End of Dark Windows

I'm calling it quits for a while.  That's the short version.  A few thoughts:

I reached my goal of sending out 80,000 words of my work for free.  I got maybe 3 comments as a result, so I'm pulling out my hair trying to find something -- anything -- that gets noticed online.  But it has never been clearer that we're tiny fish in an ocean of stuff.  Shouting in the wake of sharks.  People have said that you have to just sign on to a thousand websites and just keep posting posting posting posting posting things.  And what?  Still no guarantee of anything, other than the time lost.  There would be no time left for life, or new work, or important work.

So, I'm taking a break.  I need to get new things written & done.  I'd like to put all 40 issues into a printed volume, I'm shopping it around.  In the meantime, there are PDFs of #1-20 available.  I may revisit Dark Windows a bit later on, since things tend to travel in circles in the creative world.

I'm also wrapping up "The Book of Tentacles" anthology, which is full of fun stories, and coming in June from SamsDotPublishing.com.  I think you'll get a kick out of it.

Thanks for reading & listening.  Cheers.

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2024 note: this was the intro to my newsletter Dark Windows #40, but since that since has been gone for years, I have added it to the flow of this blog.

Channel flipping, or something else?

It doesn't take much channel flipping to reinforce just how lame most supposedly factual TV shows are.

Late last night there was an episode of "The Universe" which was factually correct, but essentially just a narration on top of an endless series of graphics of whirling galaxies and zooming nebulae which were rarely related to the words actually being spoken.  The production process seems to have been: we're talking about galaxies, show some cool galaxy, cue a little whooshing sound ... oh, he mentioned a star, we have a picture of stars, right? can you make them move around a little?

Just now, the "Ghost Hunters" found nothing again.  Though they make a good case for how suggestible most people are.  Flip, flip.  And there were the "UFO Hunters" with their usual argument of: some guy says he saw X, something else might be Y; X and Y sometimes show up in the same sentence, therefore we've proven all kinds of crazy things, and you're a fool for not believing it.  This time it was a deformed skull.  It couldn't be the skull of a poor human with a deformity, no, it has to be an alien-human hybrid.  Instead of going to a forensic facial reconstruction guy, they go to a Hollywood special effects guy who makes the face look like a character from Alien Nation.

Frankly, it's getting to where the travel shows have more useful info than the history shows.  The so-called History Channel is full of junk like Ax Men and Gangland.  I suppose that if someone's log truck rolls over or someone gets shot, it's "history."  At least it was fun hearing about the Ax Men being busted for illegal river logging.  And "Stealing Lincoln's Body" was interesting even if it did drag on for two hours.

Sorry, I forgot it's all just a vessel for advertising!  April Fool's, I guess ...

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2024 note: this was the intro to my newsletter Dark Windows #39, but since that since has been gone for years, I have added it to the flow of this blog.

Also, the "History" Channel has only gotten worse. Ancient Aliens is on season fracking 20.