Matt Maxwell's Blog: Highway 62 on Goodreads, page 13

POTD 01/30/20

San Francisco, 2004. Probably my second trip up there for APE that year, back when it was a plane flight to get to SF (that isn't the case now.)

POTD 01/29/20

2005, Sedona AZ.Not much commentary today. Under the weather and about to drag myself to the writing desk so let's see how that goes.

POTD 01/28/20

Taken 2006 near Folsom, CA. Only a million years ago.

LINKMIX 200127

Another week, another group of links. Do enjoy."The Berg" by Richard Smyth, as recommended by Jamie Delano. Sort of science fiction about the past that's really about the now. A short and biting read.The BergAppalachian Folk Magic in ESOTERIC online.http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/VolumeVIII/EsotericaVIII.pdfHaint blue and why it is, speaking of folk magic.https://www.theawl.com/2018/01/haint-blue-the-ghost-tricking-color-of-southern-homes-and-gullah-folktales/1971 trash crime DAY OF THE WOLVES via Del Dinosaurhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF_-c7bAt_s&feature=youtu.beLessons from the This Factory, via David Brothers, sort of a "Manufacturing Consent" for the content mill age.https://holapapi.substack.com/p/lessons-from-the-this-factoryI, ZOMBIHayden Milligan, Appalachian horror host and horror circuit regular, an American story like no other.https://vimeo.com/39235113https://medium.com/cuepoint/cia-allegedly-behind-1980s-club-hit-about-sleeping-dominatrix-66508c6581bf#.bjtfqhzewThe CIA makes a club hit in 1978? Real life is weirder than fiction because fiction has to make sense.Algiers interviewed on the release of their third album (which I just picked up over the weekend and its pretty great, as I've come to expect from them.)https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jan/17/political-rockers-algiers-america-is-in-a-complete-spiral-and-collapseAt rest in the Fieldshttps://www.texasobserver.org/celebrating-childhoods-end-at-eloise-woods/Natural funerals in Texas, with thanatology being a real thing.https://stellaromsourcedekmantel.bandcamp.com/album/i-see-through-youFrench death-house, okay, maybe not. But it's worth a spin.I'm considering getting back to talking about writing and such here, other than the general housekeeping stuff I've been doing. I'd like to get a few more weeks packed away before doing that. And, believe it or not, I've got plenty of things that I want to talk about in long form that just don't sit well on Twitter. But that's kind of a hard sell these days. I mean, I don't have a Patreon or Medium account to turn these clicks into something. I just have thoughts, kinda like I did back in 2003 when I crawled back online.

POTD 1/27/20

2006, unnamed restaurant in the Gaslamp, San Diego CA. Taken during SDCC that year, back when I lived down there. Stopped going to the show in 2010. I'd like to go back one day. Maybe.

POTD 1/26/20

Another from Gardnerville NV, not far from where yesterday's was shot.

POTD 1/25/20

Gardnerville NV, earlier this month. I still need to work with this camera some more because I clearly can't control it properly.

THAT GOOD GOODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR! LIGHT

Went to San Francisco yesterday, which is a more and more considerable trip every passing year, it seems. But I had good occasion to, as William Gibson was out speaking and signing copies of his new book AGENCY. I might do a fuller writeup on that later, but I'm sure it's being covered to death by your favorite popcult writers and posted last night, even. But me? I had a two hour drive home and to wake up the next day and reassemble myself. It's gonna take some time.But I did take pictures. Good light yesterday, especially if you were trying to capture the monumental. Wish I could've stopped and shot the city from Treasure Island, but that wasn't gonna happen. The sky was all clotted and marbled with a color that went anywhere from silver to saffron, faintly purple aerial perspective on the city reminding us that we are in fact living through times that will be talked about later on and perhaps not kindly. All taken with my trusty Leica DLX-5.My ride into town. Cyberpunk AF. The entire facade of this shuttered building was covered in silver spray paint like it was club night. That is one custom sign.v a p o r w a v e flotation and cryo clinic on Valencia. Honestly, I could've spent the whole afternoon there shooting the different shades of pink and blue. Roxie theatre, which was showing PARASITE which I still have not yet seen and is not playing anywhere within fifty miles of me. The timing was not going to work out. The Armory building on 14th at Mission. t e x t u r e William Gibson talks about the holy shit chain of events of 2016 to today and the half-assed Singularity and how serious science fiction authors told him in 1983 that everything he wrote about was bullshit because there'd never be enough bandwidth ever to support it. Who's laughing now? Transit Monuments implied.

HAZELAND

The name has changed a lot, let's just set that record straight.I started this whole thing out a bunch of years ago, with some malformed and half-baked ideas that haven't yet seen the light of day. Maybe they will. Things have turned around like that. But this really didn't get started until I submitted a story called "Chunked" for an anthology called TOMORROW'S CTHULHU, put out by an outfit that I'd never heard of before but would get to know a lot better, by the name of Broken Eye Books.Amazingly enough, that story got accepted and printed. Step forward about a year and a half, maybe two, maybe a touch more. I talked to the publisher about whether or not it was cool for me to do something else in that setting but under my own thing, for comics back then. Back when making comics on spec almost made sense. Hint: they don't, unless the person who's actually drawing and therefore co-writing the comic is working for just back end pay (sub-hint: nobody works for just back-end) you need to come up with a way to pay them. About thirty grand if you want to pay non-insultingly for an OGN's worth of material.So I asked the publisher if that was cool, and to my surprise, he asked me to pitch him the story instead. In short order, I came up with the story of a counterfeiter of occult books who wants to stop making fakes and make something real. Which she does. Then things come unglued. Throw it all into a compelling setting and mix in some atmosphere and it's just a couple steps to QUEEN OF NO TOMORROWS. Which that book became.But the plan was always to do more of them. Just wasn't sure how. Fast-forward a bit to October of last year. Got the go-ahead from the publisher to run with two more follow-ons to QONT, those being the currently-underway MY DROWNING CHORUS and the one after that which is a little more nebulous called GLASS WOLVES (h/t to Richard Kadrey who threw the title out there on Twitter and said "do as thou wilt" so I did.) After that will be VOIDMAW which is a weirdo gothic space fantasy, more DUNE (1985) in tone and feel than STAR WARS or other more obvious antecedents. That'll probably be worked on in the second half of next year, but I can't name a publishing date.Which left me with the problem of series identification. See, my first published writing under my own name and all was in comics. And there, stories are usually constructed under a single title with arcs broken out of those. But the over-reaching title comes first, then the 'book' name. So for instance STRANGEWAYS: MURDER MOON was the first of my works. THE THIRSTY was the second. No you can't buy them on Amazon, only over at the bigcartel store. And I'll never sell physical other than POD at Amazon until they change their ways and actually order say ten at a time so postage costs don't destroy any shot at anything like a profit (but you know Amazon makes their nut every time.)I found myself needing a series name now. I played with NO TOMORROWS or THE SMOKING CODEX or SIGHTLESS EYE. Went back to SMOKETOWN (which may yet come back around). Tried some new ones like ABYSSAL or even THE NEON ABYSSAL and they weren't quite right. I worked on a new name, one that could evoke the city of LA and the region around it, as well as summon up a feeling of mystery and intangibility, all useful in describing the weird.I decided on the below, and it was approved a few days ago.This is an early treatment. Lots to do, but the basic concept will hold. I hope.More later.

POTD 1/23/20

Running this one a little early, since I've got a weird schedule today.Taken at the Museum of Neon Art, back when they were downtown LA, not Glendale like they are now. Photo data says 2004, which tracks, since I lived a lot closer to LA then and could make it up there at basically a moment's notice.