his name is dinkums. he watches family feud.

Today’s title brought to you by “I have no idea what to call this, so I’ll quote Vacation and hope for the best.”

Back in the old days, when bloggers wanted to post about something, but didn’t have a story to tell, we would do these posts on our blogs that linked to people and stories we thought were interesting. The comments of those particular posts always filled up with cool links of their own, and it’s how we built our communities. “Hey, check this out,” seems to have migrated over to social media, so it feels a little … vestigial? … to do one of those posts, but I want to post something, and the story I’m working on isn’t ready, so. I wanted to share two things I am doing, and then some music and books I’ve been loving.

First off, I had so much fun doing Wil Wheatcon earlier this year, the instant we finished, I asked Momentus and Stands if we could do another one, so I am thrilled to announce the upcoming WIL WHEATCON 2: 2WHEAT 2CON on September 19th. Here’s a video we made to promote and celebrate:

Speaking of me, this weekend I will be appearing for a pair of events at MOPOP in Seattle. On Saturday, I’m joining the museum for its celebration of 60 years of Star Trek. In the afternoon, we’ll be watching an episode of TNG together with a live running commentary from this guy. I’m going to let the audience choose if they want the funny experience of watching Justice, or the more thoughtful, reflective experience of watching Final Mission. Either way, it’s going to be really special for me. Then, Saturday evening, I’ll be part of their Supper Series, featuring a discussion and oral history of my experiences on Next Generation and beyond.

I think there are still some tickets left, if any of that sounds like something you’d enjoy.

Okay, let’s get into the music of it.

A little over a year ago, I stumbled across this phenomenal band from Mexico called The Warning. It’s three sisters from Monterey, who loved playing Rock Band together so much, they formed a real band when they were teenagers. They are so good, their fans crowdfunded their first albums and tours, and I discovered them right as they were breaking out with their incredible album, Keep Me Fed. They are difficult to pin into a single genre; I’ve heard them do punk, metal, hard rock, pop, and collabs with artists I never would have sought out on my own.

I am weirdly invested in their success, same way I am with The Linda Lindas, wanting this group of young women to have everything they ever wanted. I love them so much, I paid way too much for a scalped ticket to see them open for someone I didn’t know about, or stayed to see, when they played at the Greek earlier this year. I love them so much, I will go and pay three scalpers too much to see them three nights in a row when they are back in town later this month.

Their new album, Everything’s Falling, just dropped, and it’s such a gorgeous work of art. If you like the music I like, and you haven’t heard them before now, start with More, from Keep Me Fed, then Kerosene from the new album. If it lands on you, you’re going to have a really good time.

Speaking of The Linda Lindas, they also have a new record out that is blowing me away. GOTTA GET OUT continues the journey they began with No Obligation. I still believe they are The Go-Gos of the 21st century, and I’m waiting for the music industry to notice. If you live in or around Los Angeles, they play local shows all the time for as low as five bucks. Their punk spirit is infectious, and their live show is outstanding.

Oh! And Sincere Engineer, a punk band out of Chicago who are on tour right now, have a new album out called Probable Claws. It’s straight bangers start to finish, but I’m going to direct you to the song LOL, because Deanna invited me to contribute to it in the most Henry Rollins way I could. Can you believe that? I’M ON A PUNK RECORD!

Also: Die Spitz, Amyl and the Sniffers, Lambrini Girls, and Bad Cop/Bad Cop continue to fill my daily playlists with great music.

Books!

I’ve been reading and reading and then reading some more when I’m finished reading. Most of this is reviewing and preparing stories for It’s Storytime With Wil Wheaton, which has been leading me to pick up novels and collections from those authors.

Real quick: you may have heard me talk about the North Star for the podcast. Here’s how I put it in my Brief History for Uncanny:

The North Star is a concept I developed during TableTop. When faced with an editorial or content choice, we asked ourselves if we were aiming at the North Star. For TableTop, the North Star was Create More Gamers. For It’s Storytime, the North Star is celebrate art and artists, promote literacy, and create space for people to have a break from the ongoing horrors.

When I was at World Con this past weekend, I met a couple of the authors who I have narrated. These are authors I didn’t know about before I narrated them, who are all now on my list of “I will read anything they write.” I had hoped to put authors onto the radars of their biggest fans, who just don’t yet know about their work … without considering that I, too, would become one of those fans. These authors shared with me that a lot of you have become fans of their work, and it’s positively affecting their careers. It was so reassuring to me, to hear from them that we are perfectly aimed at our North Star.

So after I narrated his short story, A Grey Magic, I’ve become a Ray Nayler superfan, and I am just loving his new novel, Palaces of the Crow. I loved Maria Dong so much, I picked up her newest, Aviary. I grabbed Lavie Tidhar‘s The Circumference of the World when I was at World Con. I could go on and on, but you get it, right?

I decided to do a Summer Reading Program with my library, and I’m proud to be on a 62-day streak. Some of the books I finished and loved on my way to earning a personal pan pizza include Foundling Fathers, from Meg Ellison, Earth 7, from Deb Olin Unferth, The Language of Liars from S. L. Huang, Your Behavior Will Be Monitored, by Justin Feinstein, and The Ship of Death, by Kyle Winkler.

Also, I got to read an advance copy of John Scalzi’s upcoming novel, Monsters of Ohio, which was as John Scalzi as I hoped it would be.

I read more than one thing at a time, and I am currently loving Cleopatra, by Saara El-Arifi, Jane Wiedlin’s memoir, TMI, Memoirs of a Go-Go, and I just started Sublimation by Isabel J. Kim.

I think I’ve talked about this a little bit on the podcast and in promotion, but just in case I haven’t mentioned it here: Around ten years ago, I woke up one day without the ability to relax and focus while I read a book, or a short story, or a magazine article, or anything longer than a few paragraphs. I tried and tried to overcome it, but it always eluded me.

A good friend of mine, who is one of the smartest people I know, observed that I was not alone; this had happened to them and a lot of people we both knew. My friend suggested that it was feeling overwhelmed by the horrors inflicted upon us by that fucking peophile rapist war criminal, the trauma of the pandemic, and the two of those things colliding with absolutely devastating results. My friend said they just felt like their brain was full, all the time.

The horrors have gotten worse, not better, so what happened to help me find the space, the focus, the time, and the motivation to rediscover the kid I used to be, who always had his face in a book? I can’t point to one thing, only, but I know all the EMDR and IFS therapy I’ve done to heal and recover from CPTSD has helped a ton. I know that having the responsibility and accountability of reviewing stories to narrate for my podcast has helped a ton. I know that making a choice to wander into the pages of a story and stay there so I can experience it fully has been a challenge, that has also helped a ton.

I want to share something that made a huge difference for me, in case someone else who loves to read has been struggling like I did. I have this app that was developed by Hank Green, called Focus Friend. Basically, you tell it to set a timer for you, and then you focus on an activity until the timer expires. While the timer is doing its thing, you get a little avatar who knits socks and scarves that you cash in to decorate the little house they live in. It’s low-stress, non-judgmental, extremely satisfying gamifying, and allowed me to create time specifically to read.

Your mileage will vary, but I started with 15 minutes, then 30 minutes, then 60 minutes. I found that 30 minutes is a perfect amount of time. It’s not so long I feel like I’ve overcommitted, but it’s long enough to enjoy a bunch of pages. More often than not, when it tells me my time is up, I add another 10 or 20 minutes, so I can finish the chapter or section I’m reading.

Oh, hey, this is a perfect place to put this! I have a partnership with Blackstone Publishing, who are sponsoring my podcast. I curated a collection of titles they publish, across a wide range of styles, from Lit RPG to Weird Fiction to Epic Fantasy. You can explore the entire Wil Wheaton Recommends collection right here. One of the titles, Acts of God, is in my top ten at the moment. I love the author’s voice so much, I asked them if they had anything that fit the format for It’s Storytime, and they sent me The Council, which I loved so much I bought it from them immediately. If you haven’t heard it, now you know.

I’ve noticed that all this reading has been extremely good for my mental health. I’m choosing to be still, to be quiet, to allow my imagination to paint and hear the words. I’m finding little bursts of artistic inspiration in entirely unexpected places, because my imagination is ravenous at the moment. Creating space and doing the work I needed to do in order to feed it has not been easy. It hasn’t been anything remotely resembling the concept of “easy”. But I remember telling my boys, “everything worth doing is hard, and that’s why is worth doing.” A little tautological, sure, but whenever something gets really hard, I remember that, and it helps me push through it.

I guess what I’m saying in more words than I needed to is that I believe, based on my personal experience, that reading books is extremely important, and if more people read more books, our world would be a measurably better place.

Lastly, I wanted to talk about some of the video games that are giving me joy right now.

I absolutely love Fallout 76. I’ve been playing for almost two years, I’m a level 580 ghoul and I have built the maximum number of CAMPs available. Every night, I spend about an hour doing dailies and wandering the Wasteland, helping players the way I was helped, and enjoying the escape and serenity of fighting Deathclaws and Scorched. It’s one of those things I can talk about for hours, in a level of detail that would make even a casual player’s eyes glaze over. I won’t do that, today. I will exercise restraint and just tell you that after about 50 superb bait over fucking months of failure, I finally caught a local legend. I can solo a nuke silo without glitching in about 15 minutes, and I have probably dumped ten million rounds into Earle. This season didn’t have great rewards, but next season looks like fun.

I don’t remember how I found Ball X Pit, but it’s a supremely fun roguelike that my kids and I are currently trying to 100%. I am also incredibly late to the party on Undertale, which feels and plays like a game Double Fine designed for the NES in 1989. It’s on all platforms.

Okay, I know there’s more I could share today, (I haven’t mentioned any of the tabletop games I’m currently playing) but I have a meeting in fifteen minutes and I’ve been blogging since I woke up, so I need to eat breakfast.

What are you into these days? I’d love to hear what you’re reading or playing.

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I’m Wil and I write this blog. I’m so glad you’re here. I host It’s Storytime With Wil Wheaton and co-host the official companion podcast for Stuart Fails To Save The Universe. If you’d like to get my posts delivered to you, here’s the thingy: