Hello folks! It’s time once again for the Weekend Wrap-Up, in which I blather on at length about whatever I’ve been writing, reading, and doing. It’s not really a complicated or a novel concept.

Anyway, let’s get to it, shall we?

What I’ve Been Writing

First, still no word on the story out on submission–but then, that’s a good thing. They said it can take up to 60 business days, so I’m just keeping a wary eye on my inbox.

With February comes a new story. It took me a bit of time to figure out exactly what I wanted to write about. The anthology I’m going to submit to this month has a theme that’s “a celebration of stars.” I actually came up wi the title before the rest of the story. I don’t want to share it just yet because I’m not sure it’ll stay that title, but I’m glad I finally have an idea of how I want this particular story to go.

It’s a common sentiment among writers on Twitter that each book is different, and it appears that each story is that way too. It was pretty tough to figure out how I wanted the last story to go, and I finally figured it out and produced a story that I’m proud of, and now that I’m jumping back into writing, it’s like I forgot how words work.

I’m actually meeting up with a local writer’s group tomorrow, which is exciting.

In nonfiction related writing, I had a whole rant on Twitter. I know that’s shocking because Twitter is such a positive place. The news has been a garbage fire in Virginia that only gets worse, but there were some smug liberals from northern states and/or out west who kept reiterating this idea that blackface is specifically a southern United States thing.

This annoyed me because it is part of the same line of thought that northern liberals fall into sometimes where they scorn the south but leave their own states relatively unexamined, so I made a thread for educational purposes. I’m going to turn it into a post around here at some point, it’ll just take me a moment.

What I’ve Been Reading

I’m almost finished about Zeroes. I should be able to finish it up this week. I originally planned to jump into the Miriam Black series after that, but I don’t want to fall into the trap of reading only white men, so I’m actually just waiting for K.C. Alexander’s two books in the SINless series to get in, and I plan to hop into both of those.

Besides that, I’ve been listening to old Pseudopod episodes to catch up a little. I recently listened to episode 616: Flash on the Borderlands XLIV: Objectification. It was a good episode, particularly “The Stripper” by Heather N. Thomas (narrated by Nika Harper). I also really liked episode 629: “Slipping Petals from Their Skins” by Kristi Demeester (narrated by Nika Harper) and episode 630: “Steadfast” by Trisha J. Wooldridge (narrated by Alethea Kontis, Kyle Akers, and Alex Hofelich).

“The Stripper” was just a great, powerful gutpunch delivered fast and mean. Excellent work.

“Slipping Petals from Their Skins” was a sort of dream-like fairytale and nightmare that I love to see done well, and this was done very well.

Nika Harper narrated both of those, and I guess I’ve become a fan of her narration between those two stories because she’s got a great voice and her acting/reading/delivery is fantastic.

“Steadfast” is an epistolary story about two people during the zombie apocalypse. Every time I thought I knew where this story was going, I was proven wrong. It managed to feel traditional while offering up a wonderful, fresh take on the subgenre. Go listen to all of them. They’re totally worth it.

What I’ve Been Watching

Besides continuing through B99 whenever we can, we watched two movies recently. In the theater this weekend, we watched What Men Want, the sequel/reboot/spin off of What Women Want from back in the day.

What to say about this movie…it was fine? I suppose? It wasn’t necessarily poorly made, and it wasn’t necessarily poorly acted. It was boringly made, and Taraji P. Henson is far better than this movie.

The biggest problem is that it indulges in the same boring stereotypes that these Men vs Women types of movies always indulge in. Men constantly think about sex, women are bundles of neuroses trying to act tough in a man’s world, and gay people are flamboyant and give great life advice. Whee! Bonus jokes include a sex scene that, had the genders been reversed, would’ve been obvious rape and made the main character the bad guy in any other type of movie, a guy wearing ladies underwear–HILARIOUS–and a guy that’s sensitive enough to enjoy trashy “lady” reality TV.

There was also a wildly uncomfortable moment where Taraji’s white guy boss says, “If I weren’t afraid of these MeToo folks dragging me through the streets, I’d fire you right now.” I feel like this is a writer that doesn’t actually understand what the MeToo movement is? Because it’s not just “women pushing for equality and not standing for condescending male bullshit.” It is VERY SPECIFICALLY about sexual assault. When he said that, I was waiting for him to sexually assault, which was definitely not what they were going for. Just…hacky, astoundingly lazy writing.

The positives: I kept waiting for her to enter a room full of women and hear one of their thoughts so we could get a “man in a dress” transphobic joke in there, but it didn’t, thank Christ. And the movie didn’t quite lean as hard into the “woman acts like a man and must learn to be softer in order to really succeed.” It kinda did that, but not as bad as I expected.

We also watched Horror Noire, a documentary based on the book Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present by Robin R. Means Coleman, which I’ve actually wanted to pick up for a while now, but it’s priced like a textbook, so it’s a little rich for my blood at the moment.

The documentary is fantastic, tracing film all the way from the first black American movie all the way up through today, and all the ways that was good and bad. I loved it. It was smart, insightful, funny, and honestly it added a few more movies to my To Be Watched pile. You can watch it on Shudder right now, and you absolutely should if you can.

Speaking of, my To Be Watched pile, Shudder added several titles referenced in that documentary in preparation for it dropping, so I finally got around to watching Tales from the Hood, which I’ve been wanting to see since Tales From the Hood 2 was announced a couple years ago. It feels unnecessary for me to say that it’s fantastic. It’s become a classic and a staple of the genre at large, and an especially important member of the black horror landscape.

The one thing I’ll mention is I expected that Clarence Williams III’s Mr. Simms to be funny, campy, and over the top like the Cryptkeeper, but in fact, he played the role surprisingly creepy and subdued. Sure, he bugged his eyes out a lot and was definitely playing the role big, but not as broad and hammy as I expected. I was genuinely surprised, and it made me sad he didn’t come back for Tales from the Hood 2, even though I’m sure Keith David did a great job. I can’t wait to watch the sequel.

What I’ve Been Doing

As I mentioned, I’ve been trying to interact with folks more online. It seems to be going well. This is very much out of my comfort zone because 1) I’m extremely introverted and shy, so I often can’t figure out what to say, and 2) I’m always worried I’ll interact too much and then people will think I’m being creepy? I don’t know how to people well at all, is what I’m saying.

My wife got me a Nintendo 2DS for Valentine’s Day, so I’m playing Pokemon for the first time in probably 15 years. We bought Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby so that we could trade Pokemon and play them in tandem, so I’ll probably use that as a reward for accomplishing some of my goals. I’m not a huge video gamer anymore, though, so I can already tell I’m going to be playing this in shorter bursts than I did as a kid. Still, what a fun little treat.

Winter has cropped up yet again, so it’s been difficult to get out and walk more, but hopefully things will finally start warming up just a tad so I can start working on losing this weight in earnest.

In D&D news, my friend’s Curse of Strahd game is FINALLY starting up, so prepare for me to geek out about the Tales of Bawk Holiday, Kenku Gunslinger. I can’t wait to lean into as many cheesy western tropes as I possibly can.

And my own campaign is about to start up. Our first session is coming up this coming week. I’m feeling a bit behind as I’ve been waiting for my players’ backstories and character sheets so I can start planning, but I think I’ll start working on that Sunday night or Monday after work. I’m very excited, though, but a bit nervous since this is a continuation of the last campaign, but with a mostly new party. We’ll see how it goes. I’ll start posting campaign diaries after we get started, so look forward to those on alternating weeks soon, too.

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And that’s the wrap up for this week. I have some potentially good news coming up that may soak up some of my time, but I don’t want to say anything too early and jinx it, so I’m holding my tongue for now.

Feel free to drop me an email or hit me up on Twitter to chat, or drop a comment below. I’d love to hear from y’all. I’m still on the lookout for beta readers/critique partners, so if you’re interested, especially if you read horror, reach out.

Later, y’all!