Well, I forgot to do an End-of-Year Sign Off before the year ended… again. But I’m pretty flexible, so let’s take a bit of time now to look back before we look forward.
So what did I get done in the creative realm in 2024? Well first we’ve gotta acknowledge that while I didn’t do a single thing I planned (see my End-of-Year Sign Off posted 1 year ago today), I got an absolute shitload done! The original plan was for 2024 to be almost entirely PsyEn Project focused and – to my credit – I wrote about half of Silence & Vanity: A Banquet of Monsters… but other priorities really ate up my time.
Priorities like what, James? Well that brings me to all the shit I did in 2024!
- January & February
- Completed development of Somnipathy: Before You Wake
- Completed the Script for Crossfaded
- Chipped away at S&V:ABoM
- Created my Dossier of Witches
- March
- Wrote the horror short story Home is Where
- Chipped away at S&V:ABoM
- April
- Mainly worked on S&V:ABoM
- May
- Wrote the dark comedy short story Vectors of Control
- Officially put down S&V:ABoM
- June
- Horror & Folklore Game Jam – 1 Month Long – Created Soucouyant
- July
- Started my involvement with another Tearcell Game Studio game development project.
- Started research on Hyperpop Apocalypse – and realized just how much work the story is going to be.
- Wrote Crossfaded Short: Meeting on a Spider’s Web
- August
- According to my calendar all I did was play Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
- September
- Attended Rose City Comic Con
- Created a new outlining strategy that I’ve since fully adopted
- Outlined the magical thriller novel Witchlings of Paint and Aether
- October and November
- Wrote Witchlings of Paint and Aether
- Outlined sapphic sci-fi romance Orbital Sapphire
- December
- Wrote and submitted Orbital Sapphire
So like… quite a few things in reality. Just not the PsyEn Project. Let’s talk about that.
At the RCCC, I had the pleasure of speaking with a particular SFF author who gave me a ton of really great advice after the Con. I’ll probably do a separate post about those conversations, but for now know that they were largely based around publication and the publication process. This of course got me thinking about how the PsyEn Project really just started out as a writing challenge. One where I decided that the only way to get better at writing stories was to write stories. I think that the fact that I was WAY worse at this back then particularly shows in the early and middle stories of the PsyEn Project as currently written… Even with the edits that I did on them later, the fact is that those stories just aren’t… very good? It’s three separate series with three completely different feels and genre mixes that definitely all have different audiences. Not normally a problem except that the world building of Insight: The Bonesaw Case, Silence & Vanity, and A Witch By Any Other Name is iterative… So, if you’re only into the tales of Hushpuppy and Nova and aren’t into horror, then you’re missing significant amounts of context! But even structural issues and narrative gaps aside, even stories as late in the game as A Witch’s Apprentice isn’t even close to my current level of writing.
So what am I going to do about this?
For now, I am in the middle of working on multiple novels, outside of the PsyEn Project. I wanted to leave my comfort zone while I began my journey of investigating the small press publishing system. To that end, the PsyEn Project is officially on hiatus, for probably a year or two, while I continue to sharpen my teeth on other creative endeavours.
So what’s on the horizon?
- Witchlings of Paint and Aether
- Two teenage Witchlings are hunted through an isolated Magic Academy by a Rogue Witch who wishes to rob them of their unique magics and their lives. Unable to overpower her, the two must use their combined wits and meager magics to outlast, evade, and escape the pocket dimension that the Witch of Lost Lambs has trapped the entire school within.
- Hyperpop Apocalypse
- Thirteen years ago, Magical Girls world-wide were deceived by the very alien handlers that gave them their power and accidentally destroyed the world. As Alana Swain, the oldest still standing among their number, looks back on her life, she wonders if anything could have been different, and if there is anything they can do now to put the world back together.
- The Witch at 49th and Arima
- In the Magickless City, one gangster stumbles upon a young Witchling and a conspiracy to undermine the safety of all those within the city’s walls. While he’d rather have nothing to do with magic, his grandmother insists on taking her in and training her to control her powers, even as he tries to maintain his hold on the streets.
Witchlings of Paint and Aether is currently in my usual editor’s hands, and once I get that back, I will address the necessary edits and begin pursuing publication. My primary project for 2025 is Hyperpop Apocalypse; the research, the outlining, and then writing – possibly editing thereof. I doubt I’ll get more than the outline done for The Witch at 49th and Arima, but we’ll see – that’s likely more of a 2026 project. After that, my intention is to go back to the beginning of the PsyEn Project and completely rewrite them, bringing them all up to a more contemporary level of quality – from my POV – and fleshing them all out to be more novel length works, with each series able to stand on their own from the other two!
And I think that about brings us up-to-date. It’s been an interesting look back and preview of the future, but past here lies only impatience. There’s nothing to do but get to writing the stories in question now.