Hello there!
Welcome to the new folks who have joined in the past month!
So what’s happening?
THE RED SKY, still on schedule for an October release, is just about signed, sealed, and delivered for production. I’ve got a little swag created for the release, and I’ll be sharing more fun things to come as we build towards the publishing date.
Towards the end of the month, I had the privilege of spending a weekend at a cabin in Hocking Hills, Ohio for free to disconnect and write. Forty-eight hours of seclusion with just some records, food, and my laptop out in the woods. To say it was productive was an understatement, as it gave me time to read and write non-stop for hours.
For most of June, we dog-sat my wife’s parents’ dog Sadie. She loved running around our backyard with our dogs, especially Bowie. Even though Bowie is a 70 pound boy, Sadie had another 20 pounds on him, so when they got to mixing it up and wrestling, Bowie was usually on the losing end.
Sadie was also a big fan of drinking from the hose, which neither of our dogs like.
Our backyard garden is full of color right now. Dahlias and zinnias are in bloom, the Asian lilies are going strong, and now various coneflowers and daisies are popping open as well.
Our raspberries and blackberries look to be making a nice rebound after a less than stellar 2021, and fingers crossed, but this might be our first year getting peaches. We had squirrels devouring them long before they were ready, so this year we netted our peach tree, and that might be the trick to having peach pie later this summer.
RECENT READS
Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road by Kyle Buchanan
The movie Mad Max: Fury Road is in my top 10 all-time films, and I’ve been fascinated by every behind-the-scenes account I’ve read over the years. This book takes all of those small anecdotes, expands on them, and adds even more history and detail. The journey to getting Fury Road made is unlike any other movie production in history, and it’s also a great lesson on perseverance, artistic collaboration and vision coexisting, and the importance of trust between collaborators.
RECENT TV/MOVIES
UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN (Hulu) - Fascinating crime drama set in 1980s Utah and the Mormon community.
HACKS (S.2, HBOMax) - Short but very funny second season.
KEEP SWEET: PRAY AND OBEY (Netflix) - Horrifying account of the Warren Jeffs saga from the early 2000s.
WILD, WILD COUNTRY (Netflix) - Wild, wild story that takes so many twists and turns it’s hard to believe it is real.
MUSIC
Hard Core by Paul Dean (1989)
Hotline by J. Geils Band (1975)
Derailer by Little John (1996)
Ignorance Is Bliss by Face To Face
A few reminders before you go:
READER REVIEWS! If you read and enjoyed THE BLACK SKY (or any of my books for that matter), I would be grateful if you left a positive review or a rating at Amazon or GoodReads. Reviews help other people find the book.
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!
There’s a “music inspired by” soundtrack written specifically for THE BLACK SKY you can listen to at your favorite streaming sites like Spotify, Apple Music, TIDAL, etc.
For those that have read THE BLACK SKY, you may remember a mention or two of a bar called “The Dank,” the place Tessa worked at in college where she and Bishop met. I created a virtual playlist for this “punk rock bar,” which you can check out on Spotify.
THE RED SKY playlist on Spotify is all the music I listened to during the writing of THE RED SKY.
Stay Safe!
Tim
Listen to my 90s music podcast: Dig Me Out