Walk Out To Winter

Hello from out here on the shivery cold Thames Delta, where I am wrapping up for the year. Weekly letters will resume some time in January. There will likely be a couple of email blasts between now and then, as I still have some pending announcements hanging. But it’s time for me to wander off for a bit.

It’s amusing to me to see how many other people use the PROJECT CODENAME protocol I invented for this newsletter as a way to talk about things that haven’t been announced - I’ve seen James Tynion and Dec Shalvey do it most recently. So here’s another two - the script for graphic novella PROJECT KNIFE HILL is in and accepted, and I’ve just finally wrapped up the script for graphic novella PROJECT LOST SIERRA, which took way too long because this year was a shitfire. Reprint project PROJECT TRIFORIUM is about to get its cover and design, and I’ve written the additional texts and what have you.

Contracts being drawn up, more consulting work coming down the pike to keep me sharp, figuring out what 2024 is going to look like, what order things will happen in, inevitably discovering that they won’t happen in anything like the order I want…

And this week I came up with two new graphic novella ideas, I realised how an old idea would look as a prose novella, and I’m frantically scribbling into the back half of a notebook before the year runs out. And, as I write this, the people I wrote PROJECT KNIFE HILL for just asked me to come back and do another one for them. And I still have two pitch outlines to finish.

Also, my kid came home for a few days and I think she’s given me a cold. I don’t care, because I got to hold my daughter again.

NOTE: graphic novella is my own term for a comic between 36-56 pages.

Ever heard the term OGN or Original Graphic Novel? That was me. Sorry.

But, aside from those announcements that are in train but may be happening at Any Goddamn Time Apart From When They Were Supposed To Happen… I’m rolling down the shutters for the year. I’ve been in this chair so long this year that my spine’s compressed and I’m pretty sure I’m shorter than Molly Crabapple now. And she’s four foot nine. I want some time outside, and I want a couple of months of being able to stare into space and think.

So, yeah, not a thrilling edition to close the year out on, and, worse, All About Me, but it is what it is, and it’s time to wander out into the frost.

Next year might be the time for me to once again let other people do parts of this weekly missive for me!

I read some good books this year, and if you’re looking for something to read or demand to be gifted over the holidays, I’d recommend: THE VARIANTS by Patrick Langley, THE DOLL’S ALPHABET by Camilla Grudova, FASSBINDER THOUSANDS OF MIRRORS by Ian Penman (which I’m re-reading right now), RUSSIA CONTAINER by Alexander Kluge, I AM THE BROTHER OF XX by Fleur Jaeggy and PIRANESI by Susanna Clarke.

I had to stop reading the Times Literary Supplement and the London Review of Books this year, because Kindle cancelled their digital distribution of those magazines, so from now on I’m likely to be even further behind the curve of new releases.

And here’s a couple of records:

We walked him to the station in the rain
And we kissed him as we put him on the train
And we sang him a song of times long gone
Though we knew that we'd be seeing him again

“Sally MacLennane,” Shane MacGowan

This letter has been zapped to you via Beehiiv. NOTE: with Tinyletter now gone, Beehiiv’s free tier might be of interest - 2500 subscribers before you have to start paying.

And I am out until next year. It’s cold up here in the Northern Hemisphere, and it’s weird everywhere. It’s okay for you to check out of things too. No need to wreck yourself on someone else’s rocks. Take care of yourself, enjoy the midwinter pause in any way you want, and I’ll see you on the other side. Wishing you happy days and warm nights. Thanks for reading.

W