The Writer Shawn White's Place of Things

It’s the end of May, and like previous months for the past year and a half, there is way too much going on in the world to not feel overwhelmed and unable to stay on top of the chaos and worried about the state of things. But it’s another month and another post.  This month involved an overseas vacation. After limited trips since Covid, we opted to take a family trip to Paris and hit up the amazing Hilma Af Klimt exhibit at the Grand Palais. That was the catalyst of the trip, and it was followed by hitting up a bunch of other museums, Versailles, the Catacombs, Pierre Lachaise Cemetery, and all the vegan bakeries and vegan restaurants we could find.  As a result of the lead-up, the trip, and the recouping from the trip has limited the amount of writing I was able to get done, but I have a nice backlog of ideas to work through when I have a minute to focus for more than an hour or two. I did edit a short story I’ll be releasing as a small zine/chapbook about a photographer...

This month, I wrote April’s zine about ghosts and what to do if you find yourself in a haunted house scenario. How to live with or get rid of them. It was fun, but what’s funnier is that I will get to keep a copy and leave it somewhere the people who eventually buy my house will find. Maybe I’ll bring copies to real estate open houses and hide them around so folks can bump into them and be a little freaked out. I think I’ll need to figure out how to age it a bit. Add to the realism.  I wanted to write more, but nothing in my brain is really ready for the long-term commitment of a novel. It’s funny, I watched a BBC archive video where they interviewed two writers who churned out pulp novels made to directly line the shelves at the local libraries. Books written and published with the intent that no one would ever buy them, but because they are at the library, folks would read them. They wrote basically the same romance novels and westerns, all published under different author names....

  March moved quick! Today is already the 31st, and while it's cold, damp, and rainy with a chance of snow, it's still spring, so I'll take it. This month's post is short as it consisted mainly of books I'm reading, thoughts on writing, and no actual writing. We didn't even create a zine in the month of March. We'll have a good zine ready for April, maybe. Reading: I almost made it through the entire Practical Magic Series by Alice Hoffman, and while it had some cheesy bits, it's been entertaining. Who doesn't want to read about the lives of witches, their families, and their loves? I didn't quite realize the order and read them this way. Magic Lessons > Practical Magic > The Rules of Magic > The Book of Magic I should have switched the order of Practical Magic and the Rules of Magic to be in a chronological order, but oh well. I also read When No Thing Works by Norma Wong for the Difficult Book Club. It's a short book, a lot of word...

 February was short and so cold. Even a short trip to Florida for work did not provide much of a break because it was cold and windy there as well. Definitely time for hibernation, and there was some of that happening with me. A few weeks where I felt I was fighting off a cold, and a few weeks of things to keep me busy.  Jen and I worked on a few new zines, and in the process, as a fun distraction, I built a zine-building web app. It’s definitely an early version of something that could be cool, but it works, and I used it to create a physical copy of The Last Automator and an instruction zine about how to use it. You can try it here, but be warned, you will find bugs and quirks, nothing is safe, and it works best on a computer or an iPad.  zinebuilder.hauntedkeypress.com   As you can tell by the name of the zine builders .com address, Jen and I started a small press so that we have something we can publish these zines under. Again, just for fun, but as I type t...

  January has been cold and wonderfully unproductive in my writing world. As we burned through oil and wood to stay warm, I hunkered down and did the minimum to still feel like I was a writer. I mostly worked on but did not complete a zine, and pulled out the novel Disappearing to maybe try shopping that around and maybe get it published rather than do it myself. I’ve got a plan that will take a few months to get through, but maybe it’ll help me to build out a good process for reaching out to publishers and agents. I finished reading The Angel of Indian Lake by Stephen Graham Jones, wrapping up the trilogy. It was brutal, and while each book was different, they were similar. I would not have continued going back to that town if I were any of those characters.  I also read King Sorrow by Joe Hill - A little weird at times, but an entertaining story overall. It's a big book, and like some of Joe Hill's other books, when you think it must be done, there's still like two books...

  It's December, and I'm going to put this post out on the solstice so I don't have to have it on the back of my mind over the holidays. I plan on spending time doing other things, thinking, and writing other things.  For writing this month, I tried something new and basically narrated a folk tale about the origin of milk and cookies at Christmas time. It was a little tough because it's not how I usually write, but fun overall. Jen worked on some illustrations and carved the block print for the cover. We added a page at the front and made this month's zine our Christmas Cards this year.  Jen also reached out to other folks on her friends list. For people looking for some weird Christmas cheer, we sent those who responded one of the zines/holiday cards as well.  So this monthly zine thing may likely be a consistent thing for a little bit becasue its fun to work on these with Jen. Currently, the only way to get one is to reach out to us or pick one up from Ellard ...