So, here’s the writing year in review: What a shit year. What a seriously shit year.
The big news was an apparent heart attack in July, which turned out not to be a heart attack. Instead it was compression and distortion of cervical vertebra, followed by months of excruciating pain that did not respond to medication, and the more months of reduced pain under heavy medication that did work. Prognosis? Waiting on referrals. Taking physiotherapy and meds and hoping to get better. Late November and early December, there’s been some improvement, but I have months to look forward to. Just a fucking nightmare.
In hindsight, this condition was building up over several previous months. Since at least spring, I recall experiencing increasingly frequent episodes of pain, poor sleep, chronic exhaustion and depression. I just refused to pay attention, dismissing it repeatedly as just a bad day and forgetting about it. But there were more and more bad days and fewer good days, I was unconsciously triaging my life, reducing or cutting more and more things back, focusing on maintaining critical activities like work, but even there slowing down when I could. Even activities I enjoyed like Improv I was disengaging, reacting less, arriving last minute, leaving early as possible, avoiding socializing. My life just kept getting narrower.
What a fucking year.
THE GOOD
Two books published
* Squad Thirteen, book #24,
* Murder Chickens on Mars, book #25
Two short stories sold
* The Last Woman from Earth, Polar Borealis
* Waking up, On-Spec
Online Projects
Serial Novel – Swordswoman in Love, Patreon, Medium, Wattpad, Substack, Royal Road – 30 chapters
Erotica – Patreon, Literotica – 30 chapters.
Professional Activities
* Presentation on AI for the Manitoba Writers Guild – March
* Indy Writers Conference – April
* Keycon, Dealers room, no panels – May
* When Words Collide – accepted for 4 panels, August withdrew
* Cancon – two panels, dealers room – October
* Squad Thirteen book launch
THE BAD
Dig a little deeper, it’s not healthy. There’s comparatively little actual new writing. Pretty much everything I published this year was old work. Came down to health issues. I barely made it through Cancon, that was a nightmare. The book launch only happened because a bunch of people came in and took over – Dean, Janice, Anna, actors, etc, they carried me. Squad Thirteen kickstarter failed, I attracted more scammers than supporters.
Squad Thirteen which is an excellent book, has had fewer online sales than live in person sales – I really had hopes for that one, so it’s disappointing. It’s a really good book, and it deserves sales and reviews, most of which isn’t happening. Given how much effort Dean and others put into it, I feel I’ve left people down.
Murder Chickens on Mars was a compilation of essays and bits and pieces, scattered across over twenty years. At times, pulling it together, editing and formatting was torture – I had real issues, due to health.
The online novel, the patreons, the short story sales, all of it was pre-existing older writing.
The online serial novel seems to be flopping – my fault. Wattpad went fifteen chapters and got nothing but scammers. Medium and Substack made almost no impact. Patreon zilch. I still have to get up to speed on Royal Road. The plan was to launch on multiple platforms – Medium, Wattpad, Substack and Royal Road, have a great cover, and push them on social media. I would build up an audience, stream a second serial novel that I had waiting in the wings, expand onto Patreon, and build my career. Exhaustion, pain and health issues unraveled the plan and lead me to a piecemeal approach. That fell apart, and even if it hadn’t, I don’t know that it would of worked.
The convention front: I did the dealers room but no panels at Keycon. I was lined up for four panels for When Words Collide, but was physically unable to go and had to skip. I barely made CanCon but sat it out in the dealers room, it was excruciating. I did a book launch, but thankfully, my friends did 95% of that – Dean, Anna, Janice, Patrick, etc.
In addition to WWC, I blew off Writers Day, C4, Worldcon, WFC several other conventions and activities in and out of Winnipeg. Compare that to 2024 when I did something like seven conventions and thirty panels or presentations.
Writing on Medium, the nonfiction stuff? I think that’s done. I’ll still post nonfiction. But for now, it looks like most nonfiction online has become AI Slop. I see writers who are chugging out two or three articles or even ten or twelve a day. There’s no way someone can maintain that pace, they have to research, that takes time, you have to think and synthesize, and that takes time. Even the simple act of writing – typing out the letters takes time, even if its typing gibberish, it all takes time There’s no way people can do that rate of output. There are real writers on Medium, but I think the forum is drowning in AI Slop and its going to get worse. I might try Substack.
I don’t know whether I’ll follow up with my second online serial, the deafening silence has not been encouraging, and honestly, I can live without a swarm of scammers and their brilliant ideas for me to give them money. I might do something different with that project.
Overall… failure. Amazon book sales were down 40%. The D2D platforms also seemed slow. I think sales increased on IngramSpark. But Amazon is the big one. This seems to be across the board for everyone though. Almost no reviews anywhere. No real traction.
So what’s it all amount to? Mostly failure and exhaustion, depressed and dispirited. Not nearly enough original writing to sooth my soul, that together with the health issues and other personal and professional reverses leaves me dispirited and depressed.
What’s frustrating is that a lot of things which I would normally have done easily ended up being difficult and draining. Plans and hopes fell apart, in part a lack of energy to carry them off. Mind you, I’m good at failing at everything, year in and year out, so maybe this year I actually have an excuse. Maybe the difference is this year, I mind more, or it stings more.
As always, there’s the sense of time running out, opportunities slipping away. There’s the need to work harder, longer, accomplish more, to do more before it’s all too late.
So where do we go from here?
PLANS FOR 2026
Well, hopefully, I’ll get through this miserable physical thing. It really has sucked joy out of life. I’ve come to hate the day job. Improv is done, but I might sign up for amateur theater and acting classes, or maybe art classes.
I’ve already signed up for four out of town conventions – WWC, Indy, Writers Day, CanCon. I’ll try for Keycon, WWC and maybe Ai-kon. I want to do at least a handful of panels. I’m also booking two presentations to give to Manitoba Writers Guild. It should give me networking, contacts with agents, skill building and elevate my profile.
I think the big thing I’ll focus on at events is dealers tables and direct selling. Yes, in the long run, its not cost effective. But it’s community building, networking and its an experience I want to have. Maybe it’ll do me some good.
As to projects:
* Torakar: Swordswoman in Love – that’s the ongoing serial novel that’s not getting traction. The plan is to publish it as a book that probably won’t sell. But it’ll be out there.
* Ultimate Thule – Axis of Anders surprised the hell out of me, maybe lightning will strike twice. I’ve spent December assembling 400,000 or so words of material. I want to revise, organize and publish as a series of four or five books.
* Princess of Asylum – described as a ‘doorstopper.’ Sam Hiyate at the Rights House thought it should be a trilogy (he also thought it should be YA). I’ve been pushing this for years as a commercial project. No nibbles. I am thinking seriously about moving on and publishing as a trilogy.
* The Time Travelers Crew – I was looking over the David Burton/New Doctor project, and actually, it’s a lot of fun. I may strip down and replace the underlying premise – eschew the Doctor Who elements which were peripheral, change names, and just publish. It feels like it would be quick and simple, but it probably won’t be.
* If I can get the Time Travelers Crew out, and if I can get rights and permissions from Ewen’s family, I might try and publish his scripts (suitably adapted). He deserves to be remembered.
* Exotic Speculations #4 – I had a 15K piece left over from Murder Chickens, which means I only need another 35 or 40k or so. I’m going to poke around my archives. I’ve probably got stuff. This likely low hanging fruit and easy, and I like doing these things
* Untitled Short Story collection – I have some old stories that didn’t fit into the horror/comedy themes of previous collections, plus some new stories. Some lit, some genre. I may check and see if I can pull them together. I think that there might be enough for a collection. Honestly though, this would be extremely low priority. Something I’d do if the Doctor told me I had six months to live and I wanted to get everything possible out there.
* The Luck – same as Princess. I’ve been pushing it to Agents and Publishers. No go. Is it time? I think I’ll keep flogging it, subject to bad news from the Doctor.
Okay, that’s at least a dozen self-publishing projects. My actual average performance is between two and five. If I can achieve a between three and six, I’ll be happy with the output. That, of course will depend on the workload of the day job, my health and prognosis, available spare time, and all the other stuff I want to do.
I dearly, dearly want to write something new. I don’t feel like myself unless I’m writing. So, at least one, maybe two novels this year. Potential projects:
* Empire of Mu – been kicking around in the back of my mind for years, I’ve just assembles $150 k worth of notes and outlines. Maybe it’s time to bite the bullet – to a lost continent of warring city states comes the young Prince, Kamehama the Lame, out to conquer the known world. Sort of a retelling of Alexander the Great, but with more angst and contemplation.
* Drunk Elf the Novel – I loved writing the Drunk Elf series, and I think character and crew will work in a novel. I want to do a full length adventure. Lots of rollicking fun, like Terry Pratchett, but with no morals or redeeming qualities. I’ve got a lot of cool scenes in my head.
* Romance of the Undead – inspired by the short story. I did an outline for a three act structure – horror comedy. Again, I have scenes in my head. Yeah, that’s my second comedy. The last few years have sucked. I hunger for cheer.
* The War – the dark gritty prequel to the Luck and the Mermaid’s Tale. On the list for years.
* Demon Hotel – a couple of years back, I did a script for a friend. Now we’re talking about converting it to a novel.
* Starlost Project – very embyronic – talking with some folks in Toronto and Halifax. We’ll see if we can get the rights, or at least find out who has it. I dunno.
* Erotica on Patreon, keep pushing that.
* Orcs and Aliens: A Writer’s Journey – actually, this started with just the idea of posting my book covers daily on Facebook. But I made the mistake of throwing in a casual comment or two, which turned into literally a short essay for each, which in turn wandered into my writing career and the ups and downs of my life. I blame my meds, normally I’m extremely private and hyper-compartmentalized, but I’m loopy half the time and unfiltered. That and a year of pain and misery has lfet me contemplative. I think I’m accumulating enough material for a memoir about being a writer. I’ve never considered myself interesting. But I think towards the end of the year, I may pull all that stuff together and publish.
* Write some short stories, they’ve always been therapeutic, and after a crap year like this, therapy is on order.
* Collaborations – in addition to the Starlost Project, I’ve got potential collaborations with other local artists, maybe four potential projects. Nothing more than bare discussions at this point.
* Then there’s the usuals – learn and maybe do audiobooks (so far too expensive and I’m not doing AI). Learn social media and use it. Learn networking and marketing. Learn newsletters. All these things to do, which sometimes leaves me with a panicked feeling – like I’m dancing as fast as I can, but it’s overwhelming. I’m compartmentalized and isolated by nature, some of these things are painful and impenetrable.
Bottom line? If I thought I would be able to accomplish all of those in a year, I’d be dreaming in technicolor.
But I know that I can be hard core and prolific, and I can do three to eight thousand words on a good day. So I want to set a goal for new writing – 200,000 to 250,000 words, and complete at least two, maybe three major projects, apart from the publishing stuff.
Again, everything depends on so many outside factors. Obviously I need to be in good health to do all this, so hopefully no medical crisis this year. Work needs to be stable, but not overpowering. For the first time, in the last few months I’ve come to hate the day job. As unpleasant as it is, I’m not in a position to retire, so that’s going to eat time and effort and no matter what. Perhaps I’ll come to enjoy it again.
Honestly, there are only so many hours available in a day, so many days available in a week. When I was on top of my game, that was a constant struggle – balancing work, writing, publishing, having a social life. Where does learning social media synergies and marketing fall into all that, much less doing it all? And hell, it would be nice to have a social life of some kind.
And in the meantime, the Specter of AI looms over everything. I don’t know. It’s one of those things. Either AI has peaked, it’s a giant bubble and when it inevitably pops, its going to take the entire economy and all of us down with it. That’s the good outcome.
The bad outcome? AI is for real, it’ll massively disrupt the economy producing 20% unemployment (up to 50% in some demographics like entry and mid level, 18 to 35), facilitate the transfer of almost all remaining wealth to the 0.1%, enact a bunch of tech bros as the world’s first trillionaires, collapse the world economy and usher in an age of totalitarianism.
For me, the potentially depressing part is how utterly hopelessly shallow the subject is treated in the writing community. It runs the range from ‘Fuck this’ which I agree with, to ‘Come on in, the water’s fine and the future is here’ with nothing in between.
No discussion of anything deeper, the legal issues involved, the risks of using it, the moral aspects of using a tool built on piracy. And especially no discussion of the proliferation of AI slop in online nonfiction, and the possible reorganization of the market in a way that will erase us real writers, much less the reorganization of online and reading habits which may eliminate us.
The sales declines on Amazon are not local, they’re a symptom – readership and literacy declines every year. Fewer and fewer people read books. That’s all.
I figured when it all started, we had five years, so I wanted to get as much as I can out. Sometimes I wonder if I should bother searching or pitching agents and publishers. Maybe I should just get everything out, period, while the marketplace and audience exists.
Keep an eye on this spot – if I publish 12 or 15 books in a year, including the stuff I’ve previously reserved for pitching commercially, then it means I’ve lost faith in a future and I just want to put out as much as possible as fast as possible in the time left.
What’s it come down to? I want to do what I love. I want to write.
Everything else?
Well, balance it out.
Honestly, for 2026, if I can get past this fucking chronic pain and meds trap I’ll be happy.