I'm Back! Really This Time!
I swear, I was not supposed to be gone that long.
When last we spoke here at the 'Realms, over a month ago, I made the announcement that I would be shifting to a weekly-ish updating schedule, but I'd keep updating the Evertime Realms LiveJournal on a daily (when possible) basis. Well, I hope you've all been reading the journal, or at the very least watching the news, so that you'd know where I've been. If you haven't followed up that way, I'm going to give you a quick summary of what has kept me from updating.
First, and best, a few days after my last update was my birthday, and Erin came down to visit me, just as I visited her on her birthday in June. Things were, if possible, even better than the first time. Right up until Hurricane Katrina hit. I live in Ama, Louisiana, a tiny community about a half-hour from New Orleans. So Erin and I, along with my family, evacuated to Texas. We were gone for about a week, and we sent her home from Houston on the same day the rest of us made the long drive back home. We suffered relatively little damage, although I'm still trying to get my car repaired. (No severe damage, but the guy can't fix it until my insurance company examines it, and they're dragging their feet. I hate insurance companies.) In the weeks since then we've had power outages and internet loss that has kept me from being able to update this. And I was afraid I wouldn't be able to update even today, as we're being slapped around by Hurricane Rita, but things are relatively okay right now, so I'm giving it a shot.
But this page, the front of the 'Realms, is supposed to be a professional newsletter for those of you following my career. So I do have a couple of announcements for you. First of all, I'm on a job hunt for various reasons, all of which have been outlined in the LiveJournal. Second, the Futurius: Tales From the Plex anthology, featuring Ryan and Radar by myself and Matt Weldon, is scheduled for a November release, and Blair Marnell of SilverBulletComicBooks.com gave a sneak preview in his All the Rage Column last week. Third, I have begun work in earnest on the sequel to Lost in Silver. And fourth, I'm going to have a new short story to share with you guys next month, another scary tale in favor of Halloween. So that's a good bit to chew on, right? Oh, and if you've been waiting for new reviews and columns... well, I've done several, but rather than list them all here, I'd like to direct you to the archives. They're all listed.
And that's about it, guys. I'd like to promise you it won't happen again, but I can't do that. I can just promise I'll do my best. Have a great week, and keep checking the LiveJournal for updates.
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That's the update I just put on the front page of Evertime Realms -- I always put that here, too. For those of you who read the LiveJournal on a regular basis, I've got a few more things to talk about. Since I last updated last night, things have stayed pretty safe here. We never lost power, and although we lost our cable/internet/phone connection a few times, it always came back.
During one such period of cable connection, I made the mistake of watching MSNBC's coverage of Hurricane Rita, and I saw one of the things that makes me want to quit the news business entirely (besides, of course, the general incompetence of my newspaper). One of their talking heads -- I can't remember which one, but does it really matter? -- was interviewing various officials in areas hit by Rita, for instance, the mayor of Jennings, Louisiana. Now if you're watching the news today, it should be clear that Rita did NOT cause the level of uber-damage that so many people were predicting. After Katrina, the Chicken Littles were out in force. So Talking Head Man was interviewing the mayor, asking him how his town was doing. Did he have power? Did he have a phone connection. Were there fires? Was there rampant flooding?
And every time the Mayor told him that things in Jennings were better than expected, you could TASTE the disappointment in this Talking Head's voice.
A little while later he talked to an Emergency Operations Officer for a small town in Texas. Same thing. She told him they were doing okay. I nearly expected him to say "Dammit" every time the conversation went back to him and things weren't as dire as predicted. And I'm picking on MSNBC because that's what I happened to be watching, but it's by no means limited to that network. Every national news outlet, every newspaper, every news WEBSITE has had the same attitude. So let Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather make their little presentation at the Emmy awards, patting themselves in the back, talking about how "important" TV news is. Those of us who've been watching it? We're sick of it. I don't want to be part of a medium that only feels joy when other people are suffering. I want out, and I want out now.