Gauthic Times: The Bill Gauthier Newsletter #127
Summer of Discontent
Hello, friends!
It’s been a wild week. School ended on Monday and I’ve been pretty busy since. Nothing compared to how busy I’ll be the coming weeks. I’ve written about it in today’s essay.
Welcome to the 127th installment of Gauthic Times, the newsletter about my writing, my life, and some thoughts about the coming summer.
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I wrote about 2,700 words in Project: Moons this week. I didn’t write Tuesday or Thursday nights and one day saw an output of only around 90 words but every little bit counts. The story (book?) is about 13,500 words now, or about 57 manuscript pages.
I submitted Project: Monster to another publisher. Now it’s a race to see who gets back to me on it, though I’ve already discounted three of the four places (two publishers, two agents) who have it since half of them have had the manuscript for over two years and another agent since fall of 2024. I have a good feeling about this publisher, though. Fingers crossed!
I worked on my Superman vs ICE drawing some more this week. I’m working on colors now. It’s a learning process.
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As a high school teacher, my school year is finally over and what a year it was! Longtime readers of this newsletter (or blog) know that this year has been a particularly rough one in several years of rough ones. The last week of school felt like a TV season finale with all the things that happened and with the questions that now remain. The surprises kept up right until we left for the summer. There’ll be meetings this summer because of course there will and an uncertain next year.
Another bit of fun this summer is moving my father. After living on the same street since 1973 and the same apartment since 1988, he’s moving into an apartment close to mine. This will be beneficial for him as well as for the rest of us. But there’s a lot of work and most of it falls on my shoulders. He’ll be moving in the first days of July and there’s a lot of things to take care of in the week leading up to it and even afterwards.
Where does that place my time for writing? I don’t know. Usually the summers are ten weeks of me pretending I’m a full-time writer. This year? Who knows? Since leaving school Monday I’ve written three days, with things getting in the way the other nights. As for what else? I’ve written about it elsewhere so we’ll move on.
The world seems to be on a brink. There’s another No Kings march planned for July 4th. I hope it goes well. I hope there’s no violence. So far, every one of these kinds of protests have gone fairly well. The temperature is climbing, though, and eventually...well, I hope I’m wrong. I hope the storyteller in me is conjuring bad scenarios.
Look, it’s not all bad. I get more time with my family, I get to help my father in a major, tangible way, and I’ll have some time to create. And that’s the real thing for me. Being able to create, to write, is what I really love. The book (I think it’s a book) I’m writing now is a piece I think I’ll do something different with and see how it goes. I want to get a little further into the book before I decide for sure, but I think my gut has already decided and needs my brain to catch up.
There are movies and books I’m looking forward to, as well. New movies like Superman and Fantastic Four and Stephen King’s new novel, Never Flinch, which I’ve only just begun, as well as a TBR pile (mountain?) that could take me years to catch up on.
(An aside: Does anyone else have an Apple Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad and find it lacking? For the amount of money this keyboard cost I feel like it doesn’t always pick up my finger hits. I may be selling this motherfucker and getting a different keyboard. One that click and clacks instead of just taps. Sorry for this aside.) (No I’m not).
If it seems like I’m being negative, trust me that it’s based on things I’m seeing and worrying about. Underneath it all, I’m ready to create, and that’s really where my heart is.
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This past week I finished the novel Wolf Land by Jonathan Janz. It’s brutal novel that’s tough at times but has a sense of humor and tons of heart. I’ve been aware of Janz for several years now and we’ve had some very pleasant backs-and-forth on social media. We seem to drink from the same dream rivers with things like Star Wars and Stephen King’s The Dark Tower and I felt this in the book. The best thing about this werewolf story is that it makes me want to read more of Janz’s work, something I’ll happily do.
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