A pocket-sized edition this week.

Links

Universal Soldier? The Emersonian Combat Experience of Terrence Malick’s ‘The Thin Red Line’

https://cinephiliabeyond.org/the-thin-red-line/

Books

My book reading took a hit this year. I tended to favour physical books this year over eBooks. All that said, it’s hard to read a physical book (heck, any book) with a newborn in your hand and a bottle in the other. So, the memorable books from this year for me were:

Motor Spirit: The Long Hunt for the Zodiac by Jarrett Kobek

I devoured this book and it’s sequel How to Find Zodiac. Motor Spirit takes a look at America in the late sixties, specifically California and the souring of ‘The American Dream’ - focusing primarily on the Zodiac, but also bringing in the Manson family and the dark underside of hippie culture in such places as San Francisco. Kobek’s skill comes in tying all of these disparate, evil and chaotic events together to show something sinister and insidious at the heart of American culture as the seventies dawned.

Not much up top this week. The plan for doing my usual ‘Faves of the Year’ is to include it in the next edition of the newsletter as there are still some movies I’m hoping to catch between now and then.

Links

You don’t know Jack Reacher: How Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise defied expectations and paved the way for Top Gun: Maverick

https://www.avclub.com/christopher-mcquarrie-interview-jack-reacher-anniversar-1849801144

It’s not a huge edition this week as I’m prepping to drive down south for a family gathering. North Devon in December, of all places.

Time off at the day job will give me enough space to hopefully pull together something more substantial for the next edition (and the last of 2022).

Links

I’ll kick things off with two interviews.

The newsletter has been decimated this week due to two factors:

• I tested positive for Covid on Friday. I felt rough, figured it was a seasonal flu and then tested.

• On top of that, Florence has obviously caught something as well, griping and crying throughout the night. Operating on about an hour’s shared sleep across the household is not conducive to doing anything. It’s shattered the hopes of making deadline on something I have been working on for about a month or so. But sometimes all you can do is roll with the punches.

See you all.in two.

Everything is in increments now. My head still hasn’t fully switched from writing before baby to the current reality. It’s getting there though.

As ever, the keyword I’m focusing on is consistency. If I can get a little forward traction each day with a project that’s a win. Concentrating on volume is a fool’s errand at this point. I have learned this the hard way. If my head can remain in the world and narrative I’m creating, and the story can be inched forward, that’s a win.

Links

“Don’t Shoot Too Many Takes”: Walter Hill on Dead for a Dollar

Apologies for another curtailed edition this week. I’m typing the last parts of this out entirely on my phone as I am sans computer whilst visiting family. Anyway, enjoy!

Links

Video Games

Acronym casts a long shadow over cyberpunk fashion

Peter Thiel’s Palantir Had Secret Plan to Crack UK’s NHS: ‘Buying Our Way In’

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-30/palantir-had-plan-to-crack-uk-health-system-buying-our-way-in

The ‘frog slowly boiling’ approach to the demolition of the NHS continues apace.

I’m still getting used to having another living thing be entirely dependent on me/us to live. As mentioned previously I have been attending a writing sprint Zoom call most Thursday nights. I find these sessions incredibly productive and my wife is an absolute saint to let me just go off into a room for an hour or so to take part in these sessions.

One shortcoming, however, is the old habit of comparing myself to others rearing its head. Most of the other writers involved are able to make progress with their respective projects between sessions. Meanwhile, I scrabble throughout the week to try and get some words (any words) added to the current project (a short story for a submission call based around horror and the sea) whenever I can. It really is about gathering those slivers of time and hoping they add up to something substantial as the end of the week nears.

I still haven’t quite perfected the best way to do this. A phone works well. A pocket notebook may work better.

If anyone has any tips, advice, etc. about how best to get some steady progress down whilst dealing with a demanding newborn feel free to shoot me a reply. I shall be forever grateful.

This was supposed to go out two weeks ago, and for some reason has been sat in drafts instead. Which means you will be getting two newsletters from me this week.

So, I’m back (kind of). This newsletter, writing in general, household tasks and everything else are now performed in the brief snatches of time between feeds, nappy changes and attempting to get an (over)tired baby to sleep.

If anything, it has shown me how good I had it before in terms of free time. But it also caused me to really use those snatches of time to do the things that need doing. In the past week or so I’ve written a flash story and submitted it and I’m currently in the early stages of another short story for a separate submission call.

If the writing, or anything else, isn’t done in these brief flashes of time then it doesn’t get done at all.

Apologies, but no newsletter again this week.

My reading input the last few weeks, as you can imagine, has essentially been zero.

However, now there is something approaching a routine in the Hill household again I have started to be able to snatch a few moments to read articles again (mostly between feeds and endless bouts of washing up).

So, all that said, you should expect things to return to some kind of normality with the next edition of the newsletter.

Florence Aletta Hill, born 29th July at 0100 after a very chaotic birth. She and mother are both doing well.

Needless to say there won't be a newsletter this week as I'm currently doing about 4-5 miles in steps alone per day (why do we live in a house with three flights of stairs?).

She is worth every step and then some.

This newsletter, like everything else at the moment, is stuck in a kind of limbo.

Baby is imminent. The day job is a relentless maelstrom, prone to pangs of chaos and crumbling infrastructure.

The weather veers from record-breaking to mundane in the blink of an eye. Amid the madness I have managed to finish up another short story, previously mentioned here. As stated, this one deals with body horror, running and the notion of legacy in one hope-shattering bundle. I figure one or two more passes to bring out some elements that remain unclear and this will be good to go.

During this week’s writing sprint sessions via Zoom I started the ball rolling on a new story/concept. Currently, I’m not entirely sure what it is I have, or whether it may need to longer than a short story.

Updates & Fuel for the tank

There’s not a lot of links this week I’m afraid. My reading has mostly been of the book variety the past few weeks, namely the second book in Joseph Knox’s Aidan Waits series, The Smiling Man. The books follow the (mis)fortunes of DC Aidan Waits as he becomes embroiled in the darker underbelly of modern-day Manchester.

The Smiling Man has a classic ‘locked room’ setup with the titular male being found in a high-rise hotel long since closed. The central mystery also draws elements from the real life Somerton Man case.

Waits as a character is always teetering on self-implosion, par for the course in a detective series. However, there is a weight to his actions. As the novel begins Waits finds himself relegated to the grave yard shift with no chance of promotion or salvation due to his actions in the first book.

I seemed to gain a handful of new subscribers last week. I have no idea where they came from, but welcome! As the copy says, it’s mostly links!

Shall we?

Links

Shop Talk: Jordan Harper Pulls Down the Blinds, Turns Up the Heat, and Writes Novels on Hotel Stationery

We ended up losing Corky, our guinea pig referenced in the last newsletter. Between the infection and her gut not seeming to kick-start itself again I think, in the end, we were fighting a losing battle. It was a sad end to a dreary fortnight. But we all tried, including her.

She was a little bundle of sunshine, happiness and sass who never ceased to brighten our day with her constant chattering and shenanigans.

I miss her terribly.

What an exhausting two weeks. We are currently having to syringe feed a very sick Guinea Pig every 3-4 hours throughout the day. It has been an ordeal. On top of that we continue to prep for the arrival of baby. Furniture is now all assembled. Her room is painted.

The day job continues to test me with a perfect storm of illness and holidays meaning I am doing 2-3 people’s jobs whilst still trying to do my own.

My ToDo list, as a consequence, has taken a hit. I have, instead, defaulted back to a habit tracker most days to ensure I end the day feeling sane - exercise every day, write every day, that sort of thing. It’s held my in good stead. Notes and lists are living as scribbles in a pocket notebook that I carry everywhere. I go on about them all the time, but pocket notebooks are great.

Links

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind. Antenatal classes, MOT tests, baby worries (false alarm!), and a hellish perfect storm of events that means my workload at the day job has increased exponentially.

There is light on the horizon though (including meeting the tiny person who has given us both buckets of worry and anxiety recently).

Also, I’ve been reading a lot about habit formation recently. Given I am about to have a hell of a lot less free time I’ve come to the conclusion that concentrating on a core set of habits every day, rather than being overwhelmed by traditional To Do lists (which still have their place) is going to be key.

The theory seems to ring true. We shall see if it holds once it’s tested in the field.

A wedding to attend. Walls to pain. Words to write. So it’s straight into things this week.

Links

# 20 years ago, The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind changed everything

https://www.polygon.com/23037370/elder-scrolls-3-morrowind-open-world-rpg-elden-ring-botw

News

I’m now free of COVID after being plagued for about a week and a half. The first few days were the worst, with the mother of all headaches along with a plethora of flu-like symptoms. At time I was verging on hallucination as tiredness and exhaustion seeped in too.

Thankfully, the only real fallout has been the fact I missed the submission window for an anthology I very much wanted to try my hand at. Many more than me have not been so lucky.

Apologies for the lack of newsletter this weekend. I have finally gone and gotten Covid after almost two years of slipping through it’s grasp.

I’m over the worst of it now, the low point being towards the start of the week where I was running a high fever and suffering a horrendous headache.

It knocked me for six and also meant I missed a submission deadline, the first one I’ve missed.

It also means I haven’t been to the day job in over a week whilst also trying not to infect my (thankfully Covid-free) pregnant wife.

Another short one I’m afraid. I’m up against a deadline for a story submission window and I have a million and one tasks to do to prep for the little one’s arrival in July.

Links

The War in Ukraine Shows That Europe Could Help Refugees if It Really Wanted To

Not much up top this week. A lot of this week’s issue is about the invasion of Ukraine. Given the saturated and overwhelming coverage and the very real prospect of things spiralling even further, then I would not be upset if this edition remains unread.

Links

What You Should Really Know About Ukraine

The last few weeks have been marred by chaotic periods at the day job, jumbled sleep patterns and every other obstacle you can think of for being productive. I’m seeing it as good prep for when the baby arrives. Onto the links? Absolutely.

Links

Telegram: The Social Network Where Conspiracies Meet

https://www.logically.ai/articles/telegram-where-conspiracies-meet

Some quick housekeeping to begin with. The URL for this newsletter now lives at:

https://buttondown.email/aph/

It’s been like this a while but I’d completely forgotten to point it out. The URL obviously stands for the name of the newsletter which, I think, is more representative of this whole endeavour.

///

My second short story to see the light of day, Fissure, features on the latest episode of The Other Stories podcast as part of their Doppelgangers season.

‘A couple with a strained relationship find a crack in their hallway wall. Unknown to them, something resides within the crack and it will say anything, or become anyone, to be free.’

Fissure is written by me (as D.C Hill) narrated by Jasmine Arch, edited by Karl Hughes and music by Andrew KN and Thom Robson.

This is the first time I’ve ever heard someone else read my work out loud, or produced using an audio-only format. Jasmine did an excellent job with the narration and the music and sound effects really add a whole other layer to the experience. I’m incredibly happy with how it turned out.

A short entry to start the year off. No fuss, no muss, just the links.

Links

The Web is Fucked

https://thewebisfucked.com/

I am sending this one out slightly earlier then usual. I will only forget in the post Christmas haze. So here it is. Enjoy!

There are not too many links this week as I mostly spend this time of year either venturing to see various relatives or watching the movies I missed out on the first time around. The former is, obviously, severely limited in its scope this year (as last year), so it’s mostly been a whole lot of movies (and to a lesser extent this year TV).

At the time of writing, here are the movies I enjoyed the most this year (all were released in some form this year, either via cinema or streaming) in the tried and tested Top 10 format. I’ve been fairly spoiler-free in my thoughts one each movie so I haven’t been able to go in depth on some of them as I’d like.

10. Copshop

One more edition until 2021 sails into the sunset. As tradition I shall probably go through some of the things I enjoyed and consumed this year, media wise.

In the interim, definitely go and check out Voir on Netflix. It’s a series of short video essays on movies, exec produced by David Fincher. Tony Zhou from the dearly missed Every Frame a Painting YouTube channel is also involved.

The highlight for me was Walter Chaw’s essay/episode on Walter Hill’s 48 Hours, and its relationship to race in America. Chaw has a book out on Walter Hill in Spring of next year. I absolutely cannot wait.

Onto some links? Sure, why not.

The last two weeks featured…a story acceptance. This one was a short I had written a year or so ago but it never really clicked. Months pass. I asked myself why it wasn’t working and rewrote the entire thing from scratch.

More info on that when I get it. I don’t think I’ve made reference to it before with a codename or anything. This one deals with toxic relationships, addiction and the age old question ‘How well can you know someone?’

Links

No Time To Die (Review by Walter Chaw)

Nowt but links this week. A batch of shorts have gone out to various publications. Breath held as always. In the interim I’m breaking ground on another new short, this time the inspiration coming from one of those writing prompt bots on Twitter that seem to be rife right now. I guess the hellsite is good for something.

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Squid Game’s Strike Flashbacks Were Modelled on Our Real-Life Factory Occupation

https://jacobinmag.com/2021/11/squid-game-ssangyong-dragon-motor-strike-south-korea/

Heavy spoilers for Texas Chainsaw Massacre abound in this first section. Skip to the links section if you have no wish to partake.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has a reputation. The title helps. After everything you’ve been told you expect a gore-fest, a showcase of severed limbs and buckets of blood. Additionally, it was banned here in the UK for a number of years as one of the maligned ‘Video Nasties’ which only added to its legend.

Let’s get straight into it.

The aforementioned Project Greenfingers is now being submitted in the usual places. One stock rejection already so far. I’m not about hiding the crappier aspects of this process. This part can be frustrating, waiting for submission windows to open, close, etc. Other times you are waiting on one person operations dealing with a huge slush pile, none of which I envy.

Project Greenfingers, as I've previously called it here, is done.

Take what you fear and stick it in a story - climate change, responsibility, parenthood, all that good stuff. Anyway, the story just needs a home now, so the usual feelers will go out into the world and see what comes up.

Once again I'm thinking of shaking things up with the newsletter. I'm subscribed to quite a few already so inspiration is everywhere. That said, are there any favourites amongst the readership? If so, forward them on.

Links

Links, links, nothing but the links.

Good Luck Finding a Stranger, More Interesting Game in 2021 Than 'Cruelty Squad'

<https://www.vice.com/en/article/93y7az/good-luck-finding-a-stranger-more-interesting-game-in-2021-than-cruelty-squad>

This sounds ridiculous, hard to parse and incredibly interesting all at the same time.

Just the links this time around too I'm afraid.

Links

Surviving a Decade as a Full-time Author No One Has Heard Of

<https://litreactor.com/columns/surviving-a-decade-as-a-fulltime-author-no-one-has-heard-of>

It has been an unrelentingly grim time in the day job this past week or so, so please excuse the brevity of this week’s edition.

Links

i had a problem with doom eternal and i wrote about it but there was gonna be a part 2 and this is that part 2.

Another two weeks and some great progress on Project Greenfingers. I finally cracked the spine of the thing, introducing some conflict that was just not present in previous iterations. I’m getting closer to the finish line with this one now.

Elsewhere, Everfrost #2 is out in the world and received a pretty great review . Ryan, Sami, Lauren and Jim all continue to excel here.

Let’s get right into it, shall we?

Why it’s (almost) impossible to argue with the right

https://www.salon.com/2021/07/18/why-its-almost-impossible-to-argue-with-the-right/

Updates

The short story mentioned previously (lets call it Project Greenfingers) continues to plague me. I’m trying to adhere to my own mantra here of “Trust the process”. I know at some point this thing will unlock itself, probably whilst I’m halfway down a forest trail or buying toilet roll at the supermarket. But, until that moment comes, frustrations abound.

What does everyone else do when they hit these walls?

Links

Updates

I’ve been beavering away at another short. At this point, I think it’s missing something. Most of my projects usually come about when two previously inert ideas slam into each other, producing something wholly new. I’m not sure that has happened at this point for this new story and as a result it’s not it’s best self. Yet.

I’ve also been doing edits for She #2 for Ryan K Lindsay. It’s been a blast to dive back into that world and that character and see where Ryan is taking her next.

A short one this week as the day job becomes a chaotic mess. Never take time off, kids. You’ll just come back to so much work.

Links

Young, Male and Anti-Feminist – The Gen Z Boys Who Hate Women

Apologies for this one. A system snafu means I am reconstructing this edition of the newsletter mostly from memory after the last version was swallowed up by chaos and circumstance.

Links

We Can’t Cancel Ourselves Into a Better World

Updates

For those in the British comics scene you will probably already know about the passing of Dave Evans (aka Bolt01) recently. For those not in the know, Dave was a huge driving force in the small press scene in British comics. As well as serving as co-publisher at FutureQuake Press, Dave was an accomplished artist, editor, writer and letterer in his own right.

FutureQuake Press was where I was first published as a comics creator in the form of a small two page strip entitled ‘Retail is Hell’. Over the years I submitted many stories to FQP, and Dave (as well as co-publisher Richmond Clements) was instrumental in giving me that early confidence to write stories, submit them and then work with an artist to bring it to fruition. Dave provided a kind of ‘crash course’ in how to make comics as well as inspiring creators that their output had merit. I cannot stress the importance of this when you are first starting out.

News & Bits

https://twitter.com/ryanklindsay/status/1388200772823748608

As mentioned in the previous issue, Everfrost (Words: Ryan K Lindsay, Art: Sami Kivela, Colours: Lauren Affe, Letters: Jim Campbell Edits: Me) is out real soon from Black Mask. Issues #1 and #2 are now both in Previews. People are saying supremely nice things about Issue #1 on Twitter. If you are into grand sci-fi with strange landscapes, frantic action and memorable characters it’s a must.

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Updates

First up, Everfrost #1 drops in June from Black Mask Studio.

“All scientist-warrior Van Louise wanted was to retire and get off-planet as her society collapsed, but she’s unearthed a mystery involving the death of her son… and she can’t leave without discovering the truth first–even as war brews in her violent and fantastical world.”

It’s another short one this week I’m afraid. I’ve been spending the last week or so looking at (like really looking) at some of my favourite newsletters, the things they do well and how I’d like to evolve this newsletter moving forward. It probably means more longform writing from me up top - essays, reviews, that kind of thing. I am still brewing on it.

Links

Defund the Queen

It’s a bit of a short one this week. I’m still sitting on a huge amount of links to read in my backlog. This week has been my first real week off at the day job since Christmas. I’ve been all about that decompression life.

Links

The Parallax View and the Golden Age of Paranoia

Updates

A rejection this week for a piece of flash fiction. Originally the piece was a Drabble that I had punched up to take advantage of a pretty high level publication putting out calls for subs. The rejection doesn’t sting too much because:

a) As I said, it was pretty high level in terms of the publication.

b) This was a piece I didn’t expect to be submitting. It was just a bit of luck I saw the call and had something that fit. Often times, you don’t. I can’t be mad about something that fell in my lap, you know?

Some quick updates:

• I continue to suck badly at Chess. But I’m enjoying playing. And then losing.
• Lockdown Haircut 2 is imminent. Reader, I am genuinely excited. This is how bad things are.
• She is now available from comic shops and the ComixTribe store. Words by Ryan K Lindsay, art by Chris Panda and edits by myself. Look at how fantastic it looks: