Update, 10/12/24

Hey y'all,

I haven't posted anything in a while, and I wanted to give an update on some things.

I have been working on a piece about John Carpenter's Halloween and it's connections/relationship to Satanic Panic. It's going to be a long piece, but I feel very good about the way it's coming along, and I think anyone who is interested in the way storytelling expresses things rolling around the cultural consciousness will get something out of it.

I also have a piece about artists, celebrity, fandom and fame that I started, abandoned, and am going to resurrect when I'm done with the piece about Halloween. It boils down to being about questions of what artists responsibility is to the public when they gain notoriety, and what the public's responsibility is to artists who have notoriety.

I've set both Who Would Blame Me?, the slasher novel I'm working on, and the untitled vampire novel aside for the month of October, in part because I want to get both of those done, and I'm involved in my annual celebration of the spookiest season of the year. There's only so much time in a day, week or month.

Additionally, I live in Florida, and though the town I live in did not suffer the worst of either Helene or Milton, it's been a stressful few weeks of waiting for them to pass, so I could be sure I wasn't going to have to evacuate or be living in sub-optimal conditions when they did. The areas to the north and south of where I live were affected by tornadoes and flooding from Milton, and I'm very grateful to not be in that position. Not much work of any kind was getting done in the few days before either storm.

I hope you are all well, this crazy mess of a world isn't burdening you too thoroughly, and you're finding time for the things and people you love and that bring you joy and fulfillment.