For now, I want the world to know that Patrick wasn’t just my captain or my castmate; he was my friend and mentor. He made me a better actor, just by being in scenes with me. He never treated me like I was a kid; he always treated me like I was an equal, a fellow artist, at a time when I wasn’t mature enough to understand how precious that was.

I haven’t seen Patrick in a long time, our lives and schedules being what they are, but I thought about him almost every day. He rarely posted in our group chat, but when he did, it always made me smile. He always texted me back when I reached out to him directly, no matter what it was about, and he always — always — made me feel special.

I wish I really were a Traveler of all of space and time, so I could go to him, one final time, and tell him how much he means to me. I think he knew, but still.

There is so much more to say, and it’s going to take me some time to say it. Until then, I loved him, the same way I love the rest of the space family we shared. May his memory be a blessing.

So about two years ago, when Reza (who writes and draws the comic) partnered with YouTooz to make a Mouse plushie, I smashed that pre-order button so hard it left a dent on the screen.

About a year ago, someone from YouTooz reached out and asked if I wanted to make a little plushie of my own with them. Of course I said yes, and immediately got to work spitballing what it would look like. I eventually settled on Bedhead, a coffee mug, my octopus tattoo, and a black t-shirt with a design that celebrates my allyship, my love of tabletop gaming, and being punk as fuck.

Here’s what he looks like:

Isn’t he adorable? His little coffee mug is attached with velcro, so you can take it off and replace it with whatever you like, limited only by your imagination and the laws of physics.

I’m from the Star Wars figure generation. Getting an action figure of myself when I was a teenager was a really big deal for me. When Funko did a Wesley Crusher, I just about lost my mind. So getting a little plushie dude who is such a fantastic representation of me is also exciting and a whole lot of fun. My sample has been hanging out with Mouse in the bookcase, and they are very happy together.

YouTooz is taking orders for the next 26 days, and it’ll ship early next year.

Hi, I’m Wil and this is my blog. I actually write meaningful things here more often than I promote things here. If you want to get my posts delivered to your inbox, here is the thingy:

At the beginning of the show, I asked the audience how many of them were subscribed to my podcast, and only four or five people raised their hands, out of about 60 people in the room. As a podcaster, I would love for that number to be, like, ten times that, but as a guy who wondered if anyone would show up to watch him read a Victorian horror story, I was thrilled.

I know that it’s a big ask to come see me read a story that’s over 150 years old, especially if you don’t know me as a reader and storyteller, so the fact that all these people showed up for me, well … that’s really cool.

I told them at the top of the show that I genuinely did not know how it was going to go, that they could be at the very beginning of something I do for a long time, or they could be at the opening night and closing performance of a very bad idea. Either way, I promised, it would be a memorable experience.

Friends, can I tell you how wonderfully surprising it was to feel the entire house connected to me and the story for the entire time? This is a dense story, the writing is challenging, and I knew I had a lot of work to do, to bring it to a contemporary audience in a way that was accessible while remaining true to the material. I was just overjoyed to feel the audience was with me the entire way, a lot of them connected enough to laugh at the very subtle, very dry humor that shows up briefly in the third act.

As a proof of concept, as an answer to the question, “Will an audience show up for me, and can I entertain that audience with a story?” This was an unmitigated success. I am definitely going to do this again, with a modern story from a contemporary writer.

While everything inside the house went well, I did have a complete technical failure on my stream to Patreon, and I still don’t know why. With about 20 minutes left in the reading, my laptop just went to sleep for no obvious reason, and it took the livestream down with it. I couldn’t exactly stop in the middle of the show to troubleshoot it, so if you were watching, I am so sorry it shit the bed. As a fun bonus for me, the local recording failed right alongside the remote recording, too.

So that sucked, and the next time I attempt to livestream something like this, I’m going to get someone else to handle all of it for me, so this doesn’t happen again.

Finally, on a very personal note, this entire experience was deeply meaningful to me. From the moment I had the idea to do a live show like this, all the way through doing the entire show, I never once doubted myself, felt like an imposter, heard Carrie’s mom screaming “they’re all gonna laugh at you!” or anything like that. I felt excited to get up in front of an audience, and entertain them for about an hour. I felt excited to do this thing that I sincerely and genuinely feel good about, this thing that I absolutely own as an artist, this thing that I have worked hard to master, that I believe I am pretty good at doing.

It’s always been a challenge for me to embrace the joy and or have any sense of deep satisfaction in my creative work, but all the work I’ve done to overcome and heal so much trauma seems to be working, and I have time and space to feel confident and secure in my creative self.

For maybe the first time, ever, I don’t feel like I need to make myself small, or beg for permission to make the art I care about, and if that feeling persists … well, I am so excited to let it fill my cup until it overflows with creative ideas. Maybe I’ll even find my own story to write in there, somewhere.

Hi, I’m Wil. I’m so happy that you’re here. This is my blog. I host It’s Storytime With Wil Wheaton. If you’d like to have my posts delivered directly to your inbox, here is the thingy:

I’ve been sleeping in the guest room for a week or so, so Anne doesn’t have to deal with me tossing and turning and all the rest, so instead of rolling over and saying good morning, I stagger into the living room and say good morning.

Over the weekend, I walked out, saw Anne, and before I could say anything she said, “Did you see it?”

Friends, there is only one “it” I want to see when I wake up, and it’s the same thing we all want.

“What? Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“No, no, not that,” she said. “Sorry. It’s not that.”

“Dude, you can’t do that to me. My heart can’t take it.” I weighed out my coffee beans. While I poured them into the grinder, she said, “Stephen King posted on Threads that he and Simon and Schuster are putting your narration of The Body up for Grammy consideration!”

That just about knocked me off my feet. “What?”

She repeated herself. “Open up Threads and look.”

“I can’t! I’m not looking at the Internet for 30 minutes after I wake up.” I reached into the cabinet and pulled out a coffee mug.

She tapped on her phone a few times and hurried over to me while I dumped the ground coffee into my Aeropress, and poured some water over it to start a bloom.

“Look!”

“Okay, that is pretty awesome,” I said. I stirred the damp grounds, then saturated them and let bloom finish. I filled the tube the rest of the way and put the plunger in with a satisfying hiss.

“I’m so proud of you!” Anne said. I pushed the plunger down, silently cursed that I always get some out of the sides and onto the counter, and was quiet until I was done. I set it aside and sipped my coffee.

I thought for a moment. I never cared about awards, and the few times I won, I always felt like a fraud, like someone felt sorry for me, or it was just about publicity, or a dumb popularity contest. It wasn’t about acknowledging and honoring art that I made¹. “I want the work to speak for itself,” I always said, and I meant it. But I never let anyone know that there was a very small part of me, tucked safely away from everyone (including me, sometimes) who held out some hope that, maybe, if it were an Oscar … but that voice was always drowned out by another that said since that is never going to happen, just fucking forget it, man.

So I did. What initially started out as caring so much I had to insist I didn’t care, actually became sincerely not caring. Just do the work and don’t expect any external validation for it. It’s the work, itself, that matters².

“Is everything okay?”

I realized that I had been quiet, staring at my reflection in the black liquid.

“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine. I was just thinking … all those times I was nominated for stuff when I was younger, none of that work was mine, right? I wasn’t being recognized for art I created because that art was important to me; I was desperately trying to earn a place in my family by doing what I was told I had to do. I guess I felt like any attention or accolade was negative reinforcement for my mom, you know?

“All that time, whenever I worked really hard and earned literally anything, my mother jumped in to claim as much of it as she could for herself. When something cool happened because I worked really hard to make it happen, my dad never cared. I always felt stupid for caring, so I stopped caring. You can’t be disappointed that you didn’t win, or that your parents are still dogshit when you did win, if you don’t care.” I did that tapping the head meme thing.

“Yeah, I get that. I’m still really proud of you, though.”

I sipped more coffee.

“Thank you.” I closed my eyes, furrowed my brow, and rubbed my free hand across my forehead, into my bedhead. I noticed something unexpected.

“I think … I think that I am proud of me, too,” I ventured.

“Good! You should be!”

I rubbed sleep out of the corner of my left eye. “I think that this feels different because –” I held up a hand, “wait. First of all, I’m not going to win this. And I’m probably not even going to be nominated,”

“Dude, why ar–” she looked disappointed.

“Hang on. I hear you. I’m getting there, but that’s just part of why I think I feel this way.

“This time is different, and I feel genuinely happy and proud of myself, because I know that I did good work when I narrated The Body. Gabrielle and I both knew it when we were recording. It’s like the way I knew Stand By Me was going to be special when we were making it.” I blew across the top of my mug.

“The narration feels like that work, that art, is mine in a way that most of my other work is not. I feel like my performance in this narration is special, that it’s something only I could do, and I absolutely own that. That’s really enough.”

Anne smiled and I took a deep breath.

“It’s so unlikely I receive a nomination, just because of math and all the tremendously talented narrators who have probably been nominated before, who will also be considered. But I’m not minimizing this very cool thing that Stephen King posted, at all. That post means that the publisher, and Stephen King himself, feel the same way about my narration as I do. They at least feel like nobody is going to laugh at us because I’m clearly not qualified to be White House Press Secretary, like and such as.”

We giggled together.

“Five days!” She sad.

“It’s the funniest thing, ever,” I agreed. “These fucking dorks, I swear.”

More giggles.

“Anyway,” I continued, “I’ve known about this for all of five minutes, so I’m going to take the day to process it. No matter what, I’m going to allow myself to feel good about this, because it is a genuinely cool thing on its own. I am sincerely proud of myself.”

She hugged me. “You totally deserve this. I’m so proud of you.”

“Thank you. I am proud of me too. I just need some time to get used to that, and not feel weird about it.”

A few hours later, I was out for a walk, thinking about all of this, and I had a moment that was similar to the first time I heard the birds singing. I noticed that I felt genuinely and safely proud of myself, excited to do more work like this, confident and secure in myself as an artist.

There is this thing happening in me that has been slowly going on for a few months. I feel like I’m getting to really know myself, especially my artistic self, in a way I never tried to before. All my therapy and CPTSD recovery work has helped me set aside and walk away from all these ways I made myself small so my parents and brother could feel big, all the choices I made to deny who I truly was, not only as an artist but as a person, in a futile effort to earn the kind of affection, support, stability, and love that all kids should get from our parents because we exist³.

As I’ve gotten to know myself, as I have recovered from so much pain and complex trauma, just working so hard to get from always feeling angry to just feeling sad, I have embraced the weird theater kid, who loves to tell stories, I have always been. I found the courage to retire from on-camera acting, which I never wanted to do in the first place, without throwing out the skills I developed when I was doing it. I’m a good narrator because I understand story, I understand character arcs, I know how to break down a whole story, how to break down a scene, how to create and maintain unique and interesting characters for 24 hours of narration. I did that. I put in the hours and the energy and worked as hard as I could to do the best performances possible, to get to this place where I can actually feel proud of myself. It’s a new thing to feel confident, to feel like I can hold my own with the people who earn nominations and get awards, because this is what I want to do with my creative life, this is my art, this is something I made for myself that makes my heart sing⁴.

When I got home, I found Anne and wrapped my arms around her. We hugged tightly and I told her what I’d thought about during my walk.

“I get all of that,” she said, “and I’m really happy for you.”

“Thanks, I’m happy for me, too!”

It was so weird to say that, and know that it was the truth.

Hi, I’m Wil. I narrate audiobooks (you probably figured that out) and I write this blog. I’m on Threads and Instagram as @itswilwheaton. I host a podcast, It’s Storytime With Wil Wheaton, where I narrate short, speculative fiction. New episodes drop Wednesdays. If you’d like to get my posts to your inbox, here is the thingy:

One last thing before I go:

1. I think, after decades of space between then and now, that I can allow myself to accept that, maybe, I did deserve whatever accolades I got, because it was given to me for my work. I wish I’d been able to feel that, back then. ︎
2. Some of that work was good, none of it was great. I spend twenty years trying to figure out why, and recently came to understand, like, almost everything. That’s its own post in the future. ︎
3. It is so fucked up that both of my parents, and my father’s entire family, made us feel like we had to earn love and support, like we were constantly being graded. I was in my 30s before I found out how incredibly not normal that is. My sister and I talk all the time about how we unconditionally love our children, and how aware we both are of the ways our parents withheld their very conditional affection. God, it’s so gross. ︎
4. Man, it’s taking everything I have to not go back and delete that, conditioned as I have always been to downplay my accomplishments and abilities, lest I be accused of being “too big for your britches” by my dad. Well, fuck you, dude. I feel really good about myself, and super proud of the work I did. And I guess Stephen King agrees with me, and he knows a hell of a lot more about art and storytelling than you do. ︎

So last Spooky Season, I read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, for the Storytime Patreon subscribers. It was very simple, just me and a microphone, a few Halloween decorations I got at the drugstore to dress up my office. It was deliberately simple, and as far as I can tell, everyone who tuned in enjoyed it. I know that I had a really good time doing it.

When I was thinking about bringing it back this year, I thought it would be fun to try it out on stage, with an audience, this year. My friend owns Geeky Teas in Burbank, and she has a great performance space that I’ve been wanting to use for something, so I did the math and here we are.

The space holds about 70 people, and as of yesterday morning, about half the tickets are sold. That’s more people than I thought would show up, so I’m pretty happy about that. The thing about doing shows in LA is that there are so many shows in LA on any given night, we are all spread out rather thin, and unless you are a massive draw, it always feels like nobody shows up. I’m so delightfully surprised that this room will have more people in it than not who I didn’t bring myself, from my own house, to watch.

The story I picked for this year is The Body Snatcher, by Robert Louis Stevenson. For more information, I’m going to quote myself from a few days ago, to save time:

On October 25, I’m going to be at Geeky Teas in Burbank for It’s Storytime With Wil Wheaton, Live. Last year, I did a live reading of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow for our Patreon subscribers, from my office. (Where I’m sitting right now, actually.) It wasn’t directed, or mastered, or anything like that. It was just me, the story, and a mic (Love you, LeVar). I had a great time doing it, and I got good feedback, so I’m doing another live reading this year, with an eye toward establishing a yearly tradition. This year’s classic tale of terror is The Body Snatcher, by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Here’s a little bit I grabbed from a summary, to entice you:

Every night, four men regularly meet in the small parlour of the George Inn at Debenham: the landlord, an undertaker, the narrator, and an old Scotsman named Fettes. Once educated and comfortably off, Fettes is now a “crapulous, disreputable” drunkard. The townspeople call him “the Doctor” because he occasionally sets a bone or treats an injury, though little is known about his past.

One winter evening, news arrives that a wealthy local landowner has been struck with apoplexy and that his famous London physician has been telegraphed to come. When the landlord mentions the doctor’s name—“Dr. Wolfe Macfarlane”—Fettes, half drunk moments before, becomes instantly sober. He repeats the name “Macfarlane” in shock, then insists, “I must see him face to face.” The other men watch as the once-listless drunk becomes alert and deadly serious.

The rest of the story is uncovering why Fettes is now a drunk, and what (or maybe who) he is running from. It’s creepy and even scary at times, and the prose is delicious.

Because this is Stevenson’s most famous horror work after Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde, there is a ton of scholarly writing and analysis of it online. Because I am that kind of nerd, of course I dove in and drank deeply from the wells of knowledge I found within. This is a story that, like Sleepy Hollow, was written in response to contemporary events that have been mostly lost to history. When we know the context in which it was written, and the events that inspired it, it gives us (or gave me, at least) an elevated experience and additional appreciation of the material, in addition to a great story. Without turning it into a college lecture, I am thinking about including some of that in the show, the way I record codas after each story for Patreon.

It won’t be fancy, it won’t be staged. It’s literally just me, in a chair, telling you a story for about an hour. There are a couple lighting cues, and that’s it. I’m keeping this as simple as possible, because I don’t have time to rehearse and prepare any staging. I’d rather keep it simple, and feel prepared, than make it complicated and risk feeling like I got in over my head.

Also, I’m giving serious consideration to taking myself on the road, and playing some smaller theaters with live readings that we’ll record for the podcast. This will help me find out if there is any audience for that, if I even feel good reading in front of a live audience, and give me a safe place to stumble a bit, if I need to.

The performance will be streamed live, and archived, for Patreon subscribers, so if you want to watch it but aren’t local, you can join us there for five bucks, which will also give you access to the entire show’s archive, and all our BTS materials, for a month.

When I booked the room, I was fully prepared to play to about a dozen friends, only. That it appears to be on its way to maybe selling out is pretty awesome.

HI, I’m Wil. This is my blog. If you’d like to receive my posts in your inbox, here’s the thingy:

I’ve made a ton of public playlists over the years, but every last one of them is meant to be shuffled. They don’t have a cohesive theme, tell a story, or do anything that particular flavor of mixtape did for us back in the 80s. They are more like radio stations, I suppose. I’ve received lots of compliments for my Generic New Wave, and my KROQ Flashback playlists from people who experience them that way.

But I haven’t made a playlist with intention, to be listened to in a particular order, in well over a decade, probably two, until I got it into my head recently that it was time.

So I made two sides of a 60 minute cassette. The first side is Boys Drool, featuring a lot of the women in rock who I can’t stop listening to right now, with a focus on punk and hardcore. Due to the time limit, it’s far from complete, and it kind of insists on a second volume with a different focus.

The second side is Wax and Wane. This is classic goth, dark and moody, meant to listen to while you come down from dancing your face off with the ladies on side one. Did you know that Bela Lugosi’s Dead was recorded and mixed live, done in a single take? So when we listen to the album version, we are hearing exactly what someone sitting in the session heard, as if our headphones have been plugged into the past. I fucking love that.

While I assembled both sides of this tape, I was reminded how fun it is when I impose limits on myself and commit to working within them. Having just thirty minutes to work with forced me to get really clear with myself on what I wanted to do. Ever since I started writing, I have embraced the concept of choosing arbitrary limitations to work within, so that when actual limitations arrive, I already have some experience finding the stuff that needs to be cut or changed. Also, it’s fun and creates space for me to appreciate when I don’t have limitations.

This week’s It’s Storytime With Wil Wheaton is The Loneliness of Former Constellations, by P.H. Low, originally published in Strange Horizons.

The war is long over and as the memory of it fades, it has taken with it the sacrifices and horrors endured by those who fought and won the conflict.

One of those warriors, perhaps the most consequential warrior, you’ll have to decide if that’s accurate for yourself, has quietly made a home for herself, far away from the blood-soaked front lines, where she has safely grown old, in quiet solitude.

Our story begins when she receives a visitor, a young warrior who brings with her a familiar something halfway between an echo and a reflection that stirs something deep within the veteran who welcomes her. The war is over, but there are still battles to be fought, tyrants to be defeated, a young warrior to be mentored.

She is tired, but it has been a very long time since she received a visitor, let alone a young warrior who may remind her of herself, so long ago, so she will embrace her visitor, embrace the responsibility of caring for her, and, perhaps, she will find a way to soften her embrace of The Loneliness of Former Constellations.

I interviewed Phoebe yesterday. We had a lovely conversation about her process, how this story came together, and combining sci-fi with fantasy. I think we are dropping it next week.

I have two live shows happening in Los Angeles, both with limited tickets, so if you’re local and want to come out, I suggest you grab them today.

Anne and I have known J.Keith vanStratten forever. Over 25 years, at least. I was his sidekick on his eponymous talk show in a theater at ACME for a long time, and loved every second of it. Keith hosts Go Fact Yourself on public radio (YAY PUBLIC RADIO!), and he invited Anne and me to be guests on this year’s holiday show. Tickets are on sale now.

On October 25, I’m going to be at Geeky Teas in Burbank for It’s Storytime With Wil Wheaton, Live. Last year, I did a live reading of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow for our Patreon subscribers, from my office. (Where I’m sitting right now, actually.) It wasn’t directed, or mastered, or anything like that. It was just me, the story, and a mic (Love you, LeVar). I had a great time doing it, and I got good feedback, so I’m doing another live reading this year, with an eye toward establishing a yearly tradition. This year’s classic tale of terror is The Body Snatcher, by Robert Louis Stevenson.

The rest of the story is uncovering why Fettes is now a drunk, and what (or maybe who) he is running from. It’s creepy and even scary at times, and the prose is delicious.

Because this is Stevenson’s most famous horror work after Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde, there is a ton of scholarly writing and analysis of it online. Because I am that kind of nerd, of course I dove in and drank deeply from the wells of knowledge I found within. This is a story that, like Sleepy Hollow, was written in response to contemporary events that have been mostly lost to history. When we know the context in which it was written, and the events that inspired it, it gives us (or gave me, at least) an elevated experience and additional appreciation of the material, in addition to a great story. Without turning it into a college lecture, I am thinking about including some of that in the show, the way I record codas after each story for Patreon.

It won’t be fancy, it won’t be staged. It’s literally just me, in a chair, telling you a story for about an hour. There are a couple lighting cues, and that’s it. I’m keeping this as simple as possible, because I don’t have time to rehearse and prepare any staging. I’d rather keep it simple, and feel prepared, than make it complicated and risk feeling like I got in over my head.

Also, I’m giving serious consideration to taking myself on the road, and playing some smaller theaters with live readings that we’ll record for the podcast. This will help me find out if there is any audience for that, if I even feel good reading in front of a live audience, and give me a safe place to stumble a bit, if I need to.

The last time I did anything like this, it was so long ago, we made our own flyers to promote it. So I reached out to my friend, Sean, who hooked me up with a couple of classic punk-style flyers:

Aren’t they great? Honestly, if the show is half as fun as the flyers, I’m good!

The performance will be streamed live, and archived, for Patreon subscribers, so if you want to watch it but aren’t local, you can join us there for five bucks, which will also give you access to the entire show’s archive, and all our BTS materials, for a month.

Operation Read All The Books continues. I just finished Joseph Fink’s The Nudge, a fun and creepy novella that I tore through in about an hour. I’m deeply in love with The Republic of Memory, which plays with language in a deeply saitsfying way. I just picked up Ode To The Half-Broken, though, and my quick glance at the beginning of it to see where in the queue I wanted to put it came to an end when I noticed I was coming up on page 100, and I may as well go ahead and just put at at the top. This is the first story I have ever read where a robot protagonist felt like a robot, rather than a robot-as-imagined-by-a-human. And it’s just delightful, too.

Speaking of Read All The Books, my collection at Black Stone awaits! I’m such a fan of Black Stone; they don’t use any DRM, ever, in their audio and ebooks, they support indie artists, and they publish some truly outstanding genre work. This month, I wanted to spotlight Hard Reset, by Jonathan Yanez. This is a Lit RPG novel that does all the fun tropes we expect, but is so much more than that. Like Acts of God, which is also in the collection, it goes into the virtual world, and spends most of its time there, but that world is given context and higher stakes when we go outside, into the “real” (as far as any of us know) reality that contains it. It’s a lot of fun, and I connected to the characters very early in the narrative.

Last thing before I go: A study concluded that people who start their day with at least 30 minutes of literally anything that is not online reported significantly improved everything in their day. I’ve been trying this for about two weeks, and my non-scientific contribution is: fuck yeah, it does.

Just something to think about, maybe try out for yourself.

Hi, I’m Wil, this is my blog. I’m glad you’re here. If you’d like to get my posts delivered directly to your inbox, here’s the thingy:

Have you ever known someone who went away for some reason, and came back so fundamentally changed, it’s like they picked up an alien parasite along the way that took control of their personality?

And they still look and sound like the person you knew, only … different. And they know it, and you know they know, and they know you know they know, and you both care about each other, so you muddle through the weirdness, seeking to reestablish the connection you had before.

It’s awkward, and uncomfortable, tentative and uncertain. Maybe it’s a little dangerous, for one or both of you, but you do it because you care deeply for each other.

And, hey, maybe the way they they’ve changed isn’t so much them becoming a different person, as much as it is becoming the person they were all along, who is a person both of you love to be with.

This is a story about all of that, and when it’s over, I think you’ll know exactly what it means to have Toothpaste Feelings.

It’s Storytime is available wherever you get your podcasts. We also have a Patreon, where I can tell you the whole story without any advertising interruptions, as well as a whole lot of fun stuff from behind the scenes. If you join for October, you’ll get access to a special, live performance of a classic, spooky story, that’s going to be something special. I’m really excited to do it.

Toothpaste Feelings was originally published in Koreo, a magazine that is rapidly becoming a reliable, go-to source for me to find incredible stories from incredible writers.

If you listen to this episode, or if you have already heard it, I would love to hear your feedback in the comments. If you get a note that your comment is being held for moderation, please be patient while I approve it. I’m sort of a one-man show over here.

Hi, I’m glad you’re here. I’m Wil Wheaton. I tell stories; mostly written by others, sometimes written by myself. I also write this blog. I am @itswilwheaton on Threads and Instagram, where you have a chance to be one of the lucky 1500 the algorithm deems worthy of seeing my posts. If you’d like to get my posts delivered to your inbox, here’s the thingy:

The thing is, Threads suppresses the everlivingfuck out of almost everything I post, lately. It tells me that a little over 1.2 million accounts follow mine, but it typically only shows what I post to an average of about 3000 people. If a post is doing extremely well, it will climb up to 20,000. That’s not nothing, to be sure, but it’s a tiny fraction of the accounts that have expressed a desire to see what I post. It’s incredibly frustrating. We have given away so much of our ability to connect to each other, to communicate with each other, to these profoundly evil and destructive companies that are profiting from our dysregulation.

I wonder if anyone outside of the weird little silos the algorithms create and sort us into even see what we post? Or are we just telling other people who are already furious about the Cornell 7, the murder of Nolan Wells, the endless murders by ICE, the rampant and unchecked construction of fucking concentration camps full of children who are raped by ICE thugs things we already know. I wonder if the evil human rights abusers who sit atop these companies will ever be held accountable for their roles in all of this violence and destruction.

Like, there was real promise in decentralized communication, and we saw entire countries use it to rise up and depose the despots who had been standing on their necks for a generation. Of course it was shitty American Capitalists who saw that, recognized it as a threat to their hegemony, and put us where we are right now.

I don’t know that we will ever be able to undo this, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. And I am trying today because I realized something last night while I was very successfully not falling asleep for my second hour: there are more actual humans subscribed to my blog posts than the stupid algorithm shows my posts to on Threads. If I have something to say, something fun or cool I want to share, even if it is just a quick thing, a couple of links, a stray thought with something interesting at its end, I will just make a post here, and show it to all of you.

So, to that end, a few fun things I’ve done lately that I wanted to share:

Years ago, I spoke with John Moe for his program, The Hilarious World of Depression. At that time, I wasn’t aware of the root causes of my mental illness, so we didn’t talk about CPTSD or child abuse, or any of the things I do to work toward healing that part of my life. I’m happy to say that I recently talked with John for a follow-up. His show is now a podcast that you can get wherever you prefer. And while you are there, you can also grab an episode of Sleeping With Celebrities that I did. If you’re unfamiliar (as I was), it’s a podcast designed to help you fall asleep, a soothing conversation about something I care about a lot, delivered in a way that should help ease you to sleep. I talked all about this old TV show I love, The Prisoner.

I did an interview with The Advocate, too, talking about my experiences as an ally, and why being othered in my life pushed me to stand up for people without my privilege.

Okay, finally, I wanted to draw your attention to last week’s episode of It’s Storytime With Wil Wheaton, The Glass City by AnaMaria Curtis.

If I described for you a sailor, stranded on an island, a thousand miles of ocean in every direction, it would be easy for you to imagine that person’s sense of loneliness. If I described for you a businessman, who has been on the road for a month straight, sleeping in hotels that blur together and smear across the same lobby restaurant over and over again, some of you could probably relate to and imagine that. If I told you about someone who has been Othered, in their family or in their community, told you how they sat in their bedroom with the door closed and wished that anyone would see them, some of you will, unfortunately, understand precisely. I grew up knowing that particular flavor of loneliness all too well. Even now, as happy and surrounded by love as I am, I can remember, and I can feel it. Loneliness is such a powerful feeling, even when it fades, some part of it lingers … at least for me, lurking, waiting, on the horizon of my memory.

This week’s Storytime is a beautiful, surreal meditation on loneliness from Ana Maria Curtis, who you may remember as the author of The Coffin Maker, a wonderful story I told you about a year ago. (If you haven’t heard it, it’s in the archive.) I’m thrilled and honored to speak her words again, and so grateful that you are choosing to hear them. I’m going to go ahead, and when you’re ready, come and meet me. I’ll be waiting for you, at The Glass City. 

I just really loved this story, and I thought I did especially good work telling it. If you have some time to spend, I hope you’ll consider spending it with me.

That’s all for now. Until next time, maybe it will happen today.

Hi, I’m Wil Wheaton and I write this blog (among other things). I’m glad you are here. If you’d like to get my posts delivered to your inbox, here’s the thingy:

That’s okay. Sometimes we have to remember why we do this, and more importantly, why we don’t do it, what stops us, and why. I have some idea, and I think I’m just going to go ahead and post a thing in a place that isn’t controlled by an evil algorithm.

So today, I just wanted to share a couple things that I’m excited about. I hope you’ll get excited about them, too.

This Saturday is the triumphant return of Wil WheatCon with Wil Wheaton 2: 2Wheat 2Con. I had such a wonderful time when we did this a few months ago. Requests to do it again started pouring in before we were even finished, and I’m just so excited to bring it back. If this one hits like the first one does, I’m going to be so happy.

I’ve been working on It’s Storytime a LOT, reviewing submissions and interviewing authors, as well as narrating the stories. We have some plans in place to secure the future of the show! I’m still not making anything from it (the creator is always the only one who doesn’t get paid), and I could not care less. I love that I’m doing good work that is meaningful to a large and growing audience who trust me with their time and attention, especially in the midst of the horrors.

A new episode dropped today, The Glass City, by AnaMaria Curtis. It’s a story about loneliness that was extremely relatable. It is in all the usual places. You can start here if you want.

Tomorrow, I’m doing a Reddit AMA to promote the upcoming Stand By Me Live shows in Louisville and Dayton, Wil WheatCon2: 2Wheat 2Con, It’s Storytime, Conludo, and Rampart. We always stay focused on Rampart.

My two Spacedads, Johnathan Frakes and Brent Spiner, have a podcast together. My episode dropped today, so if you want to see three grown men who love each other hang out and talk about the things they love, now you know.

I’m Wil Wheaton, and I write this blog. If you’d like to get my posts delivered to your inbox, here’s the thing:

Back in the old days, when bloggers wanted to post about something, but didn’t have a story to tell, we would do these posts on our blogs that linked to people and stories we thought were interesting. The comments of those particular posts always filled up with cool links of their own, and it’s how we built our communities. “Hey, check this out,” seems to have migrated over to social media, so it feels a little … vestigial? … to do one of those posts, but I want to post something, and the story I’m working on isn’t ready, so. I wanted to share two things I am doing, and then some music and books I’ve been loving.

First off, I had so much fun doing Wil Wheatcon earlier this year, the instant we finished, I asked Momentus and Stands if we could do another one, so I am thrilled to announce the upcoming WIL WHEATCON 2: 2WHEAT 2CON on September 19th. Here’s a video we made to promote and celebrate:

Speaking of me, this weekend I will be appearing for a pair of events at MOPOP in Seattle. On Saturday, I’m joining the museum for its celebration of 60 years of Star Trek. In the afternoon, we’ll be watching an episode of TNG together with a live running commentary from this guy. I’m going to let the audience choose if they want the funny experience of watching Justice, or the more thoughtful, reflective experience of watching Final Mission. Either way, it’s going to be really special for me. Then, Saturday evening, I’ll be part of their Supper Series, featuring a discussion and oral history of my experiences on Next Generation and beyond.

I think there are still some tickets left, if any of that sounds like something you’d enjoy.

Okay, let’s get into the music of it.

A little over a year ago, I stumbled across this phenomenal band from Mexico called The Warning. It’s three sisters from Monterey, who loved playing Rock Band together so much, they formed a real band when they were teenagers. They are so good, their fans crowdfunded their first albums and tours, and I discovered them right as they were breaking out with their incredible album, Keep Me Fed. They are difficult to pin into a single genre; I’ve heard them do punk, metal, hard rock, pop, and collabs with artists I never would have sought out on my own.

I am weirdly invested in their success, same way I am with The Linda Lindas, wanting this group of young women to have everything they ever wanted. I love them so much, I paid way too much for a scalped ticket to see them open for someone I didn’t know about, or stayed to see, when they played at the Greek earlier this year. I love them so much, I will go and pay three scalpers too much to see them three nights in a row when they are back in town later this month.

Their new album, Everything’s Falling, just dropped, and it’s such a gorgeous work of art. If you like the music I like, and you haven’t heard them before now, start with More, from Keep Me Fed, then Kerosene from the new album. If it lands on you, you’re going to have a really good time.

Speaking of The Linda Lindas, they also have a new record out that is blowing me away. GOTTA GET OUT continues the journey they began with No Obligation. I still believe they are The Go-Gos of the 21st century, and I’m waiting for the music industry to notice. If you live in or around Los Angeles, they play local shows all the time for as low as five bucks. Their punk spirit is infectious, and their live show is outstanding.

Oh! And Sincere Engineer, a punk band out of Chicago who are on tour right now, have a new album out called Probable Claws. It’s straight bangers start to finish, but I’m going to direct you to the song LOL, because Deanna invited me to contribute to it in the most Henry Rollins way I could. Can you believe that? I’M ON A PUNK RECORD!

Also: Die Spitz, Amyl and the Sniffers, Lambrini Girls, and Bad Cop/Bad Cop continue to fill my daily playlists with great music.

Books!

I’ve been reading and reading and then reading some more when I’m finished reading. Most of this is reviewing and preparing stories for It’s Storytime With Wil Wheaton, which has been leading me to pick up novels and collections from those authors.

Real quick: you may have heard me talk about the North Star for the podcast. Here’s how I put it in my Brief History for Uncanny:

The North Star is a concept I developed during TableTop. When faced with an editorial or content choice, we asked ourselves if we were aiming at the North Star. For TableTop, the North Star was Create More Gamers. For It’s Storytime, the North Star is celebrate art and artists, promote literacy, and create space for people to have a break from the ongoing horrors.

When I was at World Con this past weekend, I met a couple of the authors who I have narrated. These are authors I didn’t know about before I narrated them, who are all now on my list of “I will read anything they write.” I had hoped to put authors onto the radars of their biggest fans, who just don’t yet know about their work … without considering that I, too, would become one of those fans. These authors shared with me that a lot of you have become fans of their work, and it’s positively affecting their careers. It was so reassuring to me, to hear from them that we are perfectly aimed at our North Star.

So after I narrated his short story, A Grey Magic, I’ve become a Ray Nayler superfan, and I am just loving his new novel, Palaces of the Crow. I loved Maria Dong so much, I picked up her newest, Aviary. I grabbed Lavie Tidhar‘s The Circumference of the World when I was at World Con. I could go on and on, but you get it, right?

I decided to do a Summer Reading Program with my library, and I’m proud to be on a 62-day streak. Some of the books I finished and loved on my way to earning a personal pan pizza include Foundling Fathers, from Meg Ellison, Earth 7, from Deb Olin Unferth, The Language of Liars from S. L. Huang, Your Behavior Will Be Monitored, by Justin Feinstein, and The Ship of Death, by Kyle Winkler.

Also, I got to read an advance copy of John Scalzi’s upcoming novel, Monsters of Ohio, which was as John Scalzi as I hoped it would be.

I read more than one thing at a time, and I am currently loving Cleopatra, by Saara El-Arifi, Jane Wiedlin’s memoir, TMI, Memoirs of a Go-Go, and I just started Sublimation by Isabel J. Kim.

I think I’ve talked about this a little bit on the podcast and in promotion, but just in case I haven’t mentioned it here: Around ten years ago, I woke up one day without the ability to relax and focus while I read a book, or a short story, or a magazine article, or anything longer than a few paragraphs. I tried and tried to overcome it, but it always eluded me.

A good friend of mine, who is one of the smartest people I know, observed that I was not alone; this had happened to them and a lot of people we both knew. My friend suggested that it was feeling overwhelmed by the horrors inflicted upon us by that fucking peophile rapist war criminal, the trauma of the pandemic, and the two of those things colliding with absolutely devastating results. My friend said they just felt like their brain was full, all the time.

The horrors have gotten worse, not better, so what happened to help me find the space, the focus, the time, and the motivation to rediscover the kid I used to be, who always had his face in a book? I can’t point to one thing, only, but I know all the EMDR and IFS therapy I’ve done to heal and recover from CPTSD has helped a ton. I know that having the responsibility and accountability of reviewing stories to narrate for my podcast has helped a ton. I know that making a choice to wander into the pages of a story and stay there so I can experience it fully has been a challenge, that has also helped a ton.

I want to share something that made a huge difference for me, in case someone else who loves to read has been struggling like I did. I have this app that was developed by Hank Green, called Focus Friend. Basically, you tell it to set a timer for you, and then you focus on an activity until the timer expires. While the timer is doing its thing, you get a little avatar who knits socks and scarves that you cash in to decorate the little house they live in. It’s low-stress, non-judgmental, extremely satisfying gamifying, and allowed me to create time specifically to read.

Your mileage will vary, but I started with 15 minutes, then 30 minutes, then 60 minutes. I found that 30 minutes is a perfect amount of time. It’s not so long I feel like I’ve overcommitted, but it’s long enough to enjoy a bunch of pages. More often than not, when it tells me my time is up, I add another 10 or 20 minutes, so I can finish the chapter or section I’m reading.

Oh, hey, this is a perfect place to put this! I have a partnership with Blackstone Publishing, who are sponsoring my podcast. I curated a collection of titles they publish, across a wide range of styles, from Lit RPG to Weird Fiction to Epic Fantasy. You can explore the entire Wil Wheaton Recommends collection right here. One of the titles, Acts of God, is in my top ten at the moment. I love the author’s voice so much, I asked them if they had anything that fit the format for It’s Storytime, and they sent me The Council, which I loved so much I bought it from them immediately. If you haven’t heard it, now you know.

I’ve noticed that all this reading has been extremely good for my mental health. I’m choosing to be still, to be quiet, to allow my imagination to paint and hear the words. I’m finding little bursts of artistic inspiration in entirely unexpected places, because my imagination is ravenous at the moment. Creating space and doing the work I needed to do in order to feed it has not been easy. It hasn’t been anything remotely resembling the concept of “easy”. But I remember telling my boys, “everything worth doing is hard, and that’s why is worth doing.” A little tautological, sure, but whenever something gets really hard, I remember that, and it helps me push through it.

I guess what I’m saying in more words than I needed to is that I believe, based on my personal experience, that reading books is extremely important, and if more people read more books, our world would be a measurably better place.

Lastly, I wanted to talk about some of the video games that are giving me joy right now.

I absolutely love Fallout 76. I’ve been playing for almost two years, I’m a level 580 ghoul and I have built the maximum number of CAMPs available. Every night, I spend about an hour doing dailies and wandering the Wasteland, helping players the way I was helped, and enjoying the escape and serenity of fighting Deathclaws and Scorched. It’s one of those things I can talk about for hours, in a level of detail that would make even a casual player’s eyes glaze over. I won’t do that, today. I will exercise restraint and just tell you that after about 50 superb bait over fucking months of failure, I finally caught a local legend. I can solo a nuke silo without glitching in about 15 minutes, and I have probably dumped ten million rounds into Earle. This season didn’t have great rewards, but next season looks like fun.

I don’t remember how I found Ball X Pit, but it’s a supremely fun roguelike that my kids and I are currently trying to 100%. I am also incredibly late to the party on Undertale, which feels and plays like a game Double Fine designed for the NES in 1989. It’s on all platforms.

Okay, I know there’s more I could share today, (I haven’t mentioned any of the tabletop games I’m currently playing) but I have a meeting in fifteen minutes and I’ve been blogging since I woke up, so I need to eat breakfast.

What are you into these days? I’d love to hear what you’re reading or playing.

I’m Wil and I write this blog. I’m so glad you’re here. I host It’s Storytime With Wil Wheaton and co-host the official companion podcast for Stuart Fails To Save The Universe. If you’d like to get my posts delivered to you, here’s the thingy: