Current Status: Bloggin

Welcome to my monthly update, where I bring you up to speed with some half-baked thoughts and general schemes, and point you towards some great content you might not have seen before. Let’s begin!

Thought I would write a post that was semi-coherent and sincere that reflected my intentions and intended trajectory with Substack. I would maybe look to write one of these once a month to keep myself honest and give myself a chance to ruminate on what I’m doing with the community I am hoping to build? Please with everything I do on here, help me grow by sharing some of what I’ve written or suggesting me to friends or especially people I’ve never met. Anyway, onto the blog!

Coming Up On Substack

Across the next 30 days or so, I’m hoping to publish:

• More words and definitions a la The Alternative Wordbook. I feel like as a regular ish piece of writing, these are quite pleasant to receive in an inbox. If I am wrong, let me know - maybe I should post them and only send out a summary for a few? The idea of a word a day that you get maybe once or twice a week is quite funny to me, which is helpful as I don’t think I could commit to writing one of these a day. Tell me what you think please..!

• Halloween Short Story - This is already scheduled and quite funny. Will be in inboxes at the end of the month for definite. I wrote it in an afternoon as part of a short story challenge when I guest appeared at my wife’s real writing group’s halloween night festivities. But it still made me laugh reading over it

• Imaginary Horror Film Recommendations - Would you like to read these? Funny made up film titles with nonsense synopses? I’ll give one or two a go and see what people think. I don’t have any firm ideas yet on this, but it could be a promising October trick AND treat. I’ll add some genuine recommendations below!

• Essays from the ‘Alternative Wordbook’ - the devil’s dictionary I wrote and kickstarted a while back. In it the semi-fictional author wrote an essay about each letter before delivering the words of that letter in that chapter. I published the introductory essay last week which quite ridiculously espoused potential letter ordering systems - the joke being the guy writing these takes things very seriously while obviously spouting nonsense. These subsequent letter essays were quite an undertaking but they are genuinely quite funny. Some of these I will put behind a paywall I think but it’s some writing I’ve done previously that I’m quite proud of that never found enough eyes to read them.

Any suggestions and thoughts about what I’m planning to write would be greatly appreciated (and I’m not just farming for interactions here, I’ve always heard about fostering online communities and I’ve never been able to do it, and I never know what I’m doing wrong!)

Writing

My main writing project just now is a memoir of Jimmy Whobblers. Who is Jimmy Whobblers? Okay maybe that’s worthy of his own blog. But basically, he’s a character of an old school comedian I’ve performed as at various stages of my comedy ‘career’, but in his latest iteration, was dead and performing as a hologram. I am finding it endlessly enjoyable dipping into his fictional life and having him, a dead unsuccessful comedian from a bygone age, relay his thoughts in his own words. But again, I don’t have enough of an audience for this as yet… I’d be interested if anyone had any ideas as to how I can do that so I don’t just give this away for free. But for now, there’s some funny stuff. Maybe I podcast it. Sell it direct as an audiobook? Why must I monetise everything. Speaking of…

Board Games

For anyone that’s not spoken to me in the last six months, I am currently working on my own board games. In effect, I am prototyping one of three games that I am looking to self fund and publish, and ultimately grow a business selling. I love board games, and the idea of making my own seems a logical step to me as I try to find some way to carve a career I enjoy and make my mark. This is partially why I am back on this content production treadmill, as I want to grow an audience who might be able to help me find people who would like board games I make. But, I hastily realised that I’m not going to attract a coherent group that want mailings about silly words and the intricacies of a roll-and-write game based on a fishing village near Fife (or maybe…?). So I’m likely to make a separate publication for writing about games and writing about making games and that whole, um, journey?

Comedy

So I’ve not performed since the Edinburgh Festival in 2019. I still haven’t technically excorcised my pandemic material and I feel like I’ve lost touched with that side of what I do and the scene. I might write a blog in future about my current situation, but I am tentatively exploring ideas for a fringe show next year once my children find their feet a bit (they are very young and the idea of gigging at night while I’m already exhausted from long days seems impossible). But know that is on the agenda and may strike at any moment. This writing is part of that attempt to whet my whistle.

an image of me

Here’s a picture of me as MidJourney imagines me to be, writing with my neck broken backwards, sad and alone. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with AI to accompany what I’ve written

Quick Recommendations

What am I playing? UFO 50. It’s a game collection from a fictional company of the 1980s by Spelunky dev and his pals. It’s great. I will definitely write something about it soon.

What have I watched? Banshees of Inshirin and Poor Things. We don’t get the chance to watch many films these days my wife and I, but we’ve managed two in a month.. and both threw us!

What have I been listening to? Ian Boldsworth’s Podcasts on Patreon. I’m an avid listener of podcasts, but jump around quite a bit. But throughout these years, I’ve subscribed and dipped in and out for some delightful episodes - but found myself really enjoying Very Hard Talk in which he and former comedy partner Jon Williams enter into a fictional current affairs discussion show and debate a hot topic. Ian pretends to be a Fiona Bruce type, right leaning ideologue that imagines they speak for the common people, and takes his left leaning guest to task at any opportunity. But Jon is likeable, intelligent and in on the joke. It works wonderfully.

*When will it stop? After this next paragraph

So that’s my current status as of October 2024. Please feedback if this is too much, or if you’d prefer I syphon of various parts of what I’m planning to write into different sections or something. And, I guess, strap in!