The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #432: Working on Some Thirteenth Hour Pixelart

What genre is The Thirteenth Hour? What does this have to do with Tiktok and pixelart?

The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #432: Working on Some Thirteenth Hour Pixelart

https://archive.org/download/podcast-432/Podcast%20432.mp3

In this week’s episode, I muse on the genre of the The Thirteenth Hour and my experiences on the app TikTok over the years.  As for the latter, I have heard that TikTok is a good place to connect authors and readers, hence perhaps a good place to build a community around your work.  However, I have not really used it for that so have decided to give it a go in a more focused way.  One thing I have noticed is there are lots of little subcommunities on the app, generally requiring you to narrow down your focus of what you write and who your demographic is. 

The latter is no longer a mystery (people who grew up and / or nostalgic for the 80s), but I have always struggled with genre.  A part of me has often secretly resented needing to categorize things in this way  (“Why does it matter?” or “Why are people so rigid?” or “Why can’t they just let themselves be told a story?” etc … I have mostly gotten over these meaningless rhetorical questions and have toned down the resentment). 

The fact of the matter is, I have never really known how to categorize the book, nor have I been very successful in finding other books that are similar enough to it in tone to say (confidently), “if you like this, you’ll like The Thirteenth Hour.”  Not for lack of trying … it’s just the comparisons were never really on the mark.  So I gave up that approach.   

However, in deciding to give TikTok another go, I have to do that at least a little bit.  Though I can say it’s in the fantasy genre, perhaps more specifically, high fantasy or coming of age fantasy, it always was a coming of age fantasy meant for people no longer coming of age who could never could get into fantasy.  After all, that’s why I wrote the book – it’s something I wanted to read but never found.  So I think I should finally describe it as such.  I have no idea if there are readers out there who want to like fantasy books but have never been successful in actually getting into them, but there comes a time in life when you can’t pretend to be something you are not any longer.  Or perhaps put more accurately, you’re fine with being who you really are.  You stop trying to cater.  You stop caring.  You are what you are, and you let the ones who like you find you and stop caring about the ones who don’t.  Such is true of the life of a book as well.

To that end, I decided to do something different in this repeat foray into TikTok.  I’m going to let Logan (as an old man) tell his story in little random bits.  It’s similar to what most people do on the platform (look into the forward facing camera and talk) but different enough that it’s interesting to me at least (since I will be making the videos) with a chance to showcase some music and bits of the story.  Since some of my stories feature pixelart, I decided to make old man Logan sitting by the fire in pixels.  The animations are not done yet, but here is what I have so far:

I’ll post more when they are done.  Until then, thanks for listening!

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Check out the growing line of Thirteenth Hour toys and other products on the Thirteenth Hour Studio Etsy store (https://www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenthHourStudio).  There are a number of custom figures from retro films being sold for charity that available there as well.  For example, the hunter action figure from A Shadow in the Moonlight is now done and available on Etsy!

There is also a growing collection of Thirteenth Hour stickers on The Thirteenth Hour Studio store on Redbubble!

Check out this collaboration with past show guest Jeff Finley on handpan: 

Follow along on Spotify!  There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.

Check it out!

As always, thanks for listening!

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