Mouse Metaphor
in which our hero compares his ability to plan to a rodent's ability to defecate
Dear Readers,
Some guy once said something about “the best laid plans of mice and men,” and it was probably in some book I was supposed to have read by this point in my life. And yet, I haven’t.
Was it in Of Mice and Men? Or was the title of that book taken from the quotation, which was said by some other guy beforehand?
I don’t know. What I do know is that my plans, whenever I make them, eventually end up as little more than pellets of mouse shit scattered across my kitchen floor. And yet, I keep trying to plan things anyway.
Case in point: last week during a morning walk, I came up with what I thought was a stellar plan to simplify my line of books. The next day, on another walk, I found myself refining the plan and feeling even more confident. But the day after that? Well, a search for an option I was sure that Amazon’s self-publishing thingie had turned up nothing. And while the absence of said option in said thingie was not the most crucial part of my plan, it did call into question the wisdom of doing all the other work when I didn’t have control over which of my books are displayed on Amazon and which are not.
It is the “everything” store, after all. Once you’ve put something out into the world, there’s no taking it back. Not on Amazon, at least.
And so, I’ve spent some time in the days since coming up with alternate plans to address some of the issues I was hoping to address with my Grand Plan. But we’ll see. As I said, my plans don’t always work out. But at least I have funny metaphors about rodent droppings to share, right?
At any rate, on with the updates on this month’s work!
ART
I spent the month working on art for my article on the white rabbit from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and I’m quite pleased with how it came out. It took a long time to figure out how to get the rabbit to look just right, and some of the seven pieces I created are better than others, but each of them has helped me to get more comfortable with the art I’ll need to create for The Blood of Seven Queens.
WRITING
This month’s writing work was on a side project, the last of the so-called “naughty books” I’ve been releasing under a pen name. While these erotic superhero adventures have been selling better than the books I publish under my own name, my heart just isn’t in it. They’ll remain up and there for people to find if that’s their particular thing, but I don’t foresee writing any new smut for a while—especially since what I should be working on is the script for The Blood of Seven Queens, which continues to scare/daunt me. More on that eventually. For now, rest assured that I’m working on this blockage with my therapist.
WORLDBUILDING
Aside from the aforementioned article on the white rabbit, I just today started tinkering with an idea about a connection between my main character and the Headless Horseman from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. My protagonist is destined to be the queen of Wonderland, after all, and given that the queen’s favorite method of capital punishment is beheading, I’m thinking there could be some cool links there.
Lastly, before we go, I want to mention an important update to the way I’ll be communicating with you all. I’ve been inspired by the Substack newsletter of one of my favorite comics writers, Brian K. Vaughan. Vaughan’s weekly newsletters go out to everyone, including his free subscribers like me, with only the last section of the newsletter being exclusive to paying supporters. So, at least as a temporary experiment, that’s the direction I’m headed in.
To do this, I’ll be moving to a twice-per-month schedule for this here newsletter. Everyone will get the newsletter, whether you’re a paid or free subscriber, and there will be a paid-subscriber exclusive at the end of each issue. I think this will help me advertise and build a bigger audience, or at least that’s the hope. It will also, hopefully, give me a little bit more to share each issue. Paid subscribers will note that their weekly updates haven’t always been the most substantive. I’m hoping that moving to this new schedule will correct that.
At any rate, I want to thank you for your support and wish you a happy October. I’ll see you all back here in two weeks.
Yours,
Chris