It’s cornbread season here. Cooler temps mean I’m more likely to dash off a quick round of cornbread so I can throw butter on it and watch it melt into the flour, cornmeal, egg, milk, oil, salt, and just a dash of sugar. (Cornbread and corncake are two very different things, friends.)

Hi. I’m Jason and I write things I hope you’ll like.

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Into the Light

I’ve done some messing around here in an effort to make the place a bit more hospitable. My lack of attention here has maybe cost me some sales, some fans, some credibility so the least I can do is make it a bit more – eh, professional, yeah?

So I’ve cleaned up the Books page, making it easier to read though I’m thinking about changing the order of the books to have my most recent on top. There’s a significant update to the About page, too, that has a new photo and (maybe) new information for you. I’ve also updated the Appearances page so you’ll know that I don’t have anything planned for the rest of the year. Next year’s schedule will update with announcements as they happen. Right now I don’t have anything on my radar prior to fall.

Speaking of appearances, I did my first ever solo meet and greet recently and it was, by all measures, a success. People came to hear me talk, listen to a short reading from The Envoy, and then bought books which I got to sign. It was a nice reminder that these things all need to be cherished in the moment but that you should never let them go to your head, even if the audience is very friendly.

Systems Update

Since I’m still adjusting to my new visual paradigm, I hadn’t spent much time at home on a screen up close until this week. Reading was something I did casually every day of my life and now I have to be more deliberate and find my reading glasses to write and read. it doesn’t suck, but it’s new and will take some time. So when I felt good and sat down to get back to rewriting this short story, I made real progress and wrote nearly three thousand words this week. I’ll finish it later today and then I’ll see how I want to release it.

And MASQUE is ready to be revised, so now that I’m comfortable again and the holidays are approaching with less day job required work, I’ll get to that in a day or two.

There’s a new Murakami book in Japan that doesn’t have a translation announced here yet. The City and It’s Uncertain Walls is “a story that’s long been sealed” so I’m anxious to get this it ASAP.Depth Charge

This week we got the first two episodes of the Apple TV+ series Monarch Legacy of Monsters featuring our returning champion Godzilla. If you saw the trailers and the first scene that was released ahead of the debut you got a good sense of what’s happening in the first tranche of episodes. It’s got a feature quality to it that just blows me away like every Apple science fiction show seems to have. The studio seems to be fully invested in making high-quality sci-fi and I’m here for it. (Foundation was great, SILO was also great, and I’m getting into Invasion and For All Mankind, too.) And hey, the soundtrack for Legacy of Monsters by Leopold Ross is some good writing music, too.

I liked DC’s new Outsiders comic this week.

Music in rotation includes Curtis Mayfield’s SuperFly soundtrack, a selection of work from UNKLE who I didn’t know had a new album out last year, and Siouxie and the Banshees. I’ve also been revisiting Kate Bush’s catalog and am blown away every time I hear the work as a whole. She comes from a time when albums meant more than singles and she is invested in making the sounds connect throughout.

During the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame induction of her, there were artists covering her work and while the music was perfect, and there was nothing wrong with the vocal performances, it lacked something. There’s a power in Kate Bush’s voice that isn’t maybe readily apparent and must be difficult to emulate without imitating her. Listen closely to “Running Up That Hill” and then listen to anyone else singing it. The punch she delivers in the chorus is something others can’t quite match.

That’s not a criticism of other performers. As I said above there was nothing technically wrong with the covers, there was just something missing. Anyway, you can’t go wrong with any of her albums but if you’d like to hear a brilliant live performance of her work you should buy Before the Dawn.

The cover of Kate Bush’s live album Before the Dawn.Chemistry

I don’t produce content for you, friends. I share my thoughts here when I have something to say. Over on Threads there’s a thriving community of book people (readers and authors) that feels an awful lot like the early days of what the other microblogging site whose name shan’t be mentioned was. There’s support, there’s discussion, and there’s a sense of capital-C Community. It surprises me that there are writers who are horrified to find out they won’t get rich by writing, nor will they become famous. I hope they have the drive to keep writing when they get discouraged, to keep writing when their latest book sells only a handful of copies, to keep writing in the face of overwhelming numbers of books released daily.

I think what it takes to stand out is doing quality work, being unafraid to show your growth, and sheer determination to continue. That’s the spirit of all my advice. Don’t worry about “monetizing your content” because you may make some money that way but you won’t be authentic. It’s better if you don’t try to impress others but do try to impress yourself. Celebrate your accomplishments and those of others. Don’t worry about who’s engaging with you, but who you are engaging with. Sometimes you mix with one person and not the other, that’s okay. Just don’t give up.

Be good to yourself and tell the folks you love that you love them. It matters.

See you when I see you.