Time stress, the wood wide web, bear hunts, & barbecue
This month's mixtape for your creativity and your curiosity
Hellooo Rabbit Fam,
A lot’s happened in the last few weeks so I’ll attempt to update you as well as I can. First thing I should say is that my 1.75 year old got a stuffie owl named Miss Hoots. She’s a librarian. Join me in welcoming her to the family.
Okay, for the actual updates.
Publishing has all sorts of superstitious rules about what I’m allowed to say about everything and I’m throwing them to the wind to say I’m on submission again! (This means it’s being read by editors at publishing houses to see if they wanna buy it.) I’ve talked about this one before. It’s a middle grade cozy, grounded fantasy set in Appalachia about a boy who inherits a magical house that’s falling apart and desperately needs to be fixed because the house is the source of his family’s unlimited money. The problem is, the house has locked his family out for hundreds of years and no one knows why. It’s Encanto + Arrested Development + Holes. I truly love this one so I’m excited to see it fly.
I’m starting idea development on my next project. I’m torn between three so I really need your help. You gotta lmk which one you think I should go after:
A Speilsburgian MG | Meet the Mitchells + Goonies | A small town turns into the epicenter of the apocalypse because it is the data center of an AI that goes awol. It siphons the power from the US, throwing the entire US into darkness and short-circuiting everyday life. A boy and his friends create a plan to take the data center down. There will be tons of bikes. Secret plans. And asthma.
The Princess of Ironbog | What if I told you there were pockets of land hidden in the faintest of glimmers? A crease in the air that could be chalked up to a speck of dust floating past your eye. A sparkle off the water that could be the sun. What if I told you that, in some of these creases, lie infamous “bog towns". Towns built with shadows and betrayal on unforgiving landscapes by the hardest of nerdowells, the most vile of cryptids, and magicians with evil intentions? Would you believe me? And what if I told you the princess of the closet thing a place like this could have to a king was kidnapped and brought to the real world and held at ransom? And then what if I told you that I saved her on accident the first time. Sorta. I mean, she saved me first but then I saved her a second time on purpose. Then she saved me two more times. Six if you count the iffy ones, which I don’t. Well, this is the story of how I, Mason Boltwiler, League of Legends champion of Holcombe County, saved one of the princess of Ironbog. Sorta.
Mushmechs | A middle grade graphic novel about a character my 9 YO came up with…a mushroom with a mech suit. He’s a renegade warrior helping out the various kingdoms (animal, fungi, plant, human). Because he’s a mushroom, he has a connection to the forest through my-fi, the giant network of roots and mycelium underground. In the first book, his family gets kidnapped by a troll and he sets out across the kingdom to save them, but first, he must battle his way throguh goblins, beat giant armadillos at bowling, solve semi-impossible riddles, and get past the legendary “chicken of eternal punishment”.
I have a new song coming out this Friday! It’s called Fidgeting. You can pre-save it here, which helps spotify think I’m a big deal. Expect an email on Friday about it.
The music experiment of 2025 is going well. I had a post on Instagram get close to 2M views. I hit 12k followers on TikTok! It’s all vanity metric milestones. These sorts of numbers don’t translate to much, but it’s still cool. I’m learning tons about modern digital marketing which I’ve needed to learn about for a while now.
Okay, that’s all for me, now it’s time for this month’s rabbit holes!
Rabbit Holes🐰🕳️
Reads
Time Stress | Quote
I ran into the idea of “time stress” the other day in an article about the attention economy. It’s not a fancy flashy concept; you get stressed when you don’t have time to do something. But what was new for me was the connecting time stress to the idea of consuming information and how it conflicts with the realities of life.
With an increased availability of information, individuals will increasingly feel that their time does not suffice to consume everything they desire...In support of this, several studies find that the experience of high time pressure is associated with depression and interpersonal conflicts both at work and at home…Further adding to this, Davenport and Beck suggest that ‘the psychobiological design of our attention allocation is such that we are in a wild, premodern environment’… It thus, appears that humans may not be well-adapted, biologically speaking, to the information rich world they have created, particularly when it comes to fulfilling the often monotonous tasks demanding large amounts of focused attention that are required of many of us every day to earn a living.
It was nice to read this because it put words to this...
I can’t consume the things I want with the time I have and sometimes it makes me feel stressed. So I’ve been trying to take the time to actually read through these tabs at night.
A Beautifully Designed Cryptid Collection
As someone constantly researching cryptids, most cryptid websites look like they were pulled from the early 1900s (or at least the early internet), but this ArcGIS collection is shockingly well-designed. It combines folklore, old plat maps, and historical images into a beautiful an interactive experience
Jonah Ships of the Great Lakes
I’ve been deep in the weeds of the Library of Congress archives and found some collections of Great Lakes folklore. A big portion of them are of interviews from sailors in 1940s. A few of them mentioned , "Jonah Ships" and I thought the concept was really fascinating.
I mean…"All the sailors know the Jonahs, and hate them like the devil hates holy water."
Delights of a bear hunt and barbeque
Again, deep in the weeds in JSTOR archives of the Journal of American folklore I found this delight of a sentance.
“Under such a load of discouragements it is not to be wondered at that the mountain "tarheel" gradually drifted into a condition of dreary indifference to all things sublunary but hog and hominy, or the delights of a bear hunt and barbecue.“
Amari and the Despicable Wonders by BB Alston
A good time. This whole series is great. It has a whimsy and tonal similarity to the Harry Potter books, which I loved, but they are a bit more commerical so at times it feels paced and voiced like a modern book verses feeling like a classic. Still, theyre a lot of fun and I got to read them along side the whole fam which added to the experience.
Impossible creatures
This one was also a fun world to be in. Filled with creatures and riddles and quests. It was less whimsical than Amari but, overall, felt like it explored the depth and tone of the story a bit more which made it feel more like a classic. I think that’s one of the issues with first person POV, which Amari is in, you REALLY get to know the main character, but you’re only ever seeing other characters through their eyes. This one is in third-person which, by design, feels grander in scope, which I think served the narrative and the world better.
Miscallany
Grandpa Aged Well | Laugh
Some people just never lose their main character energy. This side-by-side of a grandpa at 15 vs. 79 makes me rethink my getting old goals.
South of Midnight | Video game
I’m not playing it yet, but the second it’s out, you best believe I will. South of Midnight is a folklore-driven narrative adventure game set in the American South, that blends a haunting atmosphere with folklore and magic. Just freaking take my money.
Listens
Tim Ferris interviews author Brandon Sanderson
It’s a LOOONNNGG interview with lots of interesting tidbits like how he runs his business and whatnot. You may or may not want to know all of that, but you definately want to know this. When he said this and I said outloud “stop it. That’s not real. That can’t be real.”
Wake up: 12/1 PM
Workout: 1-2
Write: 2-6 PM
Family time: 6-10:30 PM
Write again: 11 PM-3 AM
Solo goof-off time: 4-5 AM 😱
Burn Out EP by Mini Trees
I’ve shared this one before but it’s back on my rotation as spring appears. Layered indie rock with smooth vox.
The Phosphorescent Blues | Punch Brothers
Again, spring is here. Long-time readers know that this one comes out with the buds on the trees. This is my quintessential spring into summer album.
Alright all, that’s all the rabbit holes for this month! I’ll see you on Friday when I announce my new song :D
Stay curious,
Dave