Hello darlings,
Like the sun, I have returned! Apologies that this newsletter is a tad late, I traveled a bit to see the eclipse and my schedule has yet to fully recover.
I know spring has been here for a while for some of you, but it has basically just reliably stopped snowing where I am, so I’m going to call this my first update of the season! I’d like to briefly welcome our once more astonishing number of new readers — if you have not yet read What Manner of Man, I can only offer my warmest encouragement to give it a try!
The following newsletter may contain:
(soft) ANNOUNCEMENT 1 concerning Patreon
ANNOUNCEMENT 2 (also soft) concerning this newsletter
a fun link
what I’ve been reading
Up top I have some big news:
COMING SOON TO PATREON
I am pleased to announce that I will be serializing the in-progress chapters of the final draft of What Manner of Man, with all their additional new material, to patrons over the coming weeks! Patrons of Accomplice tier and up will receive all edited chapters of the novel, while Henchmen will receive just the new scenes.
I am busy retyping What Manner of Man in its entirety, to give myself the best opportunity to make improvements and incorporate the new material in a more organic way. What that means is that I am producing a brand new draft (hooray!) There will be an additional pass on this draft before final publication (it has yet to grace the eyes of my editor,) however that does not mean it need be kept hidden in a dark room until that time.
I am not certain of the starting date for this serial yet. It will depend on a couple of factors, and might still be a month or so away (this may be optimistic of me; I am hoping it will be a month away. Thank you for your patience as always.)
I don’t have a hard starting date for this yet but I am aiming for May.
Which brings me to —
COMING SOON TO HERE ALSO
There have been so many new subscribers since What Manner of Man wrapped up (not to mention the few hundred of you who signed up during the finale) that I want to serialize What Manner of Man for a second time! If everything goes according to plan, I might start in May, to coincide with Dracula Daily (though I am open to input.)
There are a few logistical loose ends to tie up — things like whether to make chapters weekly or twice weekly, how closely to synchronize the free and Patreon serials, etc. etc.
I’d also like to provide an option for those who read the novel last year and want to continue to receive announcement emails, but would prefer to opt out of getting the whole novel in their inbox again.
Love this idea? Hate it? Feel strongly in some mysterious other way? Please let me know what you think!
TURNING OVER ROCKS
I want to share a neat website/rabbit hole I found while I was doing my usual research.
The Fr. O’Flanagan History and Heritage Centre is an incredibly in-depth series of pages on ancient sites in Ireland, ranging from the world famous like Newgrange to lesser known sites like Carowkeel itself.
If you’re interested in the ancient Celtic ruins elements of What Manner of Man, (which, admittedly, are not specifically Irish, as they are deliberately vague,) I cannot recommend this page enough.
THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND
I’ve just been reading, for the first time, a classic piece of supernatural fiction: The House on the Borderland (1908), by William Hope Hodgson. Terry Pratchett called it “the Big Bang in my private universe as a science fiction and fantasy reader and, later, writer,” and I too have thoughts to share!
I was unprepared for what this was like. First we get about thirty pages excruciatingly detailing two British guys’ fishing vacation — how they found the right camp site, the hiking they’re doing, interspersed with some vintage racism against the Irish. This is maybe the longest and most pointless frame story I’ve ever read, because after all of this faffing about, all the men do is find a diary near a ruin. The diary is the entire rest of the book, the two men disappear entirely at this point. From there, it goes like this:
“Dear diary, I am an old man. I have a dog named Pepper and my house is kind of weird! Let me tell you about my family. I have one sister and no friends. :( Something strange happened to me tonight. I was sitting in my living room when the candles turned green! It freaked me out a little! Then I blasted off into outer space where I stood upon an infinite plain of black glass and there I met a horrifying pig-headed god…”
The rest of the book does not slow down or stop for even a moment, just pure outer space traveling to the end of time with pig men, etc.
The introduction insists there is some secret inner story to be uncovered, but I swear I have rarely read a book that had less coherent meaning behind its hallucinatory strangeness. Utterly bonkers. Highly recommend!
OTHER ASSORTED READING
I was curious about the ways in which Victorian publishing resembles online publishing, and so in a fit of poor judgement I’ve also recently picked up Varney the Vampire. As many of you are doubtless aware, Varney the Vampire is a notorious penny dreadful which was first serialized, in weekly installments, in the mid 19th century. It is endless and terrible and seems to be the specific origin of a plethora of beloved vampire tropes — biting the neck to drink a person’s blood is just one among its many claimed inventions.
Unfortunately, Varney the Vampire is also over 600 000 words long; and these are not good words, mind you — these are paid-by-the-word words. So I may once more be indulging in my favourite hobby of getting about a hundred pages into a book before just sort of forgetting it exists. (It’s not all bad, I’m also reading Foucault’s Pendulum.)
I bear unnaturally long-lived — nay, immortal — gratitude toward each of my beloved patrons, who are all uniformly regal of bearing and beautiful of aspect. I extend heartfelt best wishes, also, to the rest of you freeloaders (affectionate.) Your wisdom in financial matters is commendable.
Your humble servant,
St John