Moe Lane's Blog, page 557
May 9, 2022
Worked on THE SINISTER SUMMONING OF POPLAR COUNTY tonight.
This was something I did for Patreon, back in 2018; and it could do for Kindle Vella, if I turn it into the 8,000 word short story it should have been. I just need to put together a better conflict than the one that I had in the original. More accurately, a less rushed one. I’m thinking that something a little more madcap might be in order. Car crashes into haystacks and chickens flying around and maybe a running gag or two. I could make it work.
Of course, I also have other things to work on, but at least I have ideas percolating in my head now.
*Fine.* The AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER teaser trailer.
You can tell just how much I’m looking forward to this by the fact that I originally wrote that as “The SHAPE Of Water.” Because this ain’t my Avatar. My Avatar is a bald kid with a flying buffalo, and an uncritical willingness to go on wacky cabbage cart-destroying adventures.
Then again, this AVATAR made almost 2.85 billion at the box office, so what do I know? Clearly people liked it. And they get to have sequels made, too.
Moe Lane
#commissionearned
DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS has $185 million dollar opening.
These are good numbers: “Doctor Strange and his questionably effective book of spells has summoned a blockbuster $185 million at North American movie theaters over the weekend, reaffirming the box office dominance of Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe after a shakier, pandemic-battered year for the sprawling franchise.” They’re also going to be annoying numbers for some, because there is already a vocal contingent online who are upset in various ways about DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS.
Without giving anything away, there’s a bunch of people who are upset about a major plot point of the movie (personally, I thought it was about time the issue was addressed). And there’s another bunch of people who apparently don’t know what you’re going to get when Sam Raimi directs a movie called DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS. I’ll address that one directly: what the Hell were you expecting, neighbors? People smoking cigarettes in diners at 2 AM, while talking about modern theater? No, you are not. You are going to get Raimi’s peculiar and highly entertaining ghoulish humor. And I have no sympathy if you are surprised. The Internet exists for a reason.
Moe Lane
PS: Look, I’m not gonna lie: Raimi toned it down a little, because he was working for the Mouse. But I made my peace with that. Dude needed to get a hit, if he wanted to get work again. We needed the dude to get a hit. And they’re all suddenly remembering his number now…
05/09/21 Snippet, HERO OF THE REVOLUTION.
Back to this!
Patreon!“We already know the Truth of what happened, Angel Vadriel,” Raphael told me. “Your task will be to learn that Truth yourself, and couch it in terms that your kinds might understand.”
My communing with the Archangel of Knowledge was taking place in a nonexistent office, with Raphael manifesting as an older human woman with kind eyes, and a completely unnecessary writing pad. I had requested a meeting with ‘her’ mostly to gauge how important this case truly was in the Scheme of Things. The speed by which my request was granted was instructive. The Archangel definitely wanted to talk to me.
Unfortunately, sometimes ease in talking didn’t mean ease in communicating. “My… kinds, Archangel?”
“Yes,” waved the Archangel, idly. “The Host. Humans. And the Unrepentant, too. All of you will be affected by what happened, so you will all need ways to comprehend it.”
I know, I know. You’d think that the conversation would be less gnomic. It never is, with Archangels. And asking for further explanation wouldn’t do any good; the conversation was already calibrated down to my level.
May 8, 2022
Caught up to Chapter 16 edits for TINSEL RAIN.
That’s basically two-thirds of TINSEL RAIN done. Far fewer edits for this than for FROZEN DREAMS, but the really complicated bits are yet to come, so: count no book finished until it is on remainder. …Okay, as epigrams go it doesn’t make perfect sense, but it’s still not too bad.
So far: the expectation is that the Kindle version will be ready for Balticon, and the print version for Fright Reads. Past that, it’s up in the air.
Moe Lane
#commissionearned
Frankenberry Tarts.
Actually Blueberry Turnovers, but things got a little… weird. Starting with the fact that I used crescent dough, not puff pastry. In my defense I had not realized that you find the latter in the frozen food section.
BEHOLD! Frankenberry tarts. pic.twitter.com/KyucCOD1yw
— Ogiel (Moe Lane) (@Ogiel23) May 8, 2022
Still, they tasted fine, if a bit sticky. We ate them all, right quick. That’s the important thing.
Should I collect my microfiction for print?
I have a ton of 100-word microfiction, and theoretically I could take the best hundred of them and put them in book form. It’d be about the size of a chapbook, so it’d be a $2.99/$4.99 project. The problem is, they’re microfiction. Don’t know how many people would want to buy that.
I could value-add it by including illustrations. The problem there, though, is that the art costs go up significantly when we’re talking about one hundred pieces. Even if I spent no more than five bucks a pop on the art (which would get me, I dunno, stick figures or something), that’s still five hundred bucks which I won’t see recouped any time soon. And I wouldn’t want five-buck-art, anyway.
So. Thoughts?
Patreon Microfiction: From BUZZ ON THE STREETS.
BUZZ ON THE STREETS is not going to be the name of the next Tom Vargas novel, but it might be the title of the next novella. It would be easier to just have Lucas already around for the next novel, after all. Hrm. Maybe I could serialize this…
100WS-From BUZZ ON THE STREETSDownload
Patreon!#commissionearned
