Hello there!
Welcome to the new folks who joined last month!
The new year means I have some resolutions, and January kicked that off with actually getting some writing done (wooo!). Added about 8,000 words to the current work in progress and I’m feeling good about what is down so far. It’s odd to go from outlining the heck out of The Black Sky and The Red Sky to going chapter by chapter pantsing my way through Janet, but it’s pushing me to be more creative, so I’m enjoying it.
In dog news, we had about two days worth of decent snowfall, which meant getting to watch the dogs play in the snow, which they much prefer to rain.
Honey only last a short time and then ran out, but her interaction has been steadily improving.
Bowie, our boxer/bull terrier mix, has had a rough winter. He developed an ear infection and had to have them cleaned out several times due to yeast (yuck). The drugs he had to take caused him to lose weight, so now we’re dealing with getting 10-15 pounds back on him.
Lastly, please enjoy these unofficial Lego minifigures of Ellen Ripley, some xenomorphs, and a guy getting his chest burst open. These are, of course, not actually made by Lego, but instead by third party makers that have some really fun minifigures. I am collecting a wide array of minifigs and thinking about a “We Are The World”-style recording session MOC build with all of them in it.
RECENT DIG ME OUT
Here are the January episodes of the Dig Me Out Podcast:
In addition to our weekly 90s Rock podcast, this year we’ve kicked off a new 80s Metal podcast. This has been long in the works, but we finally got our friend Chip Midnight on board, so while I’m co-hosting, I’m really the odd-man out between my regular co-host and Chip, who were both metalheads in the 1980s, while I wasn’t.
RECENT READS
MAFIA HIT MAN: Carmine DiBiase, The Wiseguy Who Really Killed Joey Gallo by Frank DiMatteo and Michael Benson.
Another book from DiMatteo and it’s just as interesting and detailed as the first book I read from him, The President Street Boys. I find crime novels, fictional and nonfictional interesting like a lot of people, and the smaller level mafia or organized crime books are just as interesting to me as reading about a small band with an interesting story instead of a biography from a superstar. What’s fascinating about MAFIA HIT MAN isn’t the hit man himself, but the target: Joey Gallo. Gallo testified before Congress, was a friend of New York city high society, and was by all accounts very smart but also crazy, a lethal combination that butt heads with mafia leadership.
RECENT TV/MOVIES
EQUALIZER 3 (Netflix) - Wanted to like this more, as I enjoyed the first two films, but didn’t. Maybe it was the extra gory violence that lingered on camera for too long, the lack of actual action sequences that defined the first two films, or the rather lazy camera work throughout. It didn’t feel like Antoine Fuqua was on his game for this one, while the usually great Denzel was just kind of going through the motions.
THE GREATEST NIGHT IN POP (Netflix) - This documentary covers how the famous “We Are The World” single and recording session came to be. Very interesting to a Gen X’er like me, here’s the trailer:
RECENT MUSIC
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