Friday Footnotes - 6.26.26
Welcome to Friday Footnotes, a new series intended to fill the void when I've spent too much time writing fiction and too little time writing a new thoughtful blog post for you.
From Open House to Sold
House of Nepenthe launched on June 2, 2026 to roaring applause and adulation from my children who dutifully read from the scripts I prepared for them. Thanks to everyone who picked up a copy. I really can't wait to hear what you thought of the story. Feel free to drop me a note when you finish, or like Julia, send me a running commentary as you're reading. I so love that. (I need you to understand that was not sarcasm.)
If you haven't grabbed a copy yet, head over to Amazon and order a print version for $16 or a Kindle version for $5. It's also free to read on Kindle Unlimited if you go in for that sort of thing. And if you're like Jared, who demands that every book on his shelf be signed by the other, you can order direct from my Square site.
Even though it's much too early for this kind of thing, I've posted an alternate opening for House of Nepenthe. No spoilers here—just a different way to get into the story.
Daniel Verastiqui
Speaking of Independently Published Books
Here's a weird connection. Did you know the recurring Vinestead Universe character Wade Vunak is based off my friend and former coworker, also named Wade? We did time together at Uplogix a lifetime ago, and I named the founder of Nixle Chronos after him in one of my earlier novels, so now he keeps showing up, even in House of Nepenthe.
“That’s why I need more funding,” said Wade. “If I can get this augmented reality thing off the ground, who knows where it’ll go. People think they love the Net now, wait until they can bring it out to the real world. I’m talking a worldwide shared illusion—not delusion—of computer imagery over everything you can see. Even us. My beta testers say—”
In the Vinestead Universe, Wade goes on to invent the tech that becomes the basis of augmented reality in Veneer, but last year in the real world, he introduced me to his friend, Chris Gaskins, a fellow Austin author who just put his first independently published novel, SKELMIR, up for preorder. You can learn more about Chris and his book here: chrisgaskins.com
Chris C. Gaskins (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
Currently Reading
My irrational fear of flying means I need a great book to get through any plane ride. Primarily, I need the distraction of an engaging story. Secondarily, I always imagine someone picking through the wreckage of the inevitable crash, finding my body, and seeing that I'm clutching a copy of Snookie's A Shore Thing in my burnt, mangled arms. That's not how I want to go out. Let them find The Corrections instead, or Ulysses, or The Brothers Karamazov. You know. Something that screams, I'm a dead intellectual.
Anyway, The Corrections is definitely that book. As I said on Instagram:
Reading this on my trip to an undisclosed location and so very little has happened in the first few chapters and yet SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED. I honestly do not understand what I am reading here—I just know Franzen is writing with a power far beyond mine, and all I can do is try not to get left behind.
I've since sampled some of the reviews on Goodreads (and my god, why would you), and people are angry at this book for some reason. And so much of the criticism is prescriptive like "he shouldn't use so many 25-cent words." Man, let the dude write. Let everyone write what they want. People who write solely to market and only for those mad stacks are the same people feeding their half-baked ideas in ChatGPT and publishing their novels on KDP with their prompts still in-line with the story text.
If you want a great book written by someone who is just doing their own thing (as I hope I'm doing), I can't recommend this one enough.
Jonathan Franzen (Author) Format: Paperback
Meet Mr. Mo Mentum
There comes the time in the writing of every full-length novel that control of the story leaves your hands and becomes its own thing. The trick of noveling is to keep writing until the momentum becomes so great that the story simply cannot be stopped. This has happened eight times in my writing career, and it just happened again with Book Nine, tentatively titled, Let's Talk About Our Feelings in Cyberspace.
After returning from vacation, I've been writing pretty much every day. Thirty-two chapters in, there are no more questions about where to go next. The chessboard has been set. The endgame is here. All I have to do is hold on.
If you were sitting across from me at our usual table at Long John Silver's, I would totally start geeking out and gushing about how awesome this moment is. I see so many posts on r/writing about new writers giving up or not thinking their story has legs, and all I want to tell them is to keep going. The story will come if you just keep pursuing it, and before you know it, it will be dragging you along for the ride.
It's like being out on the ocean looking for that perfect wave. It's a whole lot of paddling, but once you catch that wave... dude.
Anyway, back the grind for you. Send me your thoughts on the alternate opening, House of Nepenthe proper, or whether classic stories like Dracula and Frankenstein should still be considered "horror" in 2026 because... I mean...
*gestures vaguely at everything*
