Big Announcements For 2025
The New Year brings new things, more fiction, and more ME.
Here we are on the cusp of another new year, and what a year 2025 promises to be. In times of tribulation, we turn more to the arts, to the escapes, to the particular things that promise us joy. I know I do.
I can’t help but think back to 2015. Christmas, and post-Christmas. It was a bad time. At that point in my life, it was just about the worst of times. Ah, bless. I had no idea what 2016 would bring, or the years since. These days, I’m so wistful for the heady innocence of me in 2015.
But back then, reeling from things, I needed an escape, I needed a plan, a grand plan. Buoyed by such memes as “every day is a new page in your story” (as well as other banalities), I decided to write a short story every single day in 2016.
Are you ready for the spoiler? Here it is. I didn’t do it. I wrote a dozen short stories, most of them in January, and then life taught me to see my hubris. But I did manage to find a story idea for every single day in 2016. I put them together in a much-ignored ebook called “366 Story Seeds,” and the first commitment I want to make to you, the reader who is also perhaps a writer, is that I will share one of these story seeds every single day in 2025.
On Medium, these will be a regular story. On Substack, they will be a daily Note.
The fiction I created in 2016 because of this madcap idea is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it comes to what I can share with you. So much is just sitting there, waiting in the wings, waiting for its time to step out into the light.
One of the things I hope to share is “Gravity”, the sequel to the shorts “Causality” and “Probability”.
“Gravity” will come to Medium in 12 to 15 weekly parts. The story is 95% written, but long neglected, and not typed up at all, so I will need some time to actually tie a pretty bow around it before I release it.
The third major announcement is that I’ll be releasing my novel “Hindsight” on Substack, in weekly episodes. The story is set in 2020, 2024, and 2038, with the story jumping years month to month. So, January 2020 is followed by February 2024 and then March 2038, and so on.
I wrote the first draft in late 2020 and early 2021, and I have not looked at it since, although I’ve made hundreds of notes about things to consider adding to the manuscript. What you’re going to see is essentially the second draft with some of those amendments and additions included.
Each episode will be roughly in sync with the time of year that the events are supposed to happen, even though no part of the novel is set in 2025.
“Hindsight” will be available to paid subscribers, with free previews available to free subscribers.
“Hindsight” and “366 Story Seeds” intersect in a way I didn’t realize in 2016. One of the early stories from January 2016 is called “The Wailing Wind”, a rather dire tale about a collapsing society. Just a year ago, I realized this story sits within the timeline of the “Hindsight” universe.
“The Wailing Wind” will serve as an appetizer for the novel.
As the Lebanese would say, SaHteyn! (Bon appetit!)
But wait, there’s more! I have a second Substack. It’s kind of an open secret. Why the cloak and dagger? Why the effort for a SECOND Substack? Well, my Big Thing, my Magnum Opus, my Epic Fantasy Saga in 15 (Mostly Unwritten) Volumes (not counting spin-offs) … whatever I want to call it, it always needed a place of its own.
In 2024, I released 30 episodes in a free more-or-less weekly serial exploring the life and times of one Araled of Azillan. We’re in the middle of “Season 3” (or “Plot Arc 3” if you prefer) but there is a handy INDEX page if you want to catch up. There are (coincidentally) 15 seasons (or plot arcs) planned, each of 10 to 15 episodes, which should take me a few years to write/complete/release. These stories will always be free to subscribers of Eternal Art. Other fiction from that magical universe will sit behind a paywall (with free previews for free subscribers). From time to time, I’ll add various world-building efforts and resources, such as the upcoming development of a Map of Agali, and a superficial guide to the Agalin language. And maybe the actual Epic Saga you’ve heard tell of.
And finally, I will continue to bring you stories from my day-to-day life, about space, time, worldbuilding, chickens, gardening, movie reviews, world news, and politics. I want to give you more about my Interstellar universe. I want to talk about my method for creating fictional star systems. I want to talk about languages, real and “no-real”. And I want to share what I think I know about writing.
I hope you’ll stop by in 2025 to see what is going on!
Thanks for reading!
Find me on Medium!
And follow the adventures of Araled over at The Eternal Art!
I look forward to seeing this. You can do it 👍
Keep it going.