I mean, I had a vacation, technically, back in the last full week of May, but I was still recovering from 2020 at the time, so it was more like attempting to reel myself back to myself after a year of dissociating. And the five weeks of work which followed were fairly stress-free, as far as work goes.

But the first week of my two-week vacation was kind of…I can’t really call it a waste of time, but I spent most of it binge-watching TV and playing video games, and staring at all the things in my life which require my attention, and for every single one of those tasks, I considered the work carefully, then said fuck it and went back to playing Diablo II.

I’m doing my best to not kick myself for wasting a week in which I could have been reading and writing. I did manage to spend some time out of doors, which did me a world of good, but the whole point of having time off was to be productive, and that I most surely was not.

However, even in the midst of this psychological malaise, there are some bright spots; to wit: four new bundles of words arrived at the Library of Winkelman Abbey in the past week.

First up is the latest issue of Pulphouse Magazine, to which I will one day submit a story, if I ever complete a short story.

The next three are the latest publications from Zombies Need Brains, from their recently-completed Kickstarter campaign – Derelict, When Worlds Collide, and The Modern Deity’s Guide to Surviving Humanity. This is the third of ZNB’s Kickstarters I have backed, and the first to which I have not submitted a story. 2020 was kind of a lousy year in that way.

In reading news, I finished Dalva and moved on to Harrison’s follow-up novel The Road Home. I hadn’t intended to spend my vacation re-reading old favorites, but that is where my mind is right now, and my life seems to be improved thereby.

I also finished Francisco Verso’s Nexhuman (Apex Book Company), which was quite good, and one of the very few “salvagepunk” novels I have read. In fact, the only other ones I can think of at the moment are the Bas-Lag trilogy by China Mieville.

In writing news, not much has changed, though I am putting together a list of upcoming calls for submission to themed anthologies. Maybe one of these will break me out of my funk.