February writing & artwork updates from Shaine

Hello, Tangents and Secants;

Before I talk about what I’m working on, I’d like to share a few albums I’ve been listening to on repeat. This isn’t a review or recommendation, so I suggest you go listen to these yourself and see if they’re to your taste:

• EBM by Editors
• And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
• As I Try Not To Fall Apart by White Lies

I’ll occasionally go back to my standard playlist which consists of mostly M83, Slowdive, and David Bowie.

Full disclosure, this update is going to be short. Right now, I’m focusing most of my attention on the finishing touches of my debut board game, Nine Muses, to get it ready for launch. Those of you who are fans of board games can check out Otherworld Games and sign up for updates with the links below:

Okay, now let’s get down to some writerly updates…

Remember when I released a poetry collection?

I do.

Fires Under the Great Neural Sky is a collection of 75 existentialist poems, divided into seven sections organized by a major concept of existentialist philosophy. You can buy the book online through Amazon or other services, but I also put a lot of work into narrating and making music for the audiobook version. You can stream that on Spotify or find it wherever you get your audiobooks from.

I poured my heart and soul into this collection, including creating the cover, and I’d love for you to check it out.

I’m going to use a combo of Mailchimp and my site for future newsletters

The platform I was using, Revue, was discontinued. I’ve decided to try out a combination of MailChimp and my author site (the site you’re reading this on right now) to give folks the best of both worlds. The MailChimp emails will be brief “cliff notes” with a button to take you to a more in-depth blog article like this one. I’ll tweak this format as needed in future newsletters, and as always, your feedback is welcome in the form of a comment to this post or a reply to the newsletter email.

I’ve deactivated my Twitter and Facebook accounts

“You’ve got to be present on social media to find success as a writer.” I’m sure you’ve heard that advice more times than you can count, and so have I. But here’s the thing: Social media is toxic. I’m tired of directing my time and attention to any social media platforms, so I’m stepping away from them more and more. I’m still on Mastodon and Instagram, but I rarely post on those platforms as well. I may eventually deactivate my Instagram and opt to only post my newsletters with the occasional Mastodon post. I don’t know yet. But I do know that my mind and soul already feel better after getting rid of those accounts.

I’ve closed my Redbubble shop

Keeping with this theme of retreating from the Internet a bit more, I’ve also decided to close my Redbubble shop. No one was buying anything from it and I didn’t have the energy to continue maintaining and advertising it. This doesn’t mean I’m giving up on art. What it means is that I’m going to go back to my original reasons for making art: to explore abstract ideals and to support my writing and game design.

If there is ever future interest in buying prints of my art again, I’ll consider putting my shop back up somewhere. Until then, I have one less thing to have to think about—which I consider a win.

Short stories aplenty

Although I’m writing less currently as I work on my debut board game, I’ve still got quite a bit in the oven. My goal this year is to try and get my short stories published in magazines, literary journals, and anthologies. I believe the best way to get my name out there now is to try and get my work published on other people’s platforms. This may mean that I’ll be taking my older stories off this site to try and sell them, but we’ll see.

I don’t have new information on the status of when I’ll self-publish The Aether 2nd Edition, its sequel, the 2nd Edition of the other short stories in The Aether collection, or a new sci-fi short story collection, but they are all still very much on my project list to accomplish this year. Please be patient with me!

That’s all for now. Please take care of yourselves out there.