Like the rest of the world, my wife and I have been holed up in our apartment since March 21st when the stay-at-home order in Illinois first went into effect.

Overall, we’ve been fine. We wear masks when we venture out into the greater Chicagoland area for groceries and supplies. We order food from local mom and pop restaurants we love, and I’ve been keeping my favorite comic book shop afloat by buying trades in bulk every week. My to-read pile right now is insane.

Plus, I work from home full-time now (and for the foreseeable future). Oddly enough, even though I don’t have to worry about a two-hour commute everyday, I find I’m working harder and longer than I ever did when I was in the office. Part of it is the nature of the Internet right now. Everybody is online more, and since I work for a digital publisher, site traffic and email engagement is through the roof! To add to this, I was promoted around the end of December / early January of this year. I’m now working more in the Marketing Analyst department, running our big-picture email subscriber campaigns. What this means is, I now answer to the marketing director and the president of the company, so I have to throw everything I have at our campaigns every week because I’ll be presenting on it before the powers that be. Frequently. It’s stressful but fun.

In other news, Illinois’ governor plans to extend our stay-at-home order through May 30th. The announcement just came out today, and while I have been busying myself with work, articles for TheBatmanUniverse.net, and finishing another round of editing for my WIP “Rocket & H.I. 97 Destroy Everyone,” I realized I hadn’t taken the time in the last couple of months to update this blog space.

First off, my apologies. I feel like a neglectful parent, and it’s not because I don’t like this blog or web space. The very act of writing on this platform brings me joy in a way that more conventional story-writing can’t. I can write more off-the-cuff and conversational on this platform. I don’t need to edit as intensively or beat myself up as much for sentences that don’t sound stellar on reread. It’s a terrific way to turn those creative gears and relieve stress. In a word, it embodies the idea of play, and play is what many of us need right now.

Some small things have happened in between the time I last wrote on this blog and now.

Since the major comic book distributor, Diamond Distribution, stopped shipping new comics to local retail stores, we’ve been at a loss for comic reviews at TheBatmanUniverse.net. I reread the recent Tom King-led run of Batman (in the ballpark of over 90 issues if you count the tie-ins and annuals) over a weekend and wrote an article covering the greatest moments. You can find my article “7 Greatest Moments in Tom King’s Batman Run” here.

It did very well on release day, and it even got a retweet from the comic scribe himself, which put me over the moon! It also boosted engagement tenfold.

There’s a companion piece to this article that’s been written and uploaded. I’m just waiting for it to be published by our editor-in-chief. It covers the 7 most cringe-worthy moments of Tom King’s Batman run, and I’m fearfully awaiting how the Internet will react to this. Comic fandom may hunt me — I have concerns.

[Update: “The 7 Most Cringe-Worthy Moments in Tom King’s Batman Run” is live. Find it here.]

I also started using my Medium handle (finally). I’ve uploaded one smaller, sillier piece I had in the catalog that I forgot about. You can find “My Cat is Secretly a Kaiju” here. It’s dumb, but I hope it brightens your day.

Other than that, I’ve entered the Mythic Picnic twitter story contest twice now. You can “vote” with likes for my latest entry here. It’s a terrific time, and I highly recommend submitting something. It’s quick, easy, and a great way to lift spirits if you’re feeling unproductive.

What are some ideas that have helped give you that kinetic drive and promote joy and happiness in your lives? I’d love to hear about them. You can tell me in the comments, or you can find me on Twitter @ScottWaldyn.

Also, I’ve been mulling over the idea of posting a “Top Picks” recommendation list for books, video games, movies, etc. that I’ve enjoyed while quarantined. I may or may not make this my next post. If you have an opinion on that one way or the other — either “I’d love to see them” or “For the love of GOD, DON’T!” — let me know!

Until next time…

We’re all in this together,
Scott