The Long Goodbye (I Quit Twitter)

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A little over a month back, I quit Twitter. It had been some months in the making.

I’m not highlighting this to unleash a lengthy rant or decry Twitter’s owner, Elon Musk. You can find those hard-hitting personal essays anywhere. I’m noting this because if you’ve been looking for me on Twitter (or wondering why I’ve been missing), it’s because I terminated my account. 

I’m still around on Discord, Instagram, and at my personal site. While Twitter had been slipping for quite a while, what ultimately drove a stake through my interest in doom-scrolling was when my Substack links and links to my personal website stopped working. At first, it was just Substack, and while I wasn’t happy about it, I was willing to wait it out until Twitter rolled back a rather dumb decision. But then my personal site links broke. 

I was left with no choice but to presume that Elon really hated my writing. First my Substack links wouldn’t work, and then my personal site links broke? It could have been a coincidence, sure, but it’s easier to assume that Elon recoils and seethes at the mention of Night Sky, a story of mine that I believe is an absolute banger (you should read it). 

As mentioned earlier, it’s been over a month. And I don’t feel bad about it. I don’t miss Twitter. I may no longer be hip on pop culture news, but life only improved when I ditched the bird app.

Finding the Groove in Gaps

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It’s been a weird month. I just opened up my writing log for only the second time this month. Today, it is May 31, 2023. The last time I entered anything into my log, it was May 1st. In between my last writing session and now, my wife and I suffered a loss in the family. We also hopped on an international flight and took a two-week trip throughout Germany and into Poland. It’s been a few days since our return, and we’re just not finally settling into old grooves. 

I despise long gaps between writing sessions. Even if I only chip away with a few hundred words here or there, the consistency makes me feel accomplished. It reinvigorates my spirit and feels as if life flows through my veins, fingertips, and breath. This has been the longest gap in quite a while, but it’s been a gap overwhelmed with emotion — stress, pain, anguish, love, connection, and self-reflection. 

My wife and I have experienced utter exhaustion and grief, as well as jollity and that epiphanic sensation that comes with discovering something new about yourself. The gap brought us closer together — to each other, as well as with our family. 

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Project Bellamy: My Next Work-in-Progress

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Never would I have thought that my to-read book stack would be loaded with nonfiction accounts of both The Golden Age of Piracy and the Age of Exploration.

My fascination with these eras began a few years back, when a friend gifted me a thrilling read called The Republic of Pirates. It’s a captivating tale that weaves in the histories of famous pirates like Blackbeard, Black Sam Bellamy, and so many others, telling their stories to the backdrop of this surge of piracy and the formation of a literal pirate island in the early 1700s. I won’t go too far down the rabbit hole, but it was easily one of the most gripping nonfiction books I have ever read, and it created a complex, rich, and complicated understanding of the many different types of pirates who existed in that era.

Fast-forward a couple of years and another of couple pirate books later, and my wife and I are at a maritime museum in San Diego. The big draw of this museum is the collection of ships from WWII and later, but I’m hung up on maps and accounts from the Age of Exploration. The peril. The danger. The toll that life at sea took every single day and the fabled promises of riches that kept explorers going.

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Happy New Year!

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Happy New Year, friends!

Whatever you’re working on, I wish you the best.

Here’s to a year of growth, rejuvenation, inspiration, and creating what we want to see in the world.

Here’s to our dreams, our fixations, and our desires to be more than we are. Here’s to manifesting something that doesn’t yet exist, to creating a work of passion and beauty and releasing it out into the wild.

Whatever you’ve got cooking, I hope it brings you joy, happiness, and wonder.

We’re all in this together,

Scott

Short Story: “The Corpse Door”

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The following is “The Corpse Door,” a short story I submitted for a 50th anniversary collection celebrating Kolchak: The Night Stalker. This story made it all the way to the finals, but alas, it wasn’t accepted for publication. You win some, you lose some. I highly encourage you check out the Kolchak: The Night Stalker – 50th Anniversary Graphic Novel. Look for updates on its release and where to purchase both the regular edition and the deluxe edition.

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Down a Rabbit Hole

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Over the past few months, I’ve been hoarding photos taken from various locales because I had every intention to tell you all about it. I wasn’t necessarily going to suddenly switch formats and turn this site into a travel blog. Nay – my ambition was to share my love of travel, as well as explore the healing and inspiring aspects of adventure. Travel is a recharge that can teach us so much about the ideas and lessons that inform our stories and art. It can nurture us and encourage us to grow, and it’s one of my personal favorite ways to learn about people.

HOWEVER, a doorway to elsewhere opened, and I stepped through. Then I stumbled. Then plummeted.

 It wasn’t a bad fall. Rather, it is turning out to be its own adventure, albeit one that’s eaten up more time than I intended.

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New Interview With Movie Producer Michael Uslan

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I recently had the chance to interview one of my personal heroes. He’s a big supporter and nurturer of the comic book community, and during his college years, he bought the film rights to Batman. He spent the next decade trying to pitch what would ultimately become the first Batman film starring Michael Keaton.

Feel free to check out my interview with writer, professor, and movie producer Michael Uslan here.

For those who want to watch the video on Youtube, the video can be found here.

New Short Story: Night Sky

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It’s been a minute since my last update. I’ve had a busy couple of months over at TheBatmanUniverse.net and at work. As always, I’m continuously carving out time to work on my comic series and that next novel.

That said, a new short story of mine was just published this past month over at Drunk Monkeys. It’s called “Night Sky,” and it’s one of my personal favorite sci-fi pieces that I’ve written. I won’t gab too much, but I hope it is enjoyable and means as much to you as it does to me. In some ways, I feel like it’s something we can all relate to.

Read “Night Sky” here.

And don’t forget to check out the rest of the June Drunk Monkeys issue here. There’s a stellar lineup of writers, poets, and artists.

In other news, I’ve been busy with TheBatmanUniverse podcast. A couple of months ago, I interviewed The Carver Twins about their roles in The Batman, and this past month, I invited Pat Grimes of Wires Don’t Talk on to talk about the music of The Batman. As always, I continue to cohost the regular podcast, but these two featured episodes are part of a larger initiative to branch out and interview more creators involved with creating Batman comics, movies, etc.

As always, if you want to hear more of what I’m about to, I do have a monthly newsletter, and the new issue should be dropping in the next couple of days. Check out the last issue, and consider subscribing (it’s free).

On the Duality of *Just* Wanting to Write But Also Being Seen

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I’ve written previously about how there’s a part of me that is content with writing for an audience of one, that if nobody else ever reads any of my stories or if my manuscripts never get picked up, that I’ll be okay. It’s not the exposure, I tell myself, it’s the experience, the growth, and the overwhelming sense of accomplishment that comes with simply ordering and laying down words onto a page. And that’s partly true. 

I have a monthly newsletter where I talk about the craft of writing in a way that’s hopefully inspirational (you be the judge, dear reader), so I won’t wax all poetic about the craft of creating here. Rather, I’ll say something that might come across as totally unrelated but has inspired a newfound desire to be seen. 

Over the past several months, I’ve incorporated exercise and a healthier diet into my regular regimen. 

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Just Another Breakfast Sandwich Recipe

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There’s an old German bakery down in the Lakeview neighborhood in Chicago that my wife and I love to go to. They’ve got great cookies and pretzels, but there’s this breakfast sandwich they make that is incredible. It’s delicious. It’s addictive, and the flavors are perfect. If you’ve ever seen that Birds of Prey movie, biting into a Dinkel’s Bavarian Breakfast Sandwich is an experience akin to what Harley Quinn was raving about.

Unfortunately for my wife and I, we don’t live anywhere near Lakeview. Thus, the Bavarian Breakfast Sandwich is a once-in-a-while treat, when we have the time and energy to make the trek from Gilberts (yeah, it’s a real place way out in the ‘burbs) into the city. And on those days when we do manage to fit a visit to Dinkel’s in our weekend schedule, we sit there right outside, in the car, savoring every damn bite. 

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