The Writer Shawn White's Place of Things

 In the E.B. White classic One Man’s Meat, written from a shed on the coast of Maine, he ruminates on writing, his process, the world, and the mundane day-to-day bits about the weather, and how many eggs his chickens laid. They were published monthly by Harper’s because he did not have a blog at the time. He just had the coast, a shed with a typewriter, and his thoughts.  While not full essays, these posts let me capture a bit of what I’m doing, watching, reading, and most importantly for me, what I am writing or when I’m not writing. The books and movies are just an excuse to get me started, and the monthly post format guarantees that I get something written every month. It’s a few minutes to pause and think, “Yup, that month just happened.”  So again, it’s July, and yup, that month has happened. It’s been at times stupid hot and kind of amazing. That is the way with summer in Maine. I’ve jumped in the ocean, gone on hikes, and occasionally stayed cooped up inside next t...

  June was one of those months where it was easy to get things done. It's rare, but I love it when it happens. I edited, drew, and designed a cover, and published my short story 'The Photographer' in Zine format. If you are interested, you can pick up a copy at Ellard Studios or the Haunted Key Press online store.  I also started and finished a new story. The working title is 'A Hole' because I thought it would look funny as a cover. It's the first story I have written in the new studio space downtown that I am sharing with Jen. There is going to be a ton of writing and art that comes out of there.  I sold a copy of A Good Meal in Australia to some random stranger, and I love that it was an interesting enough premise that someone so far away would want to read it. Along with that, I received another rating on Goodreads for 'A Good Meal'. It wasn't a 5-star review for sure, and everyone wants more editing, but they ended it with "wouldn’t be op...

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....

 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...

 August has been fun. A little vacation, my 25th wedding anniversary, my daughter off to her first year of college, and meeting up with old and new friends.  I met a bouncer and we shared a mutual appreciation of the Patrick Swayze classic Road House. He said that the climate has changed from what it was when he started bouncing, and their job is to protect the business from lawsuits, so it's better to talk folks down instead of knocking them around. Basically, to be nice until it's time not to be nice. So, it's a training film. Some movies I watched:  Final Destination - Bloodlines. The latest chapter in the Final Destination movies. Just as ridiculous as the others, and an interesting attempt to tie them all together. Y2K. This movie was not great. Partially due to my expectations, but also just not great. With the trailer, I expected a slightly more entertaining Maximum Overdrive set on New Year's Eve 1999. Having lived through that, it was fun to see all the refe...

It’s the end of July, and I started it on an island off the coast of Maine frequented by artists, the wealthy, fisher people, and lobster people. The ferry ride out to the island on my birthday was met with giant waves and my eventual sickness at the back of the boat. My only company, a seagull flying slowly behind us, watching me getting rid of my recently consumed tea and a vegan croissant we had picked up at Salt and Pepper Social in Newcastle. It was a good week, and the ferry ride back was much less eventful. On Sunday, the 20th, we went to the State and saw The Decemberists. It was a great performance and a sold-out crowd. Turns out it was the first time they had played in Maine.  Some movies I watched I watched the Pavement documentary/biopic/musical. Not horrific, but fun, and the soundtrack was great. Also watched The Substance. It was worth the hype, horrific, and there was so much fake blood during the chaotic finale. 36,000 gallons. Still half of the Evil Dead remake of...

It’s June, and I just nudged past a milestone birthday, so this will be a quick post so I can get back to some June vacation activities. Here are some books I’m reading and have read: Coffin Moon by Keith Rosson - I’m a little over halfway through it and enjoying it so far. I’ve liked the other books I have read by him as well. I just finished Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072 by M.E. O'Brien and Eman Abdelhadi for our Difficult Books book club. It was an interesting look at a possible and likely more realistic outcome after a complete world government collapse. I like that folks band together to help everyone and themselves. While bleak, it was still better than the dystopias where it’s every person for themselves. This week, I’ll be starting the next book in the Difficult Books series, Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. I’m coming into it blind and don’t know what it’s about. I’ll also be starting To Be Taught If Fortunate by one of ...

 It's February, and it has been so cold. Throw in a little travel and a little severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, along with reading increasingly chaotic and depressing news delivered on a speeding conveyor belt, and I have basically filled a month.  Books I read:  I had an advanced reader copy of Listen to Your Sister, Neena Viel's debut novel, and about a quarter of the way through, I decided I was not going to finish it. I made my notes on NetGallery stating that, and I put the book down, only to pick it up again and finish it. It went from I'm not that interested in this to What the hell is going on to Where the hell is this going to ok? That wasn't so bad. Now I have to go back and add my review. I also read Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay. It was a quick, easy read, well-written, and a disturbing topic. Basically, it's about a fake movie that was never released about a kid who was turned into a monster that kills people. You get the story from the ...

It's the end of November, and Thanksgiving is late this year. I will eat something vegan and delicious and hang out at home, relaxing by the fire and playing Stardew Valley with Jen.  I finished reading The Unworthy, the new novel by Agustina Bazterrica (writer of Tender is the Flesh). It's one of those books that leaves you feeling mentally exhausted - the kind where you need to watch something light after reading a little to reset your brain. It feels like Bazterrica took one of her short stories from Nineteen Claws and a Blackbird and stretched it into something bigger and darker. Not quite the same brutal punch as Tender is the Flesh, but still the kind of story that makes you grateful it's just fiction. If you're planning to read it, maybe have something happy lined up to read after. My after-reading is Cackle by Rachel Harrison, and it is lighter. We'll see where it goes. I haven't really watched much this month, as noted above, I have been spending my fre...

It's the last day of March and while it was supposed to be spring and the poor little groundhog prognosticator predicted we'd be in full sun with flowers coming out of our ears its been clouds, and rain, and dark, and recently a storm hit that dumped more snow than we have had all year. The chives in the garden that were slowly making their way to edible were buried, so I'll have to wait a little while longer to have them with a tofu scramble or vegan eggs.  I had lots of plans to write this month. I also had the motivation and the ideas. I have so many ideas that I can't wait to work through and get out of my brain. I also did not have to travel in March so I could set up a nice routine for writing. As a result, I have barely written anything. In the past, I'd wonder what went wrong. I had everything in place for a productive month of writing. Turns out nothing went wrong, I just chose to spend more time with the family. We've taken to gathering in the living r...

May went by very fast. One day in late April, there were a couple of leaves on some of the trees, and then four weeks later, they had flowered and were in full-on summer leaf mode dumping tons of allergens, keeping the rest of the family and me in a perpetual state of needing antihistamines.  In May, I began a short story, like I actually began it, rather than beginning to plan it. Actual words were written as part of the story. Some of those words will make it through the final edit.  I continued reading the books I listed last month but started reading and finished Conjuring the Witch by Jessica Leonard. You can buy a copy here or where ever scary books can be found -  https://perpetualpublishing.com/product/conjuring-the-witch/ . Spoiler - it may have witches in it. I loved it, though.  Jen and I just finished watching the season finale of Yellowjackets, and that's been fun. What is more fun is reading about people losing it over the cannibalism in the show, but a...

It's March, and this month rewatched Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 film "The Birds" after not seeing it since I was young. The film, based on a short story by Daphne du Maurier, follows a small town in California that is suddenly attacked by birds. It's definitely dated, and the special effects are now special for how not special they are. I loved the acting and the accents of Americans slightly English to sound a bit fancier, like the actors in many old movies. There wasn't any music, and the soundtrack of the birds sounded a lot like cats yowling. The ending held up, and it was a fun old scary movie. Just a few days ago, it was The Bird's 60th anniversary.  I watched Knock at the Cabin. The new movie directed by M Knight Shyamalan is based on the book The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay. Dave Bautista was great, and the movie was ok. Both the book and the movie are worth the time.  I finished reading "A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet...

What has writing looked like this month? Nonexistent. My goal is to rest and dive back in for March. Maybe even get a short story written early in the month. Speaking of short stories, ChatGPT and AI have been a bit of a pain for publishers of short stories. It seems there has been a flood of AI-Generated stories competing with human-written stories for the eyes of editors and slush-pile readers. It was bound to happen. Everyone wants to write stories, and this has made it possible. While they may not have officially written the story, they prompted the story. The trouble is AI is not there yet. Close, sure, but we have at least another couple of years before the work will be good enough to compete. The problem is that a few years after that it will potentially be better. I thought I had a little more time before my writing would be competing, but here we are. In a few months, emails and documents will start flagging the reader when a certain percentage of a document is generated by AI...