman! (Actually, I asked about this on Facebook, and you’d be surprised how many of your favorite authors may offer editing. Feel free to drop into comments and note yourself if you are one such author who offers consults and edits!) Here’s a pretty good list via Eric Smith.

11. Superfight!

I like games that work your creative muscles (not a genital euphemism, you pervhead) and that tease out stories. RPGs are good for this, obviously, and you know, if you ever wanted to do something cool for me, just run a session of D&D for me because it’s been too fucking long. But! Also consider for your writer pals: Superfight! Rad card game. Not so, erm, controversial as CAH. If you want something more officially RPG-ey, then Fiasco will be your jam. Bonus: short play sessions make this easy to hop in, tell a story, and then go do something else. Like watch porn. Or rob a bank. Or masturbate while watching a bank being robbed. Weirdo.

12. Haikubes

Kinda like magnetic poetry except, uhh, cubes? Yeah. Poke your poetry buttons with Haikubes.

13. Mix-And-Match Profanity Generator

I feel like the title says it all.

14. Profanity Dictionary

Don’t want to make up your own profanity? Well, here’s a book: Jibber Jabber and Giffle Gaffle. It goes through a history of so-called ‘salacious slang’ through the ages.

15. An Experience

Story is an engine. We must feed it with information, ideas, and experiences. Give your writer pal an experience. I don’t mean to put winky air-quotes around that (“Give your writer pal an ‘experience,’ by which I mean, a prostate massage with a bumpy cucumber! Merry Peggingsday!”) — I mean, y’know, give them a trip. Or hiking shoes. Or SCUBA lessons. Whatever you put into that engine will make the story go. Help them make the story go.

16. Couple of Handweights

Writing is not the healthiest job. Our bodies atrophy under the onslaught of words — our fingers are muscley from typing, but the rest of us is sludgey like dashi-plumped udon noodles. Get your writer pal a set of small handweights. It helps, I promise.

17. Under Desk Foot Massager

Do not stick this thing up your ass. (Or you’ll end up on one of those websites of embarrassing X-Rays.) Sitting at a desk is not ideal for your posture, and foot cramps and plantar fasciitis is not uncommon. So, go get the thing that is definitely not a hedghoggy butt plug (no flared base!) and bring your under-desk feet some sweet, sweet relief.

18. A Brother Laser Printer

Why am I recommending a laser printer? And a Brother, no less? I have a Brother H-2070N and it is a workhorse of a printer. And InkJets are total scams. Every page takes a thimble of ink, and then you have to buy another $700 cartridge (which explains why the printer came free in a fucking cereal box). But my laser prints endlessly. I’ve had it for just shy of ten years now and I’ve replaced the toner cartridge once. And I’ve printed out endless contracts and manuscripts — as your writer pal is also likely to do. This model is old, but newer ones exist (like the HL-2300D), and everybody I know tells the same workhorse story for their Brother printers. (Just avoid the all-in-ones, as more will break. Plus with cell phones, you don’t need scanners much anymore. I also skip color as I find it an unnecessary frill.)

19. QwerkyWriter!

Okay, I kinda love this keyboard for your iPad. Actually, I do a lot more writing on my iPad than I used to, thanks to it now having a fully-functional MS WORD suite — super-stable, totally accessible app. A cool mechanical keyboard like this would be a nice complement.

20. Great Headphones

I have Sennheiser Momentum headphones. I’m sure there are ones you like better — point isn’t to get mine (though they’re comfy and lovely!), point is that sometimes, a writer needs to drown out the world and a pair of quality headphones can help them do exactly that.

Self-Aggrandizing Promo 1: Terribleminds Merch

Mugs: Certified Penmonkey, Art Harder (NSFW), Art Harder (SFW), The Secret of Writing (NSFW), Writer Juice, and the newest addition: CAFFEINE, MOTHERFUCKER. DO YOU SPEAK IT? Er that one is pretty obviously NSFW.

T-Shirts: Certified Penmonkey, Art Harder (NSFW).

Self-Aggrandizing Promo 2: Writer Books By Yours Truly

Like howzabout The Kick-Ass Writer, or the Writing E-Book Bundle?

If you got cool writer gift ideas, drop ’em in the comments.

Merry Peggingsday, one and all.

One more post before I fuck right off to a warm and distant island —

Hey! YOU.

I have a stack of the new Miriam Black novel, Thunderbird, that I’d like to give away. The book doesn’t come out until February, but damnit, I have ARCs, and I’d love for you to have one.

And! Since it’s National Novel Writing Month, I figure this is a good time to engage in a much-needed and momentary distraction in order to playfully envision yourself as the AUTHORIAL PRESENCE you hope to be — which is to say, it’s time to depict yourself in an awkward author photo in the hope of winning BIG FANCY PRIZES (cough cough that are actually mostly just books cough cough but hey shut up books are awesome).

You can see the entrants into the first contest here. Or, examples:

What exactly goes into an awkward author photo, you ask? Well, I don’t know! The goal is not to make a real, official back-of-the-book-jacket photo, but instead to make something weird, funny, goofy, uncomfortable, or awkward. Something to make people laugh or, I dunno, stare worriedly at your deranged visage. If you want to make it Miriam Black-themed and throw in a couple birds, sure. If you want it to be Christmas-themed, or Star Wars-ian, or Fuck-2016-themed, since all are relevant: hey, you do you. Have fun with it. No requirements other than:

It needs to be a photo of you. An author photo, like you’d find on the back of the book jacket.

Photoshop is fine, provided you’re ‘shopping a real photo.

The rules are:

The contest runs from today till December 14th, 2016, noon, EST.

You get one entry. Just one. Multiple entries disqualifies you.

Email that entry — a photo of medium size, at least 700px wide — to me at terribleminds at gmail dot com, and when you do…

Use the subject (and this is a must): AWKWARD AUTHOR PHOTO CONTEST SUBMISSION 2016.

I will search for that subject, and if it ain’t exact, I might miss your entry.

Your photo will be uploaded to a public Flickr page so that it can be seen and judged, and it may also end up here on the blog or other social media if it’s one of the winners. I don’t own the photo, though, and I claim no rights to it. If you want to share credit for who took the photo, please do! I’ll include any credit I get with the photo page.

Open to international (non-US) participants, but international winners pay their own shipping.

I will get the photos up and judged in the week following the contest deadline, which means the books will likely be out to you around or just after Christmas, but before New Years.

The prizes:

I’ll pick one BIG-ASS WINNER, and said Big-Ass Winner will receive: a copy of Thunderbird, and, I’ll throw in some of my other books, too, all signed. Plus: hey, I’ll pitch in a $50 giftcard to the indie bookstore of your choice — even if you don’t have one near you, a number of the best ones ship. (Note: this will require that I actually be able to buy a gift cert for that bookstore. If you name a bookstore that won’t let me buy one for you, I’ll have to default to, say, Mysterious Galaxy or WORD or some such, be advised.)

Then, you, the audience will pick your favorites.

The top four will each get a physical copy of Thunderbird and I’ll also throw in one of my self-pubbed writing e-books, your choice. (Excludes Kick-Ass Writer.)

The rest of you will all get a participation trophy. Which is an imaginary high-five from me, because you’re awesome, and I love you. I mean, I don’t love you in a creepy way. I’m not going to show up at your house with a boombox and a clownsuit.

Just the clownsuit, probably. No boombox for you.

ANYWAY, so them’s the rules.

It begins now.

Have fun.

SO HEY HI GUYS HOW ARE YOU has anything been happening since the last Macro Monday anything at all what’s that nothing’s been happening everything is fine oh okay cool see you later.

*pulls bucket back over head, hums quietly to self*

Ahem.

Yeah, no, if only it were that easy to duck and cover.

Obviously, I hope you’re doing okay, and if not, feel free to say so and email me or say hi on Twitter and while I’m not sure I can offer much by way of actual optimism and encouragement, I’ll be happy to do my best.

In other news, expect this blog to go quiet until around December 1st — this week I’ll be fucking right off to Hawaii, which, y’know, I know, woe is me. We’ve been trying to get back to Hawaii since our son was born (on our last trip, my wife was saddled with morning sickness resulting from the tiny person, which led to her reduced enjoyment of the overall Aloha experience), and so we’ve been planning this trip now for a while. I did not quite expect that it would fall in the wake of such a bleak time, but I’m going to use it to get away, bask in the sun like a mule-kicked hound, and clear away any of the brain spiders that have been building webs in my skull over the last week (really, the last many months).

This means obviously that any extra writing talk will be shuttered for the rest of the month, so I won’t be around for the remainder of National Novel Writing Month. (Though, part of me suspects that most participants in NaNoWriMo are gonna need a mulligan. And probably a bottle of whiskey apiece.) I’ll note quite selfishly again that if you’re looking for a big epic fear-crushing bundle of my own writing advice, you can grab my 8-book bundle for 25% off (so, $15) with code NANOWRIMO. Click here to do exactly that. Or, for a more polished and concise presentation, you may find value in The Kick-Ass Writer, which is free for Amazon Prime subscribers.

Or, more self-promo alert, if you’d rather the sweet nepenthe of escapist fiction, for some reason a bunch of my books are on sale in e-book. Looks like Zer0es, Blackbirds, Mockingbird, The Cormorant, they’re all down to $6.99, and even Thunderbird on Kindle is pre-orderable at $7.99. Invasive is down to $9.99. (You might argue that given the climate, both Zer0es and Invasive will give you lots to talk and think about.) Then there’s Forever Endeavor, which is just $2.99 and does some neat things with time travel and regret and also tying together some elements of the overall Wendigverse…

ANYWAY.

Self-promo flurry over.

Here I’ll also note some books by authors I love recently —

Just started reading the flipped-on-its-head Lovecraftian noir tale, Hammers on Bone, by Cassandra Khaw, who is really good and also really twisted so, y’know, go looky.

If you want to amp up that cold, greasy feeling of a reality slipping away from you, continue on and read the Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer.

I’m behind on my Daniel Polansky, but really, just go grab The Builders right now.

If you want non-fiction, Mary Roach is always a funny and informative winner, and her newest, Grunt, is no different — the science of the military, of the soldier, laid bare.

Ramez Naam’s The Nexus Trilogy is on deep-sale right now and so worth it.

Finally, I just finished reading three books that aren’t out yet, but you should really look for in the future — Sarah Gailey’s River of Teeth (WILD NOT-QUITE-WEST HIPPOPOCALYPSE!), Christopher Golden’s Ararat (INFERNAL TERROR ON A MOUNTAIN!), and Mur Lafferty’s Six Wakes (CLONES MUST SOLVE THEIR OWN MURDERS IN SPAAAAAACE).

There you go.

Books.

Now, I’ll take your recommendations, since I’ll be traveling to and from a faraway island and that means I’m on planes for a very long time (~22 hours total), which means I’m going to have an opportunity to flee social media and do some damn reading.

Recommend for me a book.

Do this now.

I’ll wait here under this bucket.

*hums quietly to self*