Category: Books

Books

Radio Free Burrito Presents: The Sun Goddess

Posted on By Wil

I don’t want to commit myself to making full-on Radio Free Burritos right now, but I do want to stay creative and productive while I listen to experts who are not fucking idiots and stay home until the doctors tell me it’s safe for everyone to go back to the Old Ways of three weeks ago.

I love narrating audiobooks. I love that my job is to read and perform, to bring stories to life, for people who want to be distracted and entertained. It’s a real blessing that I get to combine things that I love, and do them for my job.

So while I’m staying home and feeling grateful af that I can afford to be out of everyone’s way for at least several months, I want to do something, however small, to give people who are stressed out, overwhelmed, or just bored, something to listen to while they catch their breath.

And as long as this works (meaning I enjoy it and people want me to keep doing it), I’ll be reading short stories from the public domain every few days, and uploading them to my SoundCloud.

I read these cold, and I don’t do any editing, so you’ll hear me mess up, you’ll hear background noise, and it won’t be as polished as the work I’ve done for Big Audiobook, but it’s free, so back off, man.

Anyway, here’s today’s. I hope you enjoy it.

A Japanese myth, published in 1918.

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if you don’t read my facebook, here’s what you’ve missed recently

Posted on By Wil

For posterity, and for my personal ownership of stuff I’ve written, this is a collection of posts I’ve recently shared on my Facebook thingy.

I’ve been at this long enough to feel like posting on Facebook is … kind of icky, from my EFF-loving, anti authoritarian, fuck-all-Fascists point of view, but the shitty reality is that Facebook is where people are these days. When I post on Facebook, I’ll interact with hundreds of people, just like I did in the early 2000s right here in this old blog. But when I post here, it’s crickets. So I’ll go where the people are, but I’ll also x-post some of that here, for anyone in the future who cares to read it.

Okay. Here they are. From my Facebook, over the last week or so:

Reminder that your self care is really important. If you live with anxiety or some other super fun mental illness like I do, you may be feeling extra stress and pressure right now. That’s totally normal and valid!

It’s okay to turn off the news, to walk away from the information fire hose for awhile, and simply … exist. Read a book, have a tea or a coffee, play a game, take a walk if you’re able to do that while maintaining appropriate physical distance from your fellow humans. Draw something! Listen to some music!

Whatever you do, the news will be there when you get back. And, honestly? Things are changing so quickly, it’s okay to miss a few hours of breaking news updates.

I wonder if I’m writing this mostly for myself? I feel like I have a responsibility to be productive, and to stay informed so I can be the best husband and father I can be right now, and it can feel a little (or a lot) overwhelming.

and

Is this only funny to me?

I want to check in with a friend. So I type “Just thinking about” and I intend to type “you and [her husband]” but I see that the word “your” is in the predictive text thing. And I just *know* what it is going to lead to, but I have to see for myself, you know? So I tap it, and sure enough, the next word it suggests is “sexy” followed by “body” followed by the little smiley emoji with heart eyes.

I audibly groan and delete the predicted text, sanitize my phone’s screen, just to be safe, and send my intended text message, without the suggested, and thoroughly inappropriate, predicted text.

I’m not shaming anyone who texts that way, but I don’t, and I CERTAINLY do not text that to my friends.

It was just amusing af to me that this series of words gets typed enough that my keyboard app’s predictive text thingy was like I WILL HELP YOU, HUMAN. YOU ARE ATTEMPTING TO SEND A CREEPY TEXT AND IT IS MY TIME TO SHINE.

Uh, no. Thanks. I’m good, predictive text.

and

Y’all who are on the front lines, going to work, ensuring that our society continues to function, even while everything is so disrupted, are major heroes.

I am so grateful for your dedication and your commitment to making sure your fellow humans have a place to go, and a person to talk to, when they need it.

Thank you!

and

A random person flipped out at Anne on Twitter, because she took a walk by herself, stayed far and safely away from anyone else, and had the nerve to post a picture of herself online while she was out.

She’s been getting all sorts of criticism for pretty much everything she does, from tons of random strangers online who seem to keep forgetting (or choosing to ignore) that she’s a grown-ass woman who isn’t doing anything wrong.

This one person in particular made me really, really, REALLY mad. I’m stressed af. I’m wound up as tightly as I’ve been wound up in maybe my whole life, and I feel like I could just EXPLODE if the wrong person says the wrong thing to me … or to the most important person in my entire world.

But I took a deep breath, listened while Anne expressed how frustrated she is feeling with people being shitty to her online, and I tried to maintain some perspective, tried to understand where this person was maybe coming from. I concluded that they feel afraid, and out of control, so they are lashing out, to give that emotional energy a place to go. It’s not okay that this person and so many people like them are telling a fully-grown woman how to live her life. It’s not cool to act as a gatekeeper, diminishing someone’s experience because *you* have decided that someone *else* has a worse experience.

I have the luxury of not being the stressed out mom and wife who is doing her best to get through a *really* scary and terrifyingly uncertain time. I have the luxury of not being the woman who was, once again, lectured by a man about how she is allowed to exist. Check that. I have the *privilege* of being a man, so that gives me an opportunity to depersonalize what happened to Anne, and use it as a teaching moment.

I’m doing my best to be the person I need in the world, and this is what I need today:

*gestures wildly at everything* all this is really hard for everyone, and I have to believe that everyone is dealing with it as best as they can. Yes, even the people who freak out at you online because you walked your dog (while safely staying 6 feet away from everyone). Yes, even the people who show up in every thread to act like this is a contest, gatekeeping who is and isn’t allowed to express frustration, boredom, or fear.

We are all scared, for a whole huge list of reasons that may all be wildly different, and humans don’t make the best choices when we are acting from a place of fear.

I’m scared, and I’m not going to pretend that I’m not. I would be a h*cking sociopath if I *wasn’t* scared. Basic math says someone I care about is eventually going to get sick, and may even die. The jackass president of my country makes things worse every time he opens his lie hole. The work I expected to be doing right now has all been pushed back by months, and I suddenly find myself staying at home, instead of having this amazing adventure, doing work I’m so excited to do.

But I’m not panicking. There is plenty of food, even if some things are scarce right now. I’m safe in my home and in my community.

I am remembering to focus on the things I *can* control, so I don’t obsess (and feel disempowered by) the things I can’t control. I’m listening to public health officials, trusting the scientists, and social distancing. I’m planning my meals with my family, and we’re going to the store as infrequently as we can. (And I wish I could go to the store more often, because a little bit of normal in all of this is SUPER IMPORTANT for mental health. I’m choosing to be grateful when I *do* go to the store.)

And I am doing my best, in my way, to be a helper, because I *need* to see helpers in the world, I need to know they are there. I need to believe that, for every person who is a jerkass online, there are a dozen out there right now, working in grocery stores and delivery services and hospitals and research labs.

Making the choice to be a helper has been really good for my mental health, in countless ways.

Can you be a helper, too?

Let’s do our best to choose kindness, patience, and empathy.
Let’s do our best to be gentle with ourselves, and with others.
Let’s be compassionate.

We are all in this together. This is, literally, our entire planet going through something scary, together, at the same time. And the thing is, it doesn’t care if you’re rich or what country you were born in or who you love. In the eyes of COVID-19, we are all equal, and we need to start acting like it. We need to take care of each other. The only way we are going to get through this, is by working together.

And let us remember that everyone is dealing with this as best as they can, and let us not be a dick to our fellow humans.

Thanks for listening.

and:

Another X-post from my Tumblr Ask Me thingy:

QUESTION: Would you be willing to donate your voice talents to an indie podcast for an episode or two? Should we contact your agents or would you be willing to handle it on your own? (The voice actors don’t get paid as most of us are doing for the love of it and what money we do make has thus far gone into promotion and production costs.) At the very least, would you be willing to listen to the show and mention it on social media if you like it?

ANSWER: I love that you asked me, and I’m going to give you an answer in public that I hope doesn’t turn too many people off: I *love* that you are being creative and making amazing new art. That is wonderful, and I wish you all the success in the world. When I was younger, I did projects like yours all the time and I loved it.

But I can’t be part of this for you, and I want to explain why.

I get asked all the time to donate my work, my time, my experience, etc., to projects, and I always have to decline. It’s not because I don’t believe in you, or want to support you. It’s because I’m working full-time as it is, and any spare time, energy, or creative inspiration I have really needs to go into my own projects, as I continue to build my career as a voice performer, narrator, and (hopefully) novelist.

I don’t feel your ask is unreasonable, at all, and I’m *thrilled* you had the courage to reach out. I’m also honored to be thought of as someone you want to work with. I hope you understand the practical realities of my life, and I hope you aren’t put off by my need to decline your kind invitation.

As to your final question, I rarely listen to podcasts these days, and I struggle to make time to listen to audiobooks. You can send me a link when it’s done, and I’ll make an effort to give you feedback, but I can’t promise anything.

I wish you the best of luck! I hope you’re the next Welcome To Nightvale.

and

Another question from my Tumblr ask thingy: So, I’m sorry if this is something that you’ve answered/been asked before. But I’m trying to start a DnD campaign. I’ve been playing since I was 4 (so about 23 years now), but I’ve never tried to run a campaign. I’m having a hard time trying to figure out where to start and staying on track with it. But I want to introduce my roommates to the game and I want it to be as fun and magical for them as it was for me when I first played. Do you have any advice? Thanks so much! I hope you’re doing well.

My answer, which I’ve edited a little bit to add some more thoughts:

When I was younger, I always put a ton of pressure on myself to write my own modules, build my own world, and do all that work that I wasn’t really able to do (and didn’t want to do). I have no idea why I felt that way, but it wasn’t until I was teaching RPGs to my own children about 15 years ago that I realized it was time wasted.

So with that in mind…

Don’t start out with the core books and one of the epic adventure books. You’ll all get there, eventually, but that’s a LOT to handle when you’re running a campaign for the first time, or playing the game for the first time. Players and DMs can *absolutely* start there, but I don’t recommend it.

I recommend starting out with the 5e Starter Set, or the 5e Essentials set. Both give you everything you need, for the players and for the DM, to play and experience everything that makes D&D awesome. They both take the players through several levels, and the writers take time throughout the whole thing to tell the DM not just what you’re supposed to do, but *why*you need to do it, to make the game work. You can sort of lean how to run a campaign this way, from some of the best DMs in the business.

But they do not overwhelm you with information, which is what sets them apart from the core books, for a new player. The important, foundational rules are all there, but they are streamlined just enough to prevent overwhelming new players with information they don’t really need. Nobody who ever plays them (and I’ve played them both) will ever feel like they are playing a slimmed-down version of the game. It’s just cleaner and easier to follow.

and finally:

I *need* to be creative, and until I have the creative energy to write my own stories, I’m going to do a thing I’m pretty good at, and narrate some public domain short stories.

As long as people are listening, I’ll keep recording. Your feedback is important to me.

Okay, that just about catches me up, here.

Books

Maroon, yellow, blue, gold and gray

Posted on By Wil

Everyone who lives with mental illness experiences it in our own way. For me, my Depression and Anxiety sort of hang out just beyond the scope of my peripheral vision, occasionally telling me they are there by casting a shadow over my life. Most of the time, it’s just that shadow, but other times, they team up and they just totally block out the Sun, and all the light in my life.

That’s how the last week or ten days have been, triggered by this complex PTSD episode that knocked me down really hard, and then stood on my chest wearing golf spikes. It was not awesome.

This thing that happened to me was brand new. As an adult, I hadn’t really, truly, fully experienced the totality of the pain, fear, sadness, and helplessness I felt as a child. I’d sort of pushed all that to the side, in the name of empowerment, and charged ahead with my life, to the best of my ability. What I didn’t know until this last week is that the stuff I pushed to the side was just sort of waiting for me to be ready to confront and deal with it, when it blocked out the Sun and scorched the Earth around me.

But I did the work that I know how to do. I allowed myself to feel all the things I needed to feel. I had long conversations with my sister, who has been so supportive and understanding through all of this. I had long conversations with myself, and I talked to the little boy I was. It felt kind of silly and a little “woo woo” to do that, but he needed to know that I love him, I see him, I can’t protect him from these terrible people, but I’m going to do the best I can to hold his hand and help him through everything, even if it’s just in my memories. He is not alone now, even though he felt so very alone, then.

And it really helped. It really helped to acknowledge my pain and my recovery. It helped to remind myself that healing is a journey, and some parts of the path are more difficult than others.

My sister gave me some really good advice, my Godmother and my cousin reminded me that I am and always have been loved by them, even when I wasn’t feeling unconditional love and approval from my parents. My wife held me while I cried, then she held me while I ugly cried, then she held me while I sobbed uncontrollably.

My pain and my trauma is real, and it is lasting, but I know that I’m going to heal it all, eventually, because I am surrounded by love and support.

Some housekeeping, after the jump:

(more…)

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stay awhile and listen

Posted on By Wil

“After a cruel childhood, one must reinvent oneself. Then reimagine the world.” – Mary Oliver

In “On Writing”, Stephen King tells us that if we don’t make time to read, we don’t have time to write.

I’ve thought about that a lot over the years. In a way, he’s saying that if you don’t love to read, you probably won’t love to write. At least, that’s one of the ways I interpret it.

When I was a teen and in my early 20s, I did my best to make myself go out to the movies every week. I saw everything that I could see, sometimes twice, so I could study and learn from it.

I did not enjoy any of it. I hated being in theatres full of people who had no respect and basic courtesy for their fellow audience members, and most of what I saw bored me.

It took me years — maybe decades — to realize that while I like some movies, I don’t love film, the way my friends who are successful directors and actors do.

Actually, more than realizing it, I admitted it to myself, because I knew it all along. It’s just that I believed my mother’s gaslighting when she would tell me that it was MY dream to be an actor and to work in film and television, not something she forced me to do against my clearly and repeatedly-stated wishes.

So I’ll watch some movies when they are on DVD or streaming, and I’ll probably take myself to actually see something with an audience once or twice a year, but I don’t need to do that to breathe, which is the level of love and devotion I think we need to have for art, if we’re going to make our living and find our emotional fulfillment as an artist. I don’t have that love for acting or filmmaking. I just don’t. It isn’t there, even though I’ve worked in that industry for my whole life.

Which brings me back to On Writing.

For the last year, I have been in a cocoon. I have been withdrawn from public life as much as I have been since I started my blog twenty years ago, and I’ve been equally withdrawn in my personal life. I’ve spent a little over a year processing and trying to heal from my abusive childhood, and that has been a full-time gig for me.

Let me just take a minute to loudly and gratefully acknowledge and own how privileged I am, that I have been able to afford to work less than most people, while I get to spend almost all of my time doing therapy and healing as best as I can. I will also be proud of myself for having the courage to do this work, and to stick with it when it’s been incredibly difficult and painful.

Okay. Back to On Writing: since I finished writing and rewriting my first novel, I just haven’t made the time to read for pleasure. I’ve only read when it’s narrating an audiobook,or part of my homework for school. I’ve tried to make time to read for pleasure, but my brain just refuses to focus and build the author’s world in my imagination. It’s been frustrating, but part of my healing process is to practice mindfulness, to accept what I can’t change and focus on the things that I can change. I’ve known that I’ll eventually become a capital-R Reader again, that it’s just a matter of time before I can begin to emerge from this cocoon, so while it’s felt like something that should be a priority — I’m a writer, right? — it clearly wasn’t something I had room in my life to make a priority.

This morning, one of my internet friends showed me this collection of short speculative fiction stories at Amazon Prime called Forward. They are included in my Prime membership, to read on Kindle without charge, but they are ALSO available from Audible at no charge to Prime members. Each of these stories can be read or listened to in about an hour.

I was intrigued. I am a fan of many of the authors and narrators, but could I set aside a whole hour? Doesn’t that seem like a silly thing to ask myself? That’s my reality, though, at this moment in my life. I wanted to carve out an hour, but could I?

As I very slowly and cautiously emerge from this cocoon, I am making an effort to invest some time in my physical health (again, very grateful that I have been able to focus so singularly on my mental health, without my physical health suffering). I’ve done little things like walk my dogs, but for close to a year, I haven’t done any other meaningful exercise. I haven’t jogged, I haven’t even practiced yoga. And my body is starting to tell me that I need to take better care of it. I listened, and I don’t make new year resolutions, but back in December, Anne and I committed to walking at least every other day, with the goal of doing a 5K in the future.

To slowly work my body back into a place where it can do a 5K and not collapse, I walk every day, even if it’s just around the block, because I’m middle-aged, and it just takes longer for my body to work itself back into good shape than it did when I was younger. But I haven’t taken a long walk, by myself, until today. Today, I put on my headphones, picked a book to listen to, and took Jason Isaacs and NK Jemisin out with me. I literally did not want to come home until I finished listening to him narrate her short story, “Emergency Skin”. My legs were all, “bro, we’re getting tired” and I was like “shut up and keep walking. I need to know how this ends.”

My artistic spirit feels nourished and inspired, and my body feels good. I could easily have spent that hour doing nothing but goofing off, but I made a deliberate choice to do the personal work I need to do on my body and my mind, so I can live my best life.

I still have a TREMENDOUS amount of pain to heal, and while today is a pretty good day, I know there are rough days ahead (and also other good days), so I’m choosing to be present and grateful for that.

Over the last year, I’ve worked really hard to heal myself and unpack a lot of pain and trauma. I’ve made a lot of good progress, but it’s come at a cost. I’ve forgotten how to read. I’ve forgotten how to have fun. I’ve forgotten how to be joyful. But it’s slowly and surely coming back to me.

And I now have at least five hours of what looks like great reading/listening ahead of me, that I hope will inspire me to write my own stories.

PS: speaking of audiobooks, I had the privilege of narrating Andy Weir’s The Martian for Audible, and it debuted at number one when it was released last week!

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Here it is! The limited, collectible, hardback printing of Dead Trees Give No Shelter is now available.

Posted on By Wil

Remember when I told you that I was doing a very limited, collectible hardback printing of Dead Trees Give No Shelter?

Well, it’s ready to go on sale RIGHT NOW! There are just 200 of these, and when they’re gone, they’re gone. I’ve priced them accordingly, at $100, which I know is a lot, but I’m offering a discount for today only, as my very small way of saying thank you to everyone who has supported me and my work for all these years.

It’s been awhile since I did my own little indie print run like this. In fact, I think I have to go all the way back to the initial release of The Happiest Days of Our Lives to find the last time I handled printing and order processing and printing all on my own. It’s a fair amount of work, but it’s tremendously satisfying to see where in the world my words are going to go live.

I’ll start taking orders right away, but just know that it’ll be a couple of days before I’m actually able to ship these, since I’m just one person doing it all myself. (And because I’m doing this all by myself, I’m not able to autograph or number these. HOWEVER! If you come see me at a convention from now until the heat death of the universe, I’ll be thrilled to sign your copy for you, at no charge.)

I’m really excited for everyone who wants one of these to finally get to have one. The design and artwork in this edition is just beautiful, and it feels very special to me. Oh, and if you care about this sort of thing (and I hope that you do) this is printed in America, in a union shop.

Buy Dead Trees Give No Shelter – Limited Edition Collector’s Hardback.