2025 was a tough year. Not as bad as 2020, but did anyone else feel like it was about five years crammed into one?
It was a rough year professionally for me as well. I had things set up very nicely. I was in the middle of an urban fantasy trilogy for a publisher, really finding a groove with the work, and was very excited about doing more stuff by working on passion projects as serials while the books for the publisher would be for the more commercial stuff.
That old maxim comes to mind — if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.
It first began with real life interfering with the writing side. My workload had increased quite a bit this past year, so a lot of time I would have had for writing got eaten up by prepwork, teaching, and grading. Then there were the illnesses — I went through a period when practically every month either one of my kids or me ended up getting sick and having to be laid up for a few days.
Pre-schools should have biohazard warning signs at the front entrance. I will die on that hill.
There was also a family trip back to the States for about a month. And while that was very enjoyable, I couldn’t find either the time nor the headspace to get any writing done.
The little writing time I did have ended up being focused solely on the work for that publisher. I figured that was the more commercial stuff, so it had to take priority. My cowriter and I finished our planned trilogy and we were just beginning to lay out a new spin-off series when everything went upside-down.
I’m not going to get into all the drama involved there, but the long and short of it is I fulfilled my end of the contract, the contract was abruptly canceled through no fault of my own, and to date they have still failed to fulfill their contractual obligations. Not only did they not provide the support to the trilogy they had committed to, I wasted months of work on them and have nothing to show for it. Including the rights as it was a work-for-hire arrangement.
The fallout from all that put me in a fucked-up headspace. I had respected the man I was working for, and to find out that respect proved to be a one-way street with only contempt coming from the other direction was a massive blow. When I did have time to write, I wasn’t able to focus on anything.
Fortunately, things have started to level off now. My cowriter and I have landed in a new place with much better arrangements and people who have proven can be trusted. We’ve begun work on a brand-new urban fantasy series, of which I’m about 10,000 words into the first book on. And I decided to launch my planned serialization ideas through Substack and Patreon (and later, things will also crosspost to Royal Road).
So, what’s on the docket for 2026? A few things:
- Former Horsemen – This is the new urban fantasy series I’m working on with my cowriter. We’re dong the Community thing of six seasons and a movie. But it’s books and not TV, so I guess that actually translates to six books and (don’t hold your breath for) a movie. The idea behind this is the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are no longer the Four Horsemen. So what are they doing now and what happens next? As I said, I’m already 10K into the first book and really enjoying it. We’ve got a nice mix of humor, heart, and character, plus the familiar urban fantasy tropes people love. We also chose to set it in Chicago, a setting I haven’t revisited since I did the Morningstar series several years ago. And after having just spent my summer vacation there, it’s very fresh in mind. The plan is that the first book won’t be published until the second book is written, so this may not come out until the summer at the earliest.
- Corsairs – Here’s the currently-active serial I’m doing. If you haven’t read about the background of Corsairs, you can find out more here. It’s a pulpy space opera adventure, focused on a group of mercenaries operating in a corporate-controlled galaxy. Free subscribers get one episode per week, while paid subscribers get two episodes, and about a month or more in advance of the free episodes. You can subscribe on either Patreon or Substack.
- Pulse Domain – This is a working title. But as I posted recently, I’m going to be mining some stuff from the public domain, specifically a number of superhero characters, and using them to build a new interconnected universe of superhero stories. Most of this will just be for world-building purposes as I don’t want to overextend myself. But I’m planning to create different stories and serials set in this world. I’ve already gotten a few stories written featuring characters like Cat-Man, the Arrow, Wonder Man, Golden Girl, and Lady Satan. And I’m planning to take advantage of other characters as well, including Spider-Queen, War Eagle, Hell-Rider, the Avenger, Captain Battle, plus a lot more. Right now, I’m having a blast finding my own entry points into these characters and thinking of new ways to utilize them. Right now my focus is on the superhero side of things, but there are also some other public domain characters in different settings that have caught my eye, like Crom the Barbarian and Spacehawk.
- Paragons of Earth – Another public domain project. This began as a comic that I worked on with Thomas Deja and Eric Johns, but unfortunately it didn’t do well enough to fund the production costs of a second issue. Still, it was a story and characters I really dug working on, and after I mentioned something about it on Substack, Tom emailed me to let me know he’s onboard with doing more with the concept. We’ve still got to talk about that, but it’s something that’s in my mind as well.
- Other Stuff – What I’ve just listed above is going to be my priority for 2026, but who knows what other things may come along? I did a Power Rangers-inspired serial called Omega Knights for Royal Road last year, and I have plans to hopefully revisit for a second season. As of now, it’s only available in serial format on Royal Road or you can get the ebook through PayHip, but I’ll be releasing the ebook on Amazon in the near future. I might hold off until there’s a complete second season, though. I also still have to complete the third book in the Mark of Cain urban fantasy series, but that’s taken a low priority since the first two books didn’t do very well. I’d also like to revisit some other past stuff, and the serial format might give me the place to do that — things like more stories featuring my Luther Cross or Elisa Hill characters.
And of course, I’m going to continue podcasting. Superhero Cinephiles continues, now with over 200 episodes. I’ve also added a sub-show, Superhero Bibliophiles, to the feed where my guests and I talk about comics and graphic novels. Japan On Film is gearing up for its fourteenth season and we recently passed the 100-episode mark on that.
That’s what I’ve got shaking out this year. How about you?