Chuck Wendig's Blog, page 57

In Which I Rank Grocery Store Apples

If you did not already know, now you do: I am known at times for reviewing (“reviewing”) heirloom apples over on twitter (check out my thread, which begins here and goes in for like, hundreds of fucking tweets about apples). If I’m ever interviewed to be a SCOTUS judge, I will surely be called to answer for my “apple problem,” where I will vociferously defend myself thus: “I LIKE APPLES. OKAY? I LIKE APPLES A LOT. AND THEY LIKE ME. ME AND THE BOYS AND GIRLS ALL ATE APPLES, OKAY? THAT’S AMERICAN.”

And I am of course a savage apple snob. I don’t mean to be. It’s just, I’ve seen the truth and the truth is that there are literally thousands of types of apples, and they range wildly in taste and complexity and quality and that’s just a lot of fun. It’s interesting. It’s like getting a whole range of fruit-tasting experience that you didn’t know existed before.

Sadly, though, that’s not what’s commercially available to us the rest of the year. Most people across the country don’t get more than a dozen apple-types available year around — and here someone much smarter than me can chime in with a conversation about food deserts and grocery stores. Produce is tricky, because outside farm areas, it has to travel well and look pretty even before it tastes good, and… well, the long story short is that we only get so many kinds of apples available in stores.

And people ask me which of those they should eat.

As if I have a clue.

So, I thought: well, I’ll do what I do for heirloom apples, and review some store-bought ones. I’m doing it here instead of Twitter because… well, I don’t know. THE FUTURE IS THE PAST: BLOGS ARE BACK. (They’re probably not but I figure it if I say it loud enough, you’ll believe me.)

So, here, I’m gonna rank some apples.

These apples, in part:

[image error]

But I also had more in the fridge worth reviewing.

We’ll go worst to best.

Note: these are all just my humble, uninformed opinions, and further, apples on any given day and at any given store might be different, and so maybe I ended up with an exceptionally good example of Type A and a total shitbucket version of Type B and neither are exemplary of the whole, yadda yadda yadda. Just saying, this ain’t math.

Let us begin.

15. Rome

God, this fucking apple. First, that photo is pretty and I like it — I didn’t take photos of all the apples, but I did of this one because it was so lovingly round and red. And I had high hopes for how it would taste even though it’s largely described as a good cooking or sauce apple, and ohhh fuck I shouldn’t have had those high hopes. It was like eating apple-scented sand, just a mouthful of sad, wet sand. Sauce it all you like, but don’t put it in your mouth uncooked.

14. Granny Smith

Look. It’s good for baking but don’t put it in your mouth. Deal? Deal.

Moving on.

13. Green Dragon

That apple above is the Green Dragon, which is a great name for an apple, if that apple were good. And this one is not good. It is an apple that is best fed to children and horses. Okay, so here’s the thing, I cut open this apple to take a look at it, and the smell of the thing was intense. In a good way, not in a smells like goat farts way — I mean, it was redolent with floral esters. (Did you know that apples are a relative of the rose? True story.) And that smell, alongside the name, form a powerful over-promise / under-deliver scenario, because the resultant apple is sweet in the way that tastes like someone just dipped their thumb in white sugar and had you lick it off. There’s zero tartness, and the sugar flavor isn’t even complicated. It’s just candy. And not even good candy. Worse, then the texture kicks in, which is mealy, mushy, gritty. I’ve read some reviews of these apples that suggest they’re pretty 50/50 — meaning, you can get really good ones and really turdy ones, but that’s also not much of a recommendation if their quality is all over the map.

12. Crimson Gold

This apple is tiny. I am confused a bit about its parentage, as I’m to understand there is a crabapple cross called a Crimson Gold, but this Crimson Gold came in a bag with a bunch of its diminutive friends, and it said it was a cross of a Newtown and Spitzenburg? I have no idea. What I know is this: fuck this apple. It’s too small. What’s the point? You can’t eat the middle (okay, technically you can), so you’re mostly just nibbling the thing, because the core takes up most of it. The flavor is fine — it’s very sugar-forward, with a funky, vegetal finish, but the texture is like eating a toe. And not a nice soft baby toe either but like, a toe that’s seen some shit, a toe that belongs to a foot that has crossed mountain ranges. Feed this apple to a hungry pony and move on.

11. Autumn Glory

I love autumn. I love glory. I wanted to love this apple and the first bite is tantalizing — there’s something in there that is puzzlingly caramel, this warm, buttery burned sugar thing I’ve never really found in another apple. And there’s a whiff of the licorice flavor you get with a really good russet. And there’s a hint of tartness. But then the flavor kinda goes away and you’re left still… chewing it. Like a piece of bubblegum that you know you can’t swallow but you also know you can’t just stick on the bottom of the bus seat because people might look at you, so you’re instead left to kinda keep chawing and chawing and gnashing this thing into oblivion.

10. Red Delicious

I know. Okay?

I know.

You’re already saying, “Chuck, but the Red Delicious apple is a fucking monster. It’s the pinnacle of mediocrity, it’s an artifact of a time that apples had to be able to survive a 600-mile journey in an apple cart, it just has to stand there and be tough and pretty despite how shitty it tastes.” I know! I KNOW. I’ve myself said that it is the Judas Apple, the Liar Fruit, it is neither red (honestly it’s kind of a Satanic crimson) nor delicious, and is an apple best used for throwing at your enemies.

And yet here we are.

In proof that this is the weirdest and worst timeline, the Red Delicious apple was not the worst I tasted. In fact it was perfectly okay. I mean, it wasn’t exactly good, but like, I ate it and didn’t hate myself. The only hatred came from the peculiarly bitter aftertaste, which tastes more like an apple seed than an actual apple? Whatever. Point is, this wasn’t hellish. I still wouldn’t buy one. I’d still throw it at enemies. Its texture is crisp but a little woody (tee-hee, woody). It is in fact the very definition of mediocre. But it’s not horse food.

I know, I’m sorry, I want to hate it.

9. Snapdragon

Another dragon apple, I see.

This is a nice apple. Smells and tastes of elderflower. It’s crisp and juicy. A little too juicy, in that it almost came across as watery. But that also lends it a very refreshing vibe. Be a great summer apple on a hot day. After several bites I noticed in this apple and several of the other ones that there’s also a bit of white grape flavor going on which makes sense since I think some grape juice is cut with apple juice, the same way cocaine is stepped on by including like, baby powder? I dunno. Grassy aftertaste.

8. Sweetango

I really like juice from Sweetango — less so the apple. I mean, it’s good! It’s nice. It has its sweetness and tartness in near perfect balance but has this weird aftertaste that’s like drinking your grandmother’s cheap CVS perfume? Comes on strong with flavor then gets weird, and not in a good way weird. Its parents are the Honeycrisp and the Zestar (Zestar being my favorite galactic overlord, as well), but for my mileage, just eat a Honeycrisp instead.

7. Fuji

It’s cliched, but I prefer Fuji as an apple with other foods — with cheese, in salads, on a charcuterie board, with soft baby toes, whatever. (Also good to blend up and make your own vinaigrette with.) But not my favorite for eating. Still, it’s a solid apple contender.

6. Honeycrisp

This is where I make people mad.

The Honeycrisp (initially mistyped as “Hineycrisp”) is fine.

It’s fine.

It’s even good.

But it is not the sacred savior of apples. You bring up apples and everyone’s like FUCKING HONEYCRISP FUCK YEAH HONEYCRISP SCREW YOUR OTHER APPLES THE HONEYCRISP IS LORD AND KING OF APPLETOWN, and, y’know, calm down. I’m glad you like it! Like it, love it, rub it all over yourself. But for my mileage it’s a very expensive, sort of half-trendy half-mediocre Top-40 pop music apple that is totally serviceable and yet also not… that interesting? It’s like talking to someone about Transformers and they’re like MY FAVORITE TRANSFORMER IS OPTIMUS PRIME, and… okay, we all like Optimus Prime. He’s great. It’s also sorta the obvious answer. I mean, where’s the Cliffjumper love? Howabout Windblade?

For me it’s too sweet. YMMV. And what I mean by that is, FUCK YOU, HONEYCRISP, YOU’RE THE ED SHEERAN OF APPLES.

5. Jazz

It’s the jazz hands of apples. Meaning, it’s zippy and fun, and swiftly overdone if you indulge too much. Always a good snacking apple, though.

4. Envy & Gala

I’m putting these two together because, quite honestly, the specimens I had were not particularly distinguishable from one another. Gala is an Envy parent, and… listen, these are both sweet apples, sweet more than they are tart, with good juiciness and crunch. I don’t know that they’re particularly exciting, but they just taste like appley goodness.

3. Opal

Now we’re getting somewhere. I really liked the Opal. Very, very crisp apple with this incredibly breaking texture that called to mind the feeling of using your teeth to break off a piece of good dark chocolate. Strong scent of pear-pineapple which is met by an equally fruity flavor profile. Also in times of great need, Opal turns into a Mighty Apple Princess and will fight on your behalf, for your honor, for the Kingdom of Fruitonia. True story, don’t @ me.

2. Ruby Frost

Ruby Frost: a great apple, also my stripper name. Got a nice lemon tingle tartness (Lemon Tingle is my backup stripper name), has a floral vibe while not being overly perfumey, not cloyingly-sweet.

1. Pink Lady

Fuck yeah, Pink Ladies.

(Also known as Cripps Pink.)

This is lately my go-to apple — good balanced apple with an electric tartness that’s tempered by a mouth-slap of sweetness. I will say I had a small batch of these and one of them tasted hellaciously like soap, and I have no idea why. I assume there’s some weird soap bandit going around grocery stores injecting apples with dish detergent or something.

In Summation

Again, none of this is science — so much of this is based off peculiar intricacies like the weather, the orchard, how long the apples have been on the shelf, and so on and so forth. (I mean, of course the breeding and heritage of apples is science, but my tasting of them and opinion about them is most certainly not.) Like what you like and don’t be swayed away from that. Just eat apples! They’re good food. Good fiber, they help you sleep, they even help against acid reflux. (Avoid apple cider vinegar for reflux, mind you. If your acid reflux is from, well, acid, then pouring more acid on top of it is not pleasant. Though I’m not a doctor, so again, YMMV.)

I should note that there are other apples I like more than what’s listed here — I’ll take a Jonathan, Jonagold, or Braeburn any day of the week. The best apple I ever ate was in fact a Jonathan apple in Fruita, Colorado. Also, I’m to understand that my very favorite non-heirloom apple, the Gold Rush, is growing more available at local orchards and grocery stores, and it’s a helluva good apple. Not great when you pick it in Oct/Nov, but amazing come December, and keeps through till February or even beyond. (We just ate our last batch the other night, and they’re perfect for snacking, for pies, for cooking, probably even for cider.)

And since I’m sure someone will ask, here is a quick list of my favorite heirlooms of 2018 in no particular order, should you ever be able to find them:

Golden Russet (or really, any russet), Gold Star, Roman Stem, any Limbertwig (Smokey Mtn or Myers Royal or Caney Fork), Keener Seedling, Little Jewel, Esopus Spitzenburg, Tompkins King, Yosemite, Vandevere, Guyandotte Pippin, Tydeman’s Late Orange, Cornish Aromatic, Jonagram, Rubinette, St. Cecilia, King of Pippins. Need an orchard directory? Here’s one.

* * *

[image error]

WANDERERS: A Novel, out July 2nd, 2019.

A decadent rock star. A deeply religious radio host. A disgraced scientist. And a teenage girl who may be the world’s last hope. An astonishing tapestry of humanity that Harlan Coben calls “a suspenseful, twisty, satisfying, surprising, thought-provoking epic.”

A sleepwalking phenomenon awakens terror and violence in America. The real danger may not be the epidemic, but the fear of it. With society collapsing—and an ultraviolent militia threatening to exterminate them—the fate of the sleepwalkers and the shepherds who guide them depends on unraveling the mystery behind the epidemic. The terrifying secret will either tear the nation apart—or bring the survivors together to remake a shattered world.

Preorder: Print | eBook

Macro Monday Is Better Than Mackerel Monday

HEY HAPPY MACKEREL MONDAY

*hits you in the face with a mackerel*

See? Macro Monday is so much better than getting hit in the face with a mackerel. (Star Wars X-mas ornament macros at the bottom of this post.)

ANYWAY hey hi hello happy Monday everyone.

The weekend tried to rescue us from the banality of the week, but as always, it failed in its task and has retreated to its Party Crypt, where it will return again at the close of Friday to once more try to save us from the oppression of Monday’s brute squad.

Some quick news-tickled updates:

First, hey, that’s right, there’s a new episode of Ragnatalk in the offing. And I’m quite certain that this time we actually finish the last five minutes of Thor: Ragna—

*receives note*

Okay I’m informed by my lawyers that we did not finish the movie and instead talked about post-New Year motivation and process and how to stay true to your goals and chip at them meaningfully? What fresh hell is this? Are we some kind of self-help podcast now? Jeez.

(More seriously, the podcast hits on some very real process stuff which may earn some fresh bloggery re: writing. Keep your grapes peeled.)

Next up: another podcast, the Big Beautiful Podcast, as hosted by Jamie Greene. I’m on it! Talking about writing and life and Star Wars and other stuff.

Lessee. What else?

Vultures drops next week! If you want an autographed copy replete with PERSONAL DEATH PROPHECY, you can nab one from Lets Play Books — they’ll ship it right to you. Otherwise, pre-order in print or eBook. Bonus: now available for pre-order in audio as well, hosted by series narrator, Emily Beresford!

Speaking of audio, you can also pre-order the audio for Death & Honey, the triumvirate of novellas by Kevin Hearne, Delilah Dawson, and yours truly. My story is a story featuring Wren, from the Miriam Black series, and nestles comfortably between the end of Book 5 and Book 6. Also, Subterranean Press is doing a limited print edition, with some signed and signed/lettered editions left. Check it out.

AND THAT’S IT

GAME OVER

GO HOME

*kicks you out of the van*

*speeds off*

Welcome To My New Netflix Show

Welcome to my new Netflix show!

It’s called:

CLUTTERING IS GOOD ACTUALLY: IT IS LIKE A NEST MADE OF STUFF BUILT TO PROTECT YOU FROM FEELING FEELINGS

It’s a 13-episode season, each with a vital lesson at its heart!

Lesson One:

If an object sparks nostalgic regret and instills you with a curious mix of shame and forbidden pleasure, that object goes on a special shelf and that special shelf is called “your bed.”

Lesson Two:

If you can’t remember where you got an item or why you even have it that’s an opportunity to become friends with this mystery object.

Keep it close!

No, closer.

NO, CLOSER.

whispers: let it touch your skin

whispers: let it inside you

Lesson Three:

If you throw out an object someone gave you, they’ll know.

They’ll fucking KNOW.

And they’ll STOP LOVING YOU.

Lesson Three-Point-Five:

Never throw away a child’s drawings.

Not even the shitty ones.

Every time you throw away a child’s artwork, a child’s pet dies.

Lesson Four:

You only have enough books when you can build a castle out of them.

Yes, with a moat.

OF COURSE A MOAT, JUDY, STOP ASKING STUPID QUESTIONS

Lesson Five:

Clothes naturally move toward the organic superstructure known as “a pile.”

This is science.

Nature abhors a vacuum but fucking loves a pile.

Lesson Six:

One day you will die and the best gift you can leave for your loved ones upon passing is a house full of dubious objects containing questionable value, the kind of objects that would earn a sour face from any curator on Antiques Roadshow. Collecting things is sometimes about creating a physical burden to pass along to your family members BECAUSE THEY DESERVE IT

THEY KNOW WHAT THEY DID

THAT’S RIGHT I’M TALKING ABOUT YOU, COUSIN MARY

WHERE’S MY CHAFING DISH YOU HARRIDAN

OH OH I’M NOT GETTING IT BACK

WELL FINE I JUST LEFT YOU 20 SHOEBOXES FULL OF CABLES COLLECTED WITH UNCERTAIN POINTS OF ORIGIN

THEY MIGHT BE PRINTER CABLES OR RCA VIDEO CABLES OR THE CHARGING CORD TO SOME KNOCKOFF PALM PILOT FROM 1998

MAYBE ONE OF THEM CHARGES A SEX TOY

YOU JUST DON’T KNOW

THAT’S FOR YOU TO SORT OUT, MARY

YOU RAT

Lesson Seven:

Oh, yeah, you’re going to need more skeletons.

Lesson Seven-Point-Five:

Remember, if you can’t afford skeletons?

You can always make them.

Your house is a home and your home is a trap to any wayward soul or feral animal that finds its way in there! All a tomb needs is four walls, after all.

Lesson Eight:

You’ll fit into that sweater someday.

Remember, we all become skeletons in the end, and skeletons can wear most clothing without concerns over size or fit. Death is slimming!

YES JUDY WE ARE TALKING A LOT ABOUT SKELETONS

SKELETONS ARE IMPORTANT JUDY

GODDAMNIT

Lesson Nine:

If you throw something out, that creates waste.

But if you keep it, it contains value.

As compost, eventually.

Eventually we all become compost, Judy.

Lesson Ten:

Yes, MORE books, who the fuck ever said to STOP buying books

Lesson Eleven:

No, don’t clean your desk that thing contains tax receipts from 1988.

And also dead crickets!

Which I don’t need to tell you are protein, Judy.

GOOD HEALTHY PROTEIN which we are going to need when the shit hits the fan. That time is coming, Judy. The dark times. The mad times. The times where those who survive are those who chose clutter, who chose to surround themselves with objects that can be uses as tools or food or gladiatorial weapons in the Wasteland.

Ha ha ha I’m just kidding, Judy.

Now use that barbed wire to bind these cat bones to that shovel.

Lesson Twelve:

The joy of purging? Ha ha no way Marie Kondo, we’re here to talk about the joy of binging! Binging my new Netflix show, of course. And also stuff. So much stuff. Binge all the stuff. Collect it. Eat it. Build with it. Build walls. Build towers. Build effigies to the ancient gods. The ancient gods who collected people the way you collect office supplies you’ll never need. Three staplers? Who the fuck needs three staplers? That’s right, Judy. You do. You do.

Lesson Thirteen:

Like the Pharaohs of old, you surround yourself in life and in death with a bevy of beloved objects, all of which are sealed up in your castle of books, your tomb of stuff, your temple of semi-beloved shame-stained garbage, and now you are protected from wolves and emotions and you have so much knowledge and nobody can hurt you now, Judy, nobody but Cousin Mary, now eat your crickets and clutch your Cat Bone Shovel tight, Judy, the hill mutants are coming, the hill mutants are coming

*static*

* * *

[image error]

WANDERERS: A Novel, out July 2nd, 2019.

A decadent rock star. A deeply religious radio host. A disgraced scientist. And a teenage girl who may be the world’s last hope. An astonishing tapestry of humanity that Harlan Coben calls “a suspenseful, twisty, satisfying, surprising, thought-provoking epic.”

A sleepwalking phenomenon awakens terror and violence in America. The real danger may not be the epidemic, but the fear of it. With society collapsing—and an ultraviolent militia threatening to exterminate them—the fate of the sleepwalkers and the shepherds who guide them depends on unraveling the mystery behind the epidemic. The terrifying secret will either tear the nation apart—or bring the survivors together to remake a shattered world.

Preorder: Print | eBook

Macro Monday Wants You To Have A Cookie

Break is now officially-officially over for me — like I was kinda back last week, but our child remained off of school for the week so we were still half-assing it, more or less.

It was a good break.

We saw Bumblebee, which was actually a lot of fun — a G1 Transformers adventure which really, more people should’ve seen. It’s like A GIRL AND HER PONY, except, her pony is a Transformer? Whatever. It’s a blast. Also saw Mary Poppins Returns, which was also a lot of fun and full of the light and whimsy and goodness I sorta needed to get my 2019 started — it drags maybe a little in the middle, with maybe one song too many, but overall, a joy to behold.

Christmas was good. New Years was good. Nothing particularly exciting — I mean, sure, we accidentally cooked Santa in the fireplace (ha ha my bad) and on the New Year I fired a rifle in the air in the ANCIENT WENDIG WAY, and the rifle bullet took a chip out of the moon? But that’s okay, I’m pretty sure that’s where the secret Nazi base was, so, for reals, YOU’RE WELCOME.

There is, of course, news.

First, if you were looking to pre-order Vultures and you wanted a signed copy with a customized death prediction, well, once again Let’s Play Books has you covered. Click here and they’ll get you set up. (You can actually order any of the books in the series this way, btw.)

I should also note that Vultures — out January 22nd! Two weeks (and a day)! — is in some people’s hands already in ARC form, and a head’s up to those people: the book ain’t right. It’s the wrong version of the book, pre-edit, and though I don’t think it’s dramatically different, it’s got enough errors and such that I’m kinda disappointed people might be using it for review copies.

Be aware, regardless.

Wanderers, on the other hand, has a longer road to publication (July 2nd!) but that book has already begun to collect fancy blurbs from a series of wonderful authors — I’m sitting on a very nice collection of very kind comments, and the publisher has posted a few of these, so I’m going to post the first three here, too —

“Wanderers is wonderful—a suspenseful, twisty, satisfying, surprising, thought-provoking epic of a novel. Chuck Wendig has taken his considerable talents to the next level. Dig in.”

—Harlan Coben, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Run Away



“Chuck Wendig’s latest Wanderers is a magnum opus of both storytelling and prose. Epic in scope, yet told with an intimacy that hooked me from the first page. It reminded me of a technological version of Stephen King’s The Stand—but dare I say, this story is even better: a post-apocalyptic horror story that bares the best and worst of humanity in all its rawest forms. Don’t miss this tour de force. It left me awed.”

—James Rollins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Crucible 

“Wanderers is a stunning epic that deftly weaves together a deadly pandemic, ideological violence, and environmental collapse in a way that feels both fantastically mysterious and very frighteningly plausible. Wendig’s tale brims with the irresistible dread of The Stand and prose as sharp and heartbreaking as Station Eleven, but what sets this book apart and will keep you riveted until the end is its deeply compelling cast of characters—courageous, terrified, flawed, but most of all, full of hope. Simply put, Wanderers is a masterpiece.”

—Peng Shepherd, author of The Book of M

So, I’m definitely vibrating a little over here.

You can pre-order the book in Print or eBook.

There also a new episode of Thor: Ragnatalk, where surely, surely, Anthony and I cover the actual last ten minutes of the movie and definitely don’t spend our entire time eating and reviewing New Zealand snacks. I mean, probably.

And that’s it.

Have a great week, weirdos.

In 2019: Persist, Persist, Persist

Usually, I do a writing-related resolution for myself and other writers if they care to borrow it — but this year, all I got is:

Persist, writers.

Your stories will outlast this peculiar, fucked-up moment in history, but for those stories to outlast, you first gotta write ’em.

I don’t know who you are or what you write: maybe what you need to write is raw escapism, or maybe your form of resistance and persistence demands you use your stories to tackle the hinky fuckery going on. But resist, and persist, with art, and with narrative.

You can do it. But it won’t be easier. I expect it’ll be harder this year just as it was harder in 2018 — harder than it feels like it should be. But that makes it all the more worth doing. Don’t let your stories be lost to this bullshit. Save them. Write them.

Persist.

Persist. Forgive yourself. Write despite — or better yet, write TO spite. Embrace the game of inches and understand you won’t always sprint for miles. One word at a time, one sentence, one paragraph, one scene, a house built a brick at a time.

Some days will be harder than others. Turn away from the news when you can. Save time for yourself, give it to yourself as a gift before you give your time to anybody else, or to anywhere or anything else. Art hurts. Stories are squirmy. We live in strange times. Persist.

You need to do it. We need you to do it. Your stories are yours. Full of you. Full of what you believe and what you fear, brimming with your notions both conscious and unconscious, tied to all you’ve known, you’ve loved, you’ve hated. The world needs you and your tales.

PERSIST.

There’s no map but the one you draw. No process of anyone’s you can borrow. You gain your groove by wearing it into the floor one micrometer at a time. It’s erosion. Water on stone to find its path. It makes it harder in times like these because we want it to be math. PERSIST.

You don’t know you can do it. You don’t know that you belong. You can do it. You belong as much as anybody. You’re an impostor, sure, because we’re all impostors, we’re all here unasked for, unbidden, uninvited, wearing our masks.

Persist anyway.

I worry for those just starting, just trying to begin — what a difficult time for you to try to start off on a creative path. But it’s vital you do it. We need your voice, your energy, your ideas. It won’t be right out of the gate. That’s hard. But true. And yet you persist.

Throw some of the fucks out of your fuckbasket. Autonomous functions get harder when we overthink them. Sleeping. Breathing. Writing is like that, too. Write anyway. Write without thinking too much, too hard. Offload your worry to Future You. Just write. And persist.

Bleed on the page if you gotta. Sing and scream. Be angry there. Be vigilant and sad and unsafe. Write madly and with undistilled fury. Write with love, too. Love for yourself even if you can’t see it. Love for the story and the process — even if you can’t feel it.

Persist.

There’s no one way forward. Forward isn’t always forward. Sometimes it’s sideways and sidesteps: hinky, wonky, janky-ass backroads and short-cuts and getting lost in dark forests. Sometimes you go BACKWARD. That’s okay, too. Whaddya do?

That’s right, you persist.

Sometimes writing isn’t even writing, sometimes storytelling is about thinking, about chewing on something, it’s just you revisiting it again and again, slow-roasting it over hours, days, weeks, months, even years. Recognize that. Persist through it.

And writing is rewriting, too. It’s getting it wrong before you get it right. Sometimes it’s getting it wrong, then even WRONGER, then fucking it all up before you can see it, lined up like a line of crystals in crepuscular beam of sunlight. That’s how it is, sometimes. Persist.

You got this. You won’t feel like you got this. I don’t feel like I got this. I feel overwhelmed by it. I worry I’m not good enough or that I don’t belong. Every book is harder than the last. But I keep on.

And so will you.

Persist, persist, persist.

Into 2019. And past it.

Merry happy fellow word-herders, ink-slingers, penmonkeys.

2018, Meet 2019: The Year Behind And The Year Ahead

And so it comes to pass that the year is nearly over, and I am left feeling a bit blurry and hazy on what happened, and what could possibly happen next.

Were 2018 to have an epitaph carved into its headstone, it would read:

2018-2018

THE YEAR THAT LASTED TEN YEARS.

REST IN PIECES, YOU WEIRD ASSHOLE.

I could get into a litany of profanity over world events, but I think it’s succinct enough to say: shit was real hinky in 2018, and 2019 probably isn’t looking any less hinky. That’s it. That’s all I’m gonna say about that, right now.

Personally and professionally, 2018 was a very, uh, curious year — generally speaking, I put out a handful of books every year, usually three or four, and I often write the same amount, too. This year? I only put out one book: The Raptor & The Wren. And I didn’t even write a book. I mean, okay, I did monster edits and rewrites on the very big book, Wanderers. I did edits on Vultures, the sixth and final Miriam Black book. And I wrote 80k on a new book, tentatively titled The Book of Accidents. I wrote a novella. I wrote a bunch of comic scripts, most of which you’ll never see —

*gives Marvel the side-eye*

That bit actually made quite a lot of news, which was bizarre.

And had a… movie made out of tweets between Sam Sykes and I?

I started a podcast about Thor: Ragnarok? With the inimitable Anthony Carboni?

I met Levar Burton?

See? 2018 was just fucking weird, man.

The good news is, I spent 2018 not actually feeling burnout — for the years prior, I’d been galloping parallel to the riptide current of total burnout, and though I never succumbed to it, it was pretty close. So, 2018 helped me reclaim some energy, and focus what energy I had on the books in front of me, which was good.

And that means 2019 sees those books come out.

Vultures, in January. (Preorder in print or eBook!)

And Wanderers, in July. (Preorder in print or eBook!)

Closing out Miriam’s story is satisfying and heartwrenching in equal measure — and though I have no idea if I did her story justice in the eyes of the audience, I feel happy with where I took that story. I’ve planned her story’s end for a while, and this is roughly always where it was going, and hopefully it feels earned. If it doesn’t… um, sorry? Can’t fix it now! *nervous laughter*

With Wanderers…

Yow, that’s a bigger, unrulier, much trickier book. I didn’t have a hard time with it, exactly — it came pouring out of me, as I’d been chewing on parts of the book and other disconnected ideas for years. It all connected suddenly, and out came this book — both an artifact of this time and also one that, ideally, separates us from The Now and still gives a story that is relevant no matter when you read it. The thing is, the book was so damn big. Kudos to Del Rey for letting me write the book as I needed to write it — and for letting me keep it that way, too. I’m excited for people to read it. I’m sitting on (/humblebrag) a number of unusually amazing blurbs, and I’m feeling really fortunate right now.

Hopefully I’ll bring Book of Accidents home in an equally satisfying way. It’s also a weird book? Squirrelly. Tricksy. A little more straight-up horror for me, kind of a ghost story that becomes something more than a ghost story, or something separate from one and… well, I don’t want to give much of it away. Just know that it’s a curious specimen. It is weird to be sitting at a point in my career where I can see, looking back, looking at the present, looking forward, how my writing has shifted into what might be considered a new phase? Both of output and process? And even career?

Shit, I dunno.

We shall see.

As to what else 2019 brings? No idea. I’ll travel a good deal for Wanderers, I hope. Maybe I’ll pop in your area, I dunno! OR EVEN YOUR HOUSE, LIKE AN EVIL SANTA CLAUS IN JULY. I’ll know more as the new year clicks into place.

I think that’s it for me.

More as I have it.

It’s nearly game over, 2018.

And 2019, we’re watching you. No sudden moves.

Friday Newsplosion: Hey, Look, It’s Wanderers

So, here’s a thing — yesterday, Entertainment Weekly released their 50 Most Anticipated Books of 2019, and uhhh. *checks again to make sure it wasn’t a dream* It looks like Wanderers is on that list. I have never been on such a fancy list, nor do I ever anticipate being on one again, but for this precious moment in time, I share a special kind of literary interstitial territory with the likes of Samira Ahmed, Erin Morgenstern, and Margaret Atwood, so I’m just going to breathe deep, savor the moment, and try very hard not to barf on myself.

Also, the book is starting to go out to authors for blurbs, a rolling boil of that, as it were, and we’ve already gotten some incredibly kind blurbs back from folks, and I’ll be showcasing some of those in the new year. I am honestly very fortunate and super, super glad this book is actually working for people, because, whew. It’s been a journey.

Reminder: you can pre-order Wanderers (out in July, moved up a week to July 2nd) in Print or eBook.

I hope you like it.

What else?

The Mary Sue did a feature on six Star Wars characters they’d love to see get spin-offs, and three (!) of those six are from Aftermath, so that’s pretty fantastic.

After the new year I should also return with a pre-order for the last Miriam Black book from Let’s Play Books that gets you an autographed copy and a customized DEATH PREDICTION ooh-la-la you will be the fanciest folkperson on the block, what with your artisanal demise prophecy tucked in your pocket. You’ll make all your friends and enemies jealous.

Finally —

Episode 12: The Loki Awards is up at Ragnatalk, where Anthony Carboni and talk only about the greatest film ever made, Thor: Ragnarok, and maybe we’re supposed to cover the final ten minutes of the movie, but also, maybe we don’t do that and do something else instead. No spoilers! Go listen.

And I think that’s it.

Posting will be light next week because

*checks calendar*

It is some kind of HOOMAN HOLIDAY.

ANYWAY here have a cool macro photo of spraypainted noodles (from an ornament made by my child a couple-few years ago). Happy holidays, humans.

Recipe: Coconut Curry Garbage Ramen

We went to see Into the Spider-Verse and, you already know this because you’re all very smart people, but it’s fucking amazing. It’s the best Spider-Man movie, but only gets to be the best Spider-Man movie because of all the amazing Spider-Man movies (and comics, and cartoons, and games) before it. It’s great. It’s astonishing, spectacular, sensational, amazing. And not to mention really beautiful — one of the prettiest animated films I’ve seen in a very long time, experimental in a way that Pixar movies are not (and indie films often are).

ANYWAY.

That’s not the point of this post.

The point of this post is, we got out of the movie Sunday night, it was later than I wanted it to be, and it was starting to snow and ice a little bit. The original plan was to go out and grab food somewhere but the collective decision was: “We better head home and find dinner there.”

One problem, though —

It was Sunday night.

When I hadn’t gone grocery shopping.

The fridge and pantry were a fucking skeleton stripped of all its precious nutrients, dry as a mouse cough, and so I had no idea what I was going to make for dinner.

So, I went to my default:

GARBAGE RAMEN, or, TRASHCAN RAMEN.

Which is to say, I make a duly non-traditional version of ramen soup containing whatever shit I can scrounge up in my house at the time. Now! I do sometimes make a semi-proper ramen — miso, pork bones, tare, soft-boiled eggs, the whole fucking jim-jam. But garbage ramen is not this. Usually my garbage ramen is whatever broth I have conjured, plus whatever meat remnants I can find, and then at the end I add like, soy, ginger, garlic, splash of rice wine vinegar, mirin, maybe a tickle of sugar. But the recipe that proceeds is not that recipe.

I made something different.

And what I made was accidentally awesome.

I have not yet tried to replicate it, but I am going to put the recipe here, for you to have, so you can try your hand at it, see if it comes out as good as it did — more to the point, far far better than I could have possibly expected.

So, first, the broth.

This I had already made ahead, as I do often.

The broth is this:

Bunch of shiitake mushroom stems (8-10, I think — just stems!)

One carrot

One celery rib

Two hot cherry peppers

Quarter onion, chopped

Bundle of cilantro

Splurp of minced garlic

Sploop of minced ginger

2 tbsp coriander seed

2 tbsp cumin seed

1 tbsp fennel seed

1 tbsp mustard seed

dash of turmeric

a scattered smattering of black peppercorns

probably don’t need much salt, if any

3-4 cups of chicken broth

And I cooked that bubblin’ brew for *mumble mumble* a couple-few hours. Then, strained out of all the stuck it in a container, and into the fridge it went.

UNTIL THE HOUR OF TRASHCAN RAMEN WAS UPON US, as the prophecy foretold.

Soup time.

Get the broth boiling and into it ye shall placeth:

Three carrots, choppity-chopped

One celery rib, sliced into slicey bits for its crimes

Half a green pepper, carved into nifty thin strips

Quarter onion, diced

The caps from the shiitake mushrooms (above), sliced

one can of coconut milk

Three tbsp fish sauce

1 tbsp soy sauce

pinch of sugar

juice of one lime

You don’t need long with this — five minutes starts to soften the vegetables but still lets them feel crisp and fresh, like my buttocks on a spring Sunday morning.

*checks notes*

*notes say: ‘stop mentioning your butt in recipes’*

*nods sagely*

Moving on.

Now, the ramen noodles.

I tend to use these noodles right here, and they’re pretty good — nice texture and what-not. But in this case I only had your standard $0.19 packs of ramen, and I took three of them and those were the noodles I used because they’re oddly very satisfying. The trick is, usually when I make ramen, I make the noodles separate, in their own water, and then dole them out into the bowls of soup. In this case I was lazy and just tossed the NOODLE BRICKS into the soup and —

You know, they soaked up a lot of the broth, which is not ideal, but also, made it weirdly satisfying in that it wasn’t entirely soup anymore? And then for the piece de resistance, a thing I never do, I used the fucking chicken ramen flavor packet. I just sprinkled it in there. Just one. Not all three. I never use these things so I have a small library of those packets hanging around, and…

Okay, listen, this isn’t good in the sense that it’s a refined meal. This is the furthest thing from fine dining. But it’s good in a weird, deeper, more satisfying way — deeply umami, rich and creamy, with the vibe of macaroni and cheese but… not macaroni and cheese, not at all. I need to try making it again, see if I can capture this curious meal for a second time.

Lemme know if you try it.

REPORT BACK, HOOMANS

Friday Newsbump

Okay let’s start with the most important news of them all: yesterday I took a photo of a red-tailed hawk firing a rocket of pee-poo out of its clearly weaponized cloaca.

Yes, I know, I know —

You’re welcome.

Seriously, I was sitting here in the shed and the hawk — who I assume is a lady, as she is ginormous, and the ladyhawks are bigger than the brohawks — flew right in front of my window, then landed in a tree across our driveway. I make a habit every day of bringing my camera out just to have it, and so I quick started snapping some shots…

When the tail lifts, and the bird exorcises a ribbon of ghost poo.

As captured in that photo, above.

The photo does not capture the sheer distance achieved, however.

Anyway, this is the news you crave, I know.

LET’S SEE, WHAT ELSE IS UP.

Well, a little movie based on some authorial shitposting is now available on Shudder, as well as on Amazon and iTunes — that’s right! You Might Be The Killer is now watchable at home. (I know this isn’t necessarily internationally true; I don’t control that.) You can buy it. You can rent it.

So that happened.

The new episode of Ragnatalk is up.

Also, I know that I didn’t do a Macro Monday post — hey, it’s the holidays, we’re all kind of flying a little loosey-goosey here. Expect one Monday. OR DON’T. You never know with me.

Finally, the sixth and final (gasp) Miriam Black book is out — Vultures. It wraps up the series, tackling the one outstanding mystery: who, or what, is The Trespasser? You can pre-order it in print or eBook. That’ll be out on January 22nd, with an audio edition coming, too. There’s also a new Miriam-universe novella, following the character of Wren with a story that takes place between The Raptor & The Wren and Vultures, and has a bunch of cool psychic slasher-killer stuff going on. That’s gonna be in the three-novella collection Death & Honey, alongside fellow penmonkey cohorts Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne. You can preorder a limited edition signed/numbered hardcover, or nab in eBook. That comes out February 28th, with a cover by Galen Dara.

AND I’M OUT.

BYEEEEEE

Alex White: Five Things I Learned Writing A Bad Deal For The Whole Galaxy

The greatest dangers hide the brightest treasures in THE SALVAGERS, a bold, planet-hopping science fiction adventure series. A BAD DEAL FOR THE WHOLE GALAXY continues the adventure that began in June’s A BIG SHIP AT THE EDGE OF THE UNIVERSE.

The crew of the legendary Capricious are rich enough to retire in comfort for the rest of their days, but none of it matters if the galaxy is still in danger.

Nilah and Boots, the ship’s newest crew-members, hear the word of a mysterious cult that may have links back to an ancient and all-powerful magic. To find it, hot-headed Nilah will have to go undercover and find the source of their power without revealing her true identity. Meanwhile, Boots is forced to confront the one person she’d hoped never to see again: her turncoat former treasure-hunting partner.

* * *

1. Don’t underestimate the power of a zealous cause.

At the end of the first book, the heroes do their hero thing and bring home the titular Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe. They expose a fundamental lie and the conspiracy of maniacs behind it. The galaxy sets about rooting out the remaining evil, and everyone lives happily ever—

—No, wait. Actually, within months, a group springs up calling our heroes frauds, then uses these claims to radicalize young people to their cause.

These cultists come from two places: positions of power and prestige, and those who feel they’ve been denied their birthright. When the cult asks more of them, it asks for their dignity or morality to provide them with a mere chance at greatness—and so many remain signed up.

I try to write villains a reader can respect. I want the reader to understand their motivations and ask, “Could I become that person in another life?” But over the course of writing A Bad Deal for the Whole Galaxy, I kept watching the real world and wondering if my bad folks were evil enough. It’s getting harder to have sympathy for the devil, and that came to influence my portrayal.

2. Where you write alters what you write.

Composing a song on guitar will yield different results than composing on piano, because both instruments preferentially accent different chord structures. The same is true of the writing I do and the context in which I do it.

In early 2016, I got a traveling job that kept me away from home for weeks at a time. I’m a creature of habit, and I hated trying to write outside of my nice, established space at home. However, I also had three unwritten books under contract, so I was going to have to toughen up if I wanted to get the job done.

I found that different contexts created different results: writing fun scenes was easy outdoors, and no place is better to write a depressing scene than an airport bar. Cozy spots were good for the sweet bits, and fluorescent corporate breakrooms conjured horror. I could take my notebook to all these different places and plot my work, then drag it back to the hotel room like a prized buck for meat processing.

While I have never been as prolific on the road as I am in my house, writing in new contexts made for interesting results.

3. Building the puzzle is easier than solving it.

A Bad Deal for the Whole Galaxy is a heist story, and at the core of every heist tale is a puzzle that the heroes must solve along with the reader. The solution must be predictable enough to be satisfying, but twisty enough to be surprising. It’s balancing these contradictory goals that makes writing heists fun, and I originally found the challenge intimidating.

As it happens, the super-smart heist is easier to construct than I thought. Here’s the formula that worked for me:

Start with an obstacle: political, geographical, armed guards, crime families, whatever. Keep adding obstacles until the entire thing seems ridiculous: “Even if we could get in there, how would we get past the bipedal robo-sharks?”

Then cogitate. Give up. Shut your laptop and drink your booze in disgust. Complain to a friend. Take a shower the next day and realize that something you’d set up elsewhere on the story could change the equation. Repeat until you have enough exciting solutions—and throw in a final complication for good measure (“What do you mean the mayor is doing a publicity thing at the bank today?”).

When I wrote this heist, the eureka effect was my best friend. If you don’t think a shower will solve your heist problem, you haven’t seen the original woodcut of Archimedes screaming while he jumps out of the tub.

4. You can never go home again.

One of the hardest things to capture in a series is the imprint each adventure leaves on the characters. You can’t face down some of the worst the galaxy has to offer and emerge unchanged. It leaves scars. It erodes mental stability. What most believe to be your strengths may become weaknesses behind closed doors—stoicism turns into distance, alertness withers into paranoia.

When I first started the sequels, this kind of intimidated me. It was hard enough to create the arc for Nilah and Boots from nasty and selfish to heartwarming and familial. Now, I was expected to create two similarly-entertaining arcs with an overall theme stretched over them.

It turned out that my worries were unfounded. Once I was able to slow down and consider how their previous adventure impacted them, natural character interactions readily emerged. This book taught me to worry less and draw from my good ideas, without repeating them outright.

5. Writing a sequel feels awkward as hell sometimes.

I was so glad to find out most of my author friends deal with some variation of this one.

Writing your characters a second time around, as big heroes, feels self-aggrandizing. I had grown so accustomed to thinking of them a band of down-on-their-luck scoundrels. Describing them as heroes who’d already overcome a great evil against terrible odds was just strange.

To counteract this and return their humanity, I concentrated on the things my characters would hate about success. What problems weren’t fixed by loads of wealth, legal power and the ability to blast off into the stars at a moment’s notice? I started taking stock of their inherent psychological damages, using those to create double-edged interpretations of success.

There’s a reason that winning the lottery can be the worst thing that happens to some people.

* * *

Alex White was born and raised in the American south. They take photos, writes music, and spends hours on YouTube watching other people blacksmith. They value challenging and subversive writing, but they’ll settle for a good time.

Alex White: Website | Twitter

A Bad Deal For The Whole Galaxy: Print | eBook