So right off the bat, I’ll tell you that if you want to actually know why I think Moby-Dick is a cosmic horror novel (it isn’t, but I’m crazy), you can start off by just heading over to Before We Go Blog to read the words that I wrote about it there.

I had a lot of fun writing that, and am grateful to Elizabeth Tabler (who you can find on Twitter and at Grimdark Magazine) for the opportunity to do so. It’s the kind of nonsense that’s in my head all the time, and you’ll likely be able to see some parallels to my still-unnamed novel manuscript that I’m finishing up this year.

Yes, I’m taking the last two months of 2022 to attempt to finish several short stories that have been in the hopper longer than they should have been (mostly for anthology calls), then finally get back to finishing the manuscript. I hope to start shopping it to agents at some point in early(ish?) 2023 after a thorough round of edits and updates. Fingers crossed. If all goes as planned, I’ll have it out to a handful of beta readers (to whom I will owe endless thanks) within the first few months of the new year, and hopefully get some good feedback for any further changes that need to be made.

The reason I have this newfound time is that I have, after a year and a half, moved on from Screen Rant’s editorial staff. I had an absolutely wonderful run there, and the people I worked with are some of the loveliest coworkers I’ve ever had. I’m sad that it had to come to an end, but that’s the nature of negotiating contract work and weighing the worth of your time and skill. Some ongoing medical frustrations have also been a contributing factor, which leaves me with a wife-approved sabbatical of a couple months to enjoy the holidays, get back on my feet, start looking for new work, and get back to making the novel I have long codenamed UPHEAVAL into the traumatic religious nightmare that I know it can be.

You may have already seen that the Published Work for Michael J. Riser page here on Bookruptcy is now updated with a couple new publications and a host of new art. I’ve worked hard to try and get some new art on the site as well (AI-generated and created myself for now, though I look forward to being able to pay real artists for better covers and site graphics eventually), updating its look to reflect where things are headed. Really, the site probably needs a much larger overhaul and maybe an entirely new backend, but this is a start.

So keep your eyes here and on the ol’ Michael J. Riser Twitter for more to come this year (at least until Elon completely destroys both it and his $44 billion investment). If I can get my act together—uh, honestly probably more than a tad unlikely—I may even finally get around to doing something with that bloody TikTok account too. We’ll see.

Until next time, everyone. Stay spooky!