December Updates
Hello everyone. I hope you’re doing well. A lot of things have changed since the last update that I’m not in a place to discuss yet.
Here’s what I can go over.
First, a big thank you to everyone who’s started to come by because of the Dragula reviews. I’ve been writing genre criticism—specifically horror, sci-fi, and fantasy—my entire career, and Dragula has consistently been one of my favorite shows since it premiered on Hey Qween back in 2016. It hits my horror and camp aesthetic really well and represents the kind of content I write about a lot here. This is an inclusive space with a lot of time spent supporting LGBTQIA2S+ media, as well as content created by BIPOC, women, and international artists. If I don’t catch a reference on a show like Dragula, I’m going to do the research to make sure I don’t miss that kind of context again.
Second, thank you to everyone who voted for Haunted: A Slip Story at the IndieDB Top 100 games of 2021 awards. We missed out this time, but you managed to help bring Haunted to the top 10 and the front page quite a few times during the voting window. I suspect if voting had been limited to 2021 games and not every game on the site, we would’ve advanced. Either way, there are some exciting things I’m not quite ready to announce yet related to Haunted. Stay tuned.
Third, my second full length book of horror criticism #31Days: A Collection of Horror Essays, vol. 2 comes out 21 December on all major eBook platforms. Preorders are open now. This brand new collection of 64 original essays covers everything from the entire first season of The Outer Limits to wonderful indie horror films like Good Manners, Lyle, and Knife + Heart.
My favorite part is the Recommendations section in the back, where I use my vast knowledge of horror media to recommend at least three additional films, books, games, TV series, plays, etc. to check out for each film/book/TV series covered in the book. For example, here’s what I recommend if you’re interested in Escape Room: Tournament of Champions Extended Cut.
Aside from the obvious recommendation of watching the original Escape Room, there's a clear choice here. If you're interested in the alternate cut covered in the essay here, find a copy of Series 7: The Contenders. I'd also recommend reading the novel version of The Running Man by Richard Bachman (Stephen King) or even The Long Walk (also a Bachman book). That alternate cut is very bleak, angry, and driven by vengeance and all three of those recommendations hit that in a game/competition horror setting.
If I included the original Escape Room: Tournament of Champions review, the recommendations would be very different. I reference tone, style, genre, the creators, and plot to suggest additional media you might also enjoy.
Fourth, I teased a bit of a surprise release on my TikTok yesterday. The first chapter of Extra Intent, an original haunted objects novel, will be available for free on Kindle Vella starting 24 December. I’ll leave the ASIN here for now (B09NMN7K59) and update when the link goes live in a day or so.
Extra Intent is the story of CJ Brown, a nonbinary mixed media artist who works in reclaimed and recycled materials. Their business takes a turn for the strange when they find a whole house filled with picture frames that seem to be screaming for them to bring home. They go from a struggling knickknack seller to the most in-demand dealer of one of a kind haunted objects over night. But how do they keep up with that growing demand?
Kindle Vella is a new concept from Amazon that I think has potential. Essentially, they’re dealing in serialized fiction as an author-driven revenue stream. Writers can create original stories and release them episodically on the platform. The first three chapters of any story are free; after that, you need credits to unlock and read the rest. The pricing isn’t too bad. Basically, $5 worth of Kindle Vella tokens will get you the equivalent of a novel, around 50000 or so words, spread out over however many chapters you read in however many stories you want to try. You get more tokens for your money if you buy larger bundles, but they all shake out to about $.01/100 words.
I’ll be releasing new chapters of Extra Intent every month, meaning no one has to pay anything for the story until March. After the final chapter goes up, I can release it as a complete novel 60 days later. I used the idea of a Victorian Christmas ghost story to tease the project, and it’s a fair comparison. What’s a serialized novel but a connected series of engaging short stories? I don’t go into in my Dickens scholarship and research here a lot, but I’ll just say I understand the assignment.
That’s it for the December updates. I’m really excited for you to have major non-fiction and fiction releases to enjoy from me as you ring in the New Year. This is just what I can share for now; more is coming.
