#6 – Lundiana Jones and the one in which I was wrongfully accused of speeding!

...I WAS FRAMED!

…I WAS FRAMED!

I know what you’re thinking. Erm, it’s 25 August, isn’t this supposed to be about your one and only friend, Wilson?

First of all. Ouch! I’ll have you all know that there are actual people, people that are very much alive and kicking, that genuinely choose to be friends with me. I’m not gonna fall into the whole ‘Well, who are they then and what are their names?’ trap. I’m thirty-something, not a teenager.

But yes, you’re right. This isn’t the newsletter you were expecting, but it’s the one you’re getting. I’ve been very late with this. I’m not only way too busy, but writing these newsletters honestly takes up a lot of time and energy, which is why many of us end up either seriously shortening them (which I might do next year) or not doing them at all anymore.

I’ll be honest. I think that I haven’t done any writing for at least three months, and before you all frantically start shouting: ‘WRITER’S BLOCK!!!’ (it’s not that), I’ll tell you why.

  1. As mentioned before, I’m going to my first comic con! And to prep for it, I designed my very own tablecloth and banners on a computer that is not strong enough to handle the things that I managed to create. It regularly froze, etc. Also, I’m not a designer, meaning that I made A LOT of mistakes.
  2. I sort of did the whole book interior and covers of the two new books in the series, which took me at least a month.
  3. I’m now working (and stressing) on Facebook advertising, which went live last Sunday!
  4. There’s also this thing called vacation.
  5. It’s been 30 degrees Celsius and higher in my area for about two months. At some point it went to 40. It was terrible. I told this one elderly man, bending forward on his cane, not to walk into the sun, who then went on lecturing me about how much the younger generations turned into a bunch of sissies and that when he was younger it was 40 degrees all the time. He said, or yelled, this at me while standing in the sun whilst I stood on the other side of the street in the shade. Not only did the guy spontaneously burst into flames, but quite simply kept on walking, mumbling insult after insult whilst being on fire.
  6. And then there were the tons of other small things I needed to do but had been postponing.

Luckily, most of these things I only have to do once!

Here’s what I did for the comic cons, btw. From top to bottom: a tablecloth (350×160 cm), the 4 main books, business cards, bookmarks (decided not to use them), banners (each 200×85 cm; I will not use these for the first comic con at the end of October because my stand is only 3×3 m). Instead, I created one big banner for the back (2×2 m).

Anyway, I honestly think, I’m certain of it actually, that, starting next month, I’ll be once again typing away. Fun fact: I’m also going to experiment with dictation, so we’ll see how that goes!

Moving on…

Useful links:

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/BenjaminWuyts

Website: https://benjaminwuyts.com/

The age that shapes me (and us)

The Welcome & Goodbye, Earth universe

The main story:

The side stories:

Some good news.

Under the Skin & the Unwanted Help both went live on 4 and 18 August!

It’s still my goal to have 10 books out by the end of 2027. I think that I’ll be able to do it since they’re (the side stories) all novella-sized, so let’s see how it goes!

The fun stuff ↓

In this very hastily put-together newsletter, I won’t be including the board and stories that didn’t make the board. Instead, I would like to tell you a story of something that absolutely belongs in the Frenemies of the Ben universe, but is not a continuation of the former one. That one, and I can tell you that it will be awesome, is for October 25.

Frenemies of the Ben

I WAS WRONGFULLY ACCUSED OF SPEEDING!

Okay. Let me first give you the facts of what Wife, the speed camera, and I actually witnessed.

In July, I, Benjamin Wuyts, drove too fast on the German motorway. I remember the GPS lady saying that there was a speed camera coming up. I remember looking at my speedometer (is that what they call it?), which was going faster and faster, even though I wasn’t pushing the speed pedal, and so did Wife when she too saw the flash of the camera go off. I went, ‘Oh, shit!’ Wife just looked at me and said, ‘Really?!’

It was bizarre. But those were the facts. I received my first fine for speeding. Actually, Wife received it, and since the image clearly showed me driving, she actually testified against me since the car is in her name and she didn’t want to lose points.

It was absolutely horrifying. Having to walk on the street, naked, like Cersei in Game of Thrones had to do (spoiler alert!), whilst this lady behind me rang this bell, repeatedly saying the word ‘shame’ over and over again whilst the villagers threw stuff at me. I mean, it felt a bit overboard for what was only 8 kilometres over the limit, but okay.

Then I stood in court whilst all fingers were pointing at me. The evidence that was stacked against me was overwhelming. I went 8 km over the limit; the fine was €20, and we eventually ended up paying it.

Several days went by in which the world was slowly changing. I felt it in the water. I felt it in the earth. I smelled it in the air. I mean, Europe, as my mum ended up saying several times, was burning due to the heat, with almost every country being on fire somewhere, so you could really feel it all over the place. Even here in Luxembourg, we weren’t allowed to open our windows due to Belgium’s only tree being on fire. Unlike the realm of Luxembourg, Belgium, after all, is ridiculously small.

But then I decided to do something nice for Wife. I decided to clean the car at our usual place, and, what I found absolutely shocked me!

Let me first tell you where everyone was sitting (or lying down). I was driving, which placed me behind the wheel on the left side of the vehicle (EU car). Wife was sitting next to me on the right. Luna is always behind the driver, chilling on her mattress on the back seat.

My friends, I would like to present to you Exhibits A, B, C and D, all of which were found under her mattress, under which there was also an Exhibit E, which I will share with you in a moment.

One fake ID card of one scary-ass-looking dog, aka Two Face!

One scary-ass-looking knitted balaclava, clearly designed for a dog!

Two fake moustaches so that no one would ever suspect a dog!

Honestly. I don’t know what kind of business my dog is running or what she got herself into, but in that moment I felt like being in the movie Heat, or something like that.

Oh. Btw. And then there was also this.

A hand attached to a retractable stick.

Remember when I said how the car was speeding up whilst I wasn’t even pushing in the pedal? Weeeeeelllllll. I am now starting to suspect, in fact, I’m certain of it, that Luna is deliberately sabotaging me by using this device to push in the accelerator pedal when no one’s looking.

I took pictures and decided to hide the evidence but didn’t bother telling Wife because:

A: I don’t want her involved in this.

B: This is between Luna and me.

C: If I tell anyone about this, humans, I mean, they’ll just say that I’m making this up and how big an imagination I have.

In fact, the only ones I could tell this to, which I did, were my Purrrian friends, Azi and Gagi.

The three of us ended up having the same conclusion.

Kongers are f***** up creatures.

In the next issue of Benjamin’s Welcome & Goodbye, Earth newsletter

Again…

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