Hello there!
Welcome to the new folks who have joined in the past month!
March flew by in a blink, didn’t?
First, I want to thank Rich Dodgin at This Is Darkness for reviewing my most recent release, Pleasant Dreams, that came out on Bandcamp at the beginning of March. He said, “This is one of those gorgeous albums that you can just lose yourself in.” You can read the whole thing here.
Second, thank you to Mike Bankhead for having me on his podcast You Could Be My Aramis. Here’s the description:
“Our lengthy conversations answers some important questions, such as: How does Tim decide which characters to kill off in a book? What authors, films, and music give him inspiration to write? What does he hope readers take away from his books?”
So if you’ve read The Black Sky and The Red Sky, and you’re wondering about why some people bite the dust and others don’t, this might shed a little light.
In other news, I’ve gotten into LEGO.
Yes, the blocks you build stuff with.
I had a few sets as a kid, but what rekindled my interest is my daughter getting into LEGO and having a lot of Harry Potter, Disney Princess, and various other sets in the house. She has been playing with them off and on for the last four or so years, but recently we started re-assembling and fixing the sets that had been broken apart. In doing so, I realized some parts had been lost, so I sought out replacements on the internet through a store called Bricklink.
It’s odds and ends, it’s full sets for sale, and it’s also for people who make MOCs, short for “My Own Creation.” Once I realized there was this massive world of people making and sharing their own builds, I got interested and went down a rabbit hole.
Perhaps, like me, you’d like to build the War Rig driven by Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road.
Or maybe you’d like to build something from a classic TV show, like the van and cast from The A-Team.
Or perhaps you’d like to go big and build the Indianapolis skyline.
Point is, there is a lot of room for individual creativity that I had not realized, and now I’m going to try to build some of my own. But not just random stuff, I’ve decided to build some MOCs of characters, vehicles, and locations from The Black Sky and The Red Sky. And I’ve decided my first build will be: The Dank - the bar where Tessa and Bishop met, a punk rock dive bar in Las Vegas. I’ve been working on my design, acquiring bricks, and getting little bits and pieces built. As it progresses, I’ll share some pictures.
RECENT TV/MOVIES
FOR ALL MANKIND (Season 3, AppleTV) - Wild third season with enough twists and turns for several seasons.
SHADOW & BONE (Season 2, Netflix) - Kick up the action in season two - some characters thrived, others less so.
RECENT MUSIC
Phil Selway - Strange Dance (2023)
Filter - Title of Record (1999)
The Church - The Hypnogogue (2023)
Fake Names - Expendables (2023)
The Lords Of Altamont - To Hell With Tomorrow The Lords Are Now (2023)
King Buffalo - Regenerator (2022)
Depeche Mode - Memento Mori (2023)
No Doubt - Tragic Kingdom (1995)
Vadim Taver - Vadim Taver (2023)
Kamelot - The Awakening (2023)
That last one, Kamelot, is a new discovery for me even though they’ve been around thirty years. If you like near-if-not-over-the-top hard rock/metal music, I’m gonna recommend checking out the video below for “One More Flag In The Ground.” It’s heavy, it’s melodic, it’s symphonic, it’s on the edge of so earnest that’s it’s almost corny. But I don’t care, it’s big, fun music, and that’s always a good thing in my book.
A few reminders before you go:
Help spread the word - leave a book review at Amazon or GoodReads!
All previous newsletters are archived. Lots of stuff to check out including a link to the original 2011 screenplay of THE BLACK SKY, hints and helps to get started on the real work easter egg hunt teased at the back of the book, and more
Spotify Playlists! I made them for when I was writing THE BLACK SKY, THE RED SKY, and there is also a special one for “The Dank” bar that is in THE BLACK SKY.
If you like instrumental electronic music, I have soundtracks for THE BLACK SKY and THE RED SKY available at most streaming services, along with several other releases.
Stay Safe!
Tim
Listen to my 90s music podcast: Dig Me Out