Things have been hopping at the old Dragon’s Roost this week. The big announcement is the launch of the Nightmerica: Corruptions of the American Dream Kickstarter campaign. Read more about that below.
There is a family move on the horizon (not us, we’re so happy in the New House™), so at least one day a week has been spent cleaning up the house that will be moved from. The Mrs has also kept me busy picking up furnishings from Freecycle sites for the new place. Fortunately, this has given me plenty of time to listen to audiobooks while I drive (again, see below).
While the weather has still been up and down, it looks like Spring has finally sprung. In Michigan that means that it has moved on to Summer weather. After weeks of waiting, it looks like we can finally start thinking about opening the pool. As I write this I have two siphons working on taking the collected rain water off of the pool cover.
Anyone who knows me knows that once I latch on to a hobby, I go all in. Translation: I purchased some more mead making equipment. Batch number two — designated Fafnir to keep with the dragon theme — is a blueberry mead made with two pounds of the berries we picked last year. No, not from our own blueberry bush which did survive the winter, but hopefully soon…
Listening To: In the past week I finished Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson, listened to an interesting accounting of the scandal surrounding the 2018 testing of the Master Sommelier candidates (Corked by Marc Fennell), and Gabino Iglesias’ first novel Zero Saints. I started Holly by Stephen King yesterday.
Currently Reading: I am 12 books ahead on my goal of reading 75 books in 2025 (57%) but unfortunately this has been mostly through audiobooks lately. I’m hoping to have some time to sit down and read a physical book soon.
Current Obsession: Finding space in the garage for all of the furniture I’ve picked up.
Dragon’s Roost Press News
As mentioned above, the Kickstarter campaign for Nightmerica: Corruption of the American Dream launched Tuesday (yesterday if you are reading this on the day it goes out) and we are already 25% of the way to our goal. There is still plenty of time to get in on the Early Bird rewards! Please check out the campaign, back if you can, and share even if you can’t. The more eyes we have on the campaign, the sooner we can get funded. Click here to take a look.
We are still a few weeks out from our next couple of shows. If you are in the Michigan area, come say hi at the Curious at the Crossroads Oddities Fest 21 - 22 June. If you are in Pennsylvania check us out at Horror on Main in Harrisburg the following weekend (27 - 29 June).
If you are interested in receiving an advanced reading copy of Nightmerica for review, it is currently available on NetGalley.
This Week’s Rambling: The Blood Is The Life
I found myself thinking about blood a lot recently. I’m sure that it has absolutely nothing to do with the numerous cuts and scrapes I’ve accumulated while moving things around.
Sidenote: Due to a history of superficial blood clots, I currently take one aspirin every morning along with my breakfast sized batch of medications. Add this to being generally clumsy and you have a recipe for a bunch of really annoying moments when you wonder why whatever you are holding has little red dots on it.
If you stop and think about it, blood is a fascinating addition to the human creature. As I was trying to insure that I had removed all of the shards of glass out of my fingertip (yeah, typing this is a real bitch), I was momentarily amazed at the thought that it was simultaneously cleaning the wound and preparing the clotting agents which would staunch the flow of the scarlet. The idea that this stuff was circulating all throughout my system was such that I had to sit down for a moment.
No, this had nothing to do with blood loss. It was a tiny cut, but one which was in an aggravating place.
Further rumination on this had me comparing old medicinal practices of blood letting and leech use to vampirism. What do you expect? I’m a horror guy. It seems like it would be natural to combine the two in some way…
…which seems like a pretty cool story idea. I already jotted it down.
I hope that no one thought of this already.