Looking Ahead to 2025
Hello, friends! I have been on and off sick for the last six or so days and it has been deeply annoying. Lol, I typed that out and can no longer stay upright: I need to go lie down.
Some hours later and I’m back, after an eventful evening of catching a mouse, cleaning the snow off the minivan, releasing the mouse into the woods some seven blocks away, then getting the kids McDonald’s as a treat — especially since they did most of the work that didn’t involve driving, bless them. Deeply grateful that the local mouse specialist can fit an inspection in tomorrow, too.
But yes, through this haze of illness, I’m trying to figure out some resolutions for 2025. First and foremost is whether or not I want to do ZineQuest again this year. I would love to release Gone Away Words in physical format, but I genuinely don’t know if I have the energy to go through the whole process again. I will say that if you’re interested, you should definitely do it: Kickstarter does a terrific job of making the crowdfunding part of the process as easy as possible. It’s all the bits outside of Kickstarter that have been a struggle for me. The marketing and production weren’t so bad, but the shipping and distribution were rough, even with the wonderful Pirate Ship to help me out. Perhaps I’ll take this year off and hopefully come back refreshed and with new game writing in 2026!
My biggest New Year Resolution aside from that has everything to do with energy. I feel like I’ve really spread myself thin these past few years and I need to go easy on myself. So I’m planning on spending 2025 either conserving or matching energy. This is both for relationships and with work, especially reading. This short video perfectly encapsulates my feelings:
I’m going to say yes to doing things, especially reading books, because I want to and not because I have to. I’ve even limited myself to 1200 pages for the day job per week! We’ll see how long that lasts tho. Money is nice and I’m not on salary, tho I’d very much like to be.
Speaking of money, I pulled the trigger and signed up for Google AdSense on TheFrumiousConsortium.net. I’m pretty ambivalent about it, and there’ll be plenty of tweaking to do as it rolls out. My Bookshop account did just have its best quarter, tho that’s not saying much as it’s still not enough to cover TFC costs. That’s my short-term goal: making TFC self-sustainable. I have to admit to worrying about the continuing AI push into publishing, and am hoping the hype dies down in the same way people eventually figured out that blockchain was just a grift, before any real damage is done. 2025 is going to be quite the year, friends.
Anyway, have some real, non-AI art before I dive into talking about my reading this past week!
I was feeling inordinately stressed out and decided to do this simple watercolor exercise for exploring your palette by de Winton Paper Co. Hers is much nicer than mine, but I’m still very much learning the medium and enjoying the process.
To reading! I really enjoyed the metafiction twists of Pip Drysdale’s The Close-Up, even if there were parts where I was screeching at the heroine to make better choices. An author struggling to write her second book gets back together with her ex, a bartender who ghosted her right before becoming Hollywood’s hottest action star. But when she starts getting personal threats ripped right from her debut novel, she has to wonder whether she’s in over her head.
I also finished John Allison’s tremendous Bad Machinery series, and am still recovering. The Case Of The Severed Alliance might not be the best of the bunch, but it’s a wonderful way to end this chronicle of Tackleford’s best kid detectives. Charlotte (my all-time favorite fictional character) and Shauna had a tremendous falling-out in Book 9. Will they be able to set their differences aside and save their town in this final mid-teen adventure?
Blergh, I need to go get some rest, so apologize for the disjointed nature of this week’s newsletter. See you in seven — oh gosh, or six now — friends!
Currently Playing (Music): Mozart’s Prague Symphony; my Declan Rice and 2025 Energy playlists; Chappell Roan’s Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess; Angele’s Nonante-Cinq La Suite.
Currently Playing (Games): The Light In The Mist puzzletale, The Wild Beyond The Witchlight, Metazooa by Trainwreck Labs, Learned League trivia, NYT Connections, Pokemon TCG, Your Friend In Witchcraft by Kay Marlow Allen.
Currently Reading/Writing (Games): Ghosts Of Saltmarsh.
Currently Reading or Just Read (Books): The Close-Up by Pip Drysdale; Bad Machinery #10: The Case Of The Severed Alliance by John Allison; The Rivals by Jane Pek; The Miraculous From The Material by Alan Lightman; Venice: Color-Your-Own Travel Journal by Evie Carrick & Emma Taylor; Brian Pawlowich’s The List from The Mysterious Bookshop; Kit & The Wolf by John Allison.