I finished my puzzle! Here are some photos of it in its final form.

It took about three weeks. 1,000 pieces was daunting, but it was all about focusing on one section of the image at a time. There’s a lesson there, I think. Writing a full-length novel (50,000 words or more) could probably benefit from a similar approach. Where a short story or even a novella can be thought up in one go, a novel has more sections and it’s less intimidating to tackle one 10-20,000-word section at a time, rather than trying to fit the whole, sprawling narrative into your brain at once. Food for thought if you're like me and still struggle writing anything over 40,000 words.

We finished watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy with our oldest. The ending to Return of the King is… not as bad as I remember? It’s not bad at all, actually. It was not nearly as long as people say, and it’s totally necessary for wrapping things up. As author and friend Judith Sonnet said, it’s a great way to say “goodbye” to these characters we’d just been through so much with. Remember, this was 2003, and not EVERY MOVIE WAS A MINIMUM OF TWO AND A HALF HOURS, so we didn't typically spend this much time with people on the screen. I’m not even a die-hard Tolkein fan, but these characters felt like friends.

Anyway, now we're onto The Hobbit. I’m less excited about those, but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

One final note on Tolkien. He composed much of the trilogy during the horrors of WWII and the movies came out while the U.S. was ramping up the War on Terror. Interesting parallel, to say the least.

Anyway, I realized I never gave my final thoughts on White Lotus. The second season was much more interesting than the first. It had something to say about the complexities of intimate relationships whereas the first season didn't say anything you couldn't hear from scrolling the socials for a few hours. That said, both seasons are visually impressive and feature solid performances. Not a bad show by any stretch, but it didn't exactly blow my mind either.

Now, Yellowjackets. God, this show is so up my alley. Because it's a show, it's got time to fully explore the drama and the horror in equal measure. Where a lot of modern horror either feels like a drama with horror shoehorned in or a horror film with drama shoehorned in, Yellowjackets sacrifices neither. It's a novel in television form, and my Make Your Own Damn Podcast co-host Jeff Burk brilliantly pointed out structural parallels between the show and Stephen King’s It (the novel, not the films). Season 2 can't get here soon enough.

Minion by L.A. Banks is a great read. The best part is it’s the first of a twelve-book series! Can’t wait to read the rest.

Banks unfortunately left us around the time I started getting serious about my writing. I never got to meet her, but I was friendly with folks who knew her pretty well. She was a writing machine in life, working under various pen names and creating books in multiple genres, including but not limited to African American literature, dark fantasy/horror, romance, and crime. Check out her Vampire Huntress Legend series if you haven’t.

Now, the primary reason for this week’s newsletter: I just got the cover for my latest book. Behold Snow Angels, coming to Godless on 2/3 and Amazon on 2/17 from D&T Publishing.

Thirty years ago, the town of Silver Lake left a bus full of ex-convicts to die in a snowstorm, and the legend of the Snow Angels was born. Now, the forecast is calling for a blizzard... and murder. The Snow Angels are back for revenge, and no one is safe—not unless a trio of paranormal podcasters and a few brave townspeople can stop them. 

Snow Angels is two-time Splatterpunk Award-nominated author Lucas Mangum's ode to classical supernatural horror and a novel about reckoning with the sins of the past.

"Lucas doesn’t just write stories. He creates a time and place where your mind lives for the duration of the story. He breathes life into characters you feel for, feel with, and develop opinions about. He draws you into horrors both realistic and unimaginable that steal your breath and clench your guts. He makes a what if your newest obsession and worst nightmare." - Bibliophilia Templum

My primary inspiration for that book, if it wasn’t obvious, is John Carpenter’s The Fog. It’s a true classic, maybe his best, and this is coming from someone who has seen and appreciates all his movies. I’m excited to share this book with you and to work with D&T for the first time. Keep an eye out for this one.

Thanks for being here. As always…

Most recent book: The Bleak Season and Other Stories

Most recent podcast: “Ghostwatch: The TV Special That Traumatized an Entire Nation”

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