What’s Behind / What’s Ahead…
After a long hibernation, Spring is here... at least in theory. Things seem to be starting to move. I think all of us are second guessing ourselves a bit — after all, the past year has been a reminder of just how tenuous our plans are.
So for this month's update, I wanted to look backwards a little, and talk about what I have in the works for the future.
Over 2020 I had to let a lot of plans go. I let writing go, or more accurately it left me. I put 4 years of research and writing about David Bowie, Yukio Mishima and Hunter S. Thompson behind me. What attention I've had moved entirely back towards music, and "gaming".
In July I was just fiddling around with a couple riffs after 8 years away from music production, now almost a year later, there's a full demo that I think is showing a lot of promise. The flow of time has been so strange. As the saying goes, "it feels like only yesterday". But really though. I hope to have Tomorrow's Forgotten Relics released by 2022, and I'll talk more about that project in the lead up to its release I'm sure — but in the meantime you can listen to the demos here. This album has mostly written itself, honestly. I've just been along for the ride, and it's been a trip.
The observations I made on this list about roleplaying games shortly after moving to Philly ring even more true to me today — it's an intersection point between several of my interests, and can be an exciting way to develop characters and setting for subsequent fiction work. It's increasingly where I've been putting my time and attention. I've been running and playing RPGs since the late 80s, so this is hardly a new interest. But it's taken on a new focus.
The first Fallen Cycle RPG — which began in Hong Kong in 2054 — is nearing a close. We are now 20 sessions and literally hundreds of pages of notes in, and a second based in 2035 — briefly after the second US Civil War — is in development now. I'm particularly excited about that, as I'll get to play a character from Party At The World's End at a later stage in their lives. I intend to approach that text as an unreliable narrator, of course. As are all narrators, to one degree or another.
Throughout all that, the time didn't feel right to complete Tales From When I Had A Face beyond the mockup. I'm sure many of you know by now just how long this illustrated novel has been in development. A long time. I knew what it'll take to carry it the rest of the way... the time wasn't right. And the publishers weren't biting.
Then, something started to shift. I don't know if it's getting vaccinated or just the onset of spring, but I've felt a renewed sense of energy in this direction lately. It's a little bit a matter of faith, as I'm also, day to day, often hardly much beyond getting out of bed and going through the motions of keeping the body alive. Rebuilding a routine at the gym and catching up on the year of health appointments I've put aside will be a far less glamorous but equally necessary part of getting production back on track. As I've said before, continuing to work through the ruptures that are happening in society on the daily now is a sort of act of faith.
So, yeah, here's the point of all this pre-amble. This summer, I'm pulling the trigger: we'll be running a Crowdfund campaign so we can complete production and release a first edition of this thing. Peter Emerson Williams, who graced Tales with his pencils and regular creative input, will be running the campaign.
There will be many details forthcoming, and this also means I'm going to be on about this project 24-7 for a while -- both out of my enthusiasm, and also simple necessity. That's what this list is for, and yet I still feel the need to apologize. I don't like the Telethon vibe of Crowdfunding. I just want to "do the work". But to do the work we need a budget to produce the work, and so here we are.
I'll be recording a number of talks about the process and probably quite a bit about what developing a multi-person indie project is really like. Some of the hurdles faced -- chronic illness, homelessness at various points for almost half the team, etc. I'll be talking about the process of creating a unique mythology, and what my thinking is where it comes to being inspired by the art, myths and cultures of the past while striving to not speak *for* them.
If there's enough interest, I might do an AMA or two, but while the campaign is running, feel free to send questions my way so long as you don't mind having them posted in the channel. It helps me to have specific questions, things to respond to. Otherwise it'll be entirely a product of my own circuitous reasoning.
There may be other big news by Summer, as I'm in early development on an NDA'd sekret project, and have been having a number of talks with other groups of artists/musicians/writers/filmographers/dancers new and old about future work.
I can also share this little development: I've mentioned before that Equanimous Rex delivered the first draft of the second season of The Witchdoctor a little while back. (To the people that keep asking me, yes, he's a real person, and no, that's not his given name). I am happy to report we've since decided to set a goal of having it ready to launch simultaneously with the Tales Kickstarter.
We are working through the editorial now, before we get to voice recording. I'm starting to develop early ideas for the soundtrack, and gather source material and tracks from collaborators to that effect. (P. Emerson Williams will likely be a regular there, yet again). So that's also in motion.
I hope this is all cause for excitement for some of you. It's been a hard year, and these are very tall hills to climb. But I'm optimistic we have a shot -- especially if we aren't climbing it alone. Telling your friends and asking questions are equally valid ways to get involved as donating when the campaign is underway. But I can tell you there are going to be some really cool perks. Even the pins are works of art.
One final announcement, for now: Modern Mythology contributor releases were at a trickle last year, but we have just put out an article on a topic that should be on all our minds this year: how the illusion of consensus was always a power play, and what to do now that it has shattered. There are several others in the pipeline from the same author.
Alright. I need to keep knocking off the rust and getting my groove back, but I'm excited about what's coming. So keep tuned, and check out what we've already done on FallenCycle.com as we dig into the next wave of releases.
See you there.
JC
