Tomorrow, off to Philadelphia....but not for PAXU. Catch me across the river at PhilCon!

Hey game narrative folks (and other folks who like game narrative)! This is a thing! A game jam, run by the IGDA Game Writers SIG and sponsored by the fine folks at Arcweave! (Who I met at GDC, and who are very cool!) It's tomorrow! You should be a part of it! itch.io/jam/game-wri...

Amazon has informed me that they will be getting back to me on my concerns...in five days. If I actually sold any books on amazon, this would be a problem. (shameless repeated plug for my online store, etc. etc. etc.)

I am having a serious discussion with someone about the band Icehouse. I am in a very dark place.

Amazon has summarily terminated my KDP account for made-up reasons. This means my KDP titles, Vaporware & Firefly Rain & Snowbird Gothic, are no longer available through Amazon. But, if you want 'em, you can still get 'em from my online store (and I'll sign 'em): richard-dansky-books.square.site

Honest to God, when I heard failed cop and conspiracy doofus Clay Higgins' name pop up in relation to the Epstein files vote, my only thought was "That asshole again?"

Morning business call went great, afternoon business call went less great, still got two more calls today, plus a deliverable to work on. Onward!

I turned off the super fancy "Smart" features in Gmail that let it feed my stuff to train its AI. It is less usable now, and more cluttered, and I have spent at least an hour this morning unsubscribing from various email lists. No regrets.

Some thoughts on Christmas music, from a guy who as a 15 year old Jewish kid once played Santa at a bunch of holiday parties in South Philly. www.patreon.com/posts/on-chr...

ICE is in Raleigh. Fuck those people. I want their time in my area to be as short and as unpleasant as humanly possible. As such, I am considering buying them all NC State football tickets. But seriously, fuck ICE in the ear.

There are definitely days when I feel like a frilled lizard. Or perhaps a sarcastic fringemouth.

Just did a lovely podcast interview focusing largely on the differences between writing TTRPGs and video games. More details when I have them!

....just sitting here waiting for them to bring Nic Cage into the Star Wars universe with THE MANDYLORIAN....

I just got a letter from someone with a return address that is, I shit you not, on John Galt Drive. Oh my goodness, do YOU have the wrong name on your mailing list...

This is now available for pre-order, and it contains my workplace horror story “Scheduling Issues”. I am apparently not allowed to have a day without stuff, it seems. But it’s cool. It’s very cool. www.amazon.com/dp/B0G2FM82LC

I am literally in a bar in Baltimore, Jack. Yes, I know that’s combining two verses. Work with me.

Talk went great, packed room, fantastic audience asking great questions. Fun followup with a herd of game writers after. Bonus points to the dad of one of the attendees, who was there to support his daughter but also to have a Vampire: the Masquerade fan moment :-)

Downtown Baltimore is filled with lamppost banners that read “VISIT BALTIMORE!” Which you can only see if you are already visiting Baltimore. *cue Inception BWAAAAH noise*

In hindsight, maybe shlepping the giant heavy box of books to the conference from my hotel by hand was a poor decision.

If a guy is punching you for no reason and then he announces he is going to stop punching you, he does not get to claim credit for the fact that you are no longer getting punched. In other news, Marmalade Caligula is dropping some of his illegally imposed tariffs on food.

It is not yet 9:15 and I have already had to stick a fork into a toaster. Onward, I suppose…

Baltimore. I am in you. I have not yet been lightly dusted with Old Bay. Someone is falling down on the job.

I know DC did not invent the “We must now have a ten mile stretch of stop and go highway traffic for no discernible reason”, but fuck me if they didn’t perfect it.

I hate, in no particular order: The DC street map DC drivers My demonically possessed GPS

Stopped for lunch on my drive up to Baltimore and the stereo in the restaurant played “All I Want For Christmas Is You” and “Let It Go” back to back. Deeply disappointed they didn’t follow that up with “Last Christmas” so I could make bank on the trifecta.

Happy to announce that my story "Open For Business", which is about the need for a general store even after an indeterminate apocalypse, has gone live over at Forgotten Frequency. There may or may not be a major plot point hinging on Moon Pies. www.buzzsprout.com/2545198/epis...

A while back, I dropped my subscription to The Athletic. This was disappointing, as I think they do a lot of good journalism of there, they have some excellent writers, and they support long-form journalism in a space where it's largely dead. But, they're owned by the New York Times. So I did it.

Just finished breaking down 40+ boxes that have been in my attic for probably 15 years minimum and dropped them off at the dump. I look like PigPen from Peanuts. I need a drink.

“White House Weighs Domestic Travel and Speeches To Improve Standing on the Economy” -CNN Or you could, I don’t know, maybe stop actively fucking the economy? Have you thought of trying that? No? Didn’t think so.

I did indeed get to intone the ritual words "Fuck you, Annie Dillard" tonight as I typed THE END on my story.

Started writing a new holiday-themed short story today that I am pretty sure will get me murdered in the parking lot of the bar I am going to read it at.

This is your irregular reminder that a great many things in the Steele Dossier have been confirmed and, despite some bloviating in certain quarters, precisely none of them have been conclusively disproven.

God help me. I just asked permission to join a My Little Pony group on FaceBook. Am now having flashbacks to the unofficial MLP convention I was a +1 at in Charlotte, many years ago. Things happened then. God help me.

Old man yelling at cloud here, but I really miss the days when reading comprehension was considered important.

Hey some good news y'all! I'm speaking at Future Fest Connect next year in Durham, NC! Thanks again to @rdansky.bsky.social for the invite to speak at the conference! www.futurefestconnect.com/tanyadepass

That comment from Elongated Muskrat about gangs of a thousand men attacking peaceful Shire-like villages in England is just evidence he has temporarily stopped jerking off into mid-period Heinlein novels and moved on to jerking off into the Lord of the Rings.

This is a terrible silhouette of Bigfoot. Who drew this thing, Rob Liefeld? (If you know, you know)

The moment when you realize that, not only is your main character smarter than you, but also that they know stuff you don't and they've had a solution for that no-win situation you put them in waiting in their back pocket all along and my God, who the hell is actually writing this book anyway?

Tonight's key phrase: "I did not anticipate an entire tub full of spiders."

Me. Talking about a book. That is not the most recent book. Though the most recent book is awesome and you should buy it and read it and buy it for all your friends and definitely your producers and possibly studio management. But this is about a different book. www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

I'll be writing the intro fiction for this cool new TTRPG of Arthurian gangster awesomeness. There's a couple of days left to back it, which you totally should! gamefound.com/en/projects/...

FREE STUFF FREE STUFF FREE STUFF Email [email protected] to get a code for a free download of the audiobook of my modern non-traditional ghost story GHOST OF A MARRIAGE. Did I mention it's FREE? Of course I did. But it's FREE!

Drove past a van from a company called ECONOMY EXTERMINATORS and my first thought was yes, Trump and company certainly are doing their best at that.

Just got an online bookstore email that read "Based on your interest in Thomas Ligotti, you may find these other authors interesting!" The list consisted of two names: Stephen King and Joe Hill. Bless their hearts for trying, and nothing against the immensely talented Messrs King and Hill, but...

Today is the day I must confront...cleaning and reorganizing the shed. .... Gotta be some writing projects I can do. instead, right? RIGHT?

In hindsight, I am pretty sure I did not win the Bigfoot-themed ouija board that was being raffled off at the Whitehall Sasquatch Festival back in September.

Reunion after many years…

I have arrived at MythicCon in Charlotte in order to surprise beloved World of Darkness author Nicky Rea. Don’t tell her I’m here. Like I said, it’s a surprise.

About to hit the road for a last-minute day trip of mysterious provenance. More details later!

Late afternoon view out over the Cape Fear River atop the Raven Rock cliff face.