Yes, YES, I once interviewed Hallie as part of my now-defunct “On Writers” series. It’s how we met, and let me just say that you all have no idea how many Substack messages have been traded between us since then. As it turned out, we ended up jumping into the Query Trenches within hours of each other. In our confusion, we bumped backs, whirled around with our pens held defensively outward, and said, “No shit, you’re here too? Well, we'd better stick together then.”

Writing can be a lonely venture. Querying literary agents takes that and adds a whole lot of stress and uncertainty to the mix. I have no idea what my querying journey would have looked like had I done it on my own, and I don’t want to find out. I said it in the interview, but I’ll say it here again: thanks, Hallie, for not only bringing me on your show but for all the support (and yes, the bitch seshs, too) over the intervening months.

While we are here, make sure to subscribe to Hallie’s main publication and The Hot Mess Press. If you are looking for something fun to read, take a peek at these:

Fabled Lines: Soft Magic with a Sharp Wit

It's All Greek To Phil Origin Story: But Did You Die?

It’s not every day that a friend sends a Reel on Instagram that inspires an entire short story conveniently based on Greek mythology for an upcoming contest. But thankfully for me, that’s what happened with this one. The competition rules required the use of a mythology theme and three prompts: A false accusation, a conversation held entirely without…

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7 months ago · 34 likes · 9 comments · Hallie Jules

I narrated this one:

Fabled Lines: Soft Magic with a Sharp Wit

Why Is the Rum Gone? A Tale of Dragons and Pirates

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7 months ago · 51 likes · 16 comments · Hallie Jules

Fabled Lines: Soft Magic with a Sharp Wit

Level Five Story Tag, Part One

When I pitched the idea for turning this flash fiction piece of mine into a story tag, I was honored that so many of my Substack friends hopped on board. This is going to be a super fun, wacky adventure. The first section by Yours Truly was originally a contest entry of mine for NYC Midnight. My genre was ghost story, setting had to be a government offi…

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6 months ago · 16 likes · 5 comments · Hallie Jules, Alexa D.B., Kelly Xan, Jay Wilcox, KearstonsThoughts, Andrew Thomas, Keerthana Elango, Decoy Writings, Grace R. Colt, and Tamsin G.

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Welcome to The Desk in the Lantern Room. Today, we are cracking open the Keeper’s Logbook and taking a look at my recent trip to California.

Somewhere between one and two years ago, my family became friends with the Lawsons. David Lawson and I had worked together for the better part of two decades, and our kids went to school together, yet we hardly knew each other. They were the family that walked their kids to school in nearly any sort of weather. They looked serious, and watching them walk made me feel bad that we didn’t walk our kids very often, despite living closer to school than they did.

Fast forward a few years and a handful of small interactions outside of the schoolyard fences. We began to interact with David and Julia more, and I became aware that he was an avid reader and volunteered with the local police force. Selfishly, I realized he could probably help me with my novel, RUE. One of my protagonists is a detective, and if this guy that I’d known tangentially for years could help improve my book and the accuracy of the police officer portrayed within, why not ask? (He has now read the thing twice, and it’s a much better book due to his feedback.)

Through all of that, I got to know David, Jenelle found a new friend in his wife, Julia, and our families grew closer. Years of unknowing adjacency turned into months of knowing closeness (and even some crushes). We began to spend more and more time together, quickly realizing how lovely it was to be friends with a family who is in the exact same stage of life as we are, with similar values and temperaments.

Then one night, our now-pinned message group received a message from Julia suggesting we all go to California. I hadn’t considered visiting the place and honestly didn’t know where we would go if we did, but Julia is the consummate travel planner, so we gave an enthusiastic “YES,” and her planning began.

At 6 AM ET on April 2nd, we lifted off from a sleepy Traverse City, en route to Detroit. Before 12 PM PT, we checked into our hotel and headed off for miles and miles of walking up and down the hills of San Francisco. After our time in the city, we drove up Highway 1 to explore Moonstone Beach, Yosemite, Sequoia, Pinnacles, and a collective friendship that outshone all of the above. I think I fell in love with California over the course of the week, but I know that I’m in love with the friends who took us there.

Let me tell you about it.

San Francisco

We spent the first three days and nights in the city, and our calves and hamstrings were not happy about it. We walked twelve miles on both the first and second days, and many of those miles were up and down significantly steep hills. For the uninitiated (read: Thomases), this was one hell of a workout. Regardless, other than a few complaints here and there, our kids held up remarkably well. We ate in multiple excellent hole-in-the-wall restaurants and somehow immediately obtained seating for nine every time.

We saw the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz from a distance. Multiple city parks were stopped at to appease the children, and they were so amazing that even the 6th and 8th-graders in the group had fun with them. The arches and columns of The Palace of Fine Arts made us feel as if we were in ancient Greece, even if the statues at the tops of them depicted mainly butts. We saw a ton of sea lions, hiked the coast to the beach at Lands End, saw the row of houses from Full House, meandered around Chinatown, rode in Waymos, and got sunburned to shit.

David and I met some locals on the patio behind The Metro Hotel one night, and they told us to visit the Musee de Mechanique. We did, and smiled stupidly at all the mechanized contraptions within. Then David, the kids, and I toured the slightly disappointing aquarium, while the womenfolk went to the apartment featured in Dark Passage. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall tread those same steps, and Jenelle lost her old-movie-loving mind. We also discovered that Grace Cathedral was nearby! You know, the one from the excellent Decemberists song Grace Cathedral Hill! I was so excited, and the place was beautiful. Visiting it on Good Friday provided an extra layer of nostalgia that was strange and surreal for someone who was raised Christian but has since left the faith. Seeing the crucifixes covered in black brought back all sorts of memories. Anyway, sorry , but we narrowly missed the Hyde Street Pier. :(

Overall, as a non-city guy, San Francisco was neat. People seemed very courteous, and I didn’t feel like speeding cars were going to kill me at any time. With my main big-city experience being Chicago, this was a welcome improvement. However, it was a city, and while I could tolerate it just fine, the ocean was calling.

California Highway 1

We were very lucky that Highway 1 opened back up just before we headed west. Multiple land/rockslides had closed the road for a good long time, and while we were subjected to at least a 45-minute delay due to a one-lane road, the drive was amazing.

I somehow had no idea just how mountainous California is, so driving along the border between the mountains and the sea was truly thrilling and nerve-wracking at the same time. The views, such as I could partake in them, were breathtaking. Alas, you can spare very little attention for such things on this road. Trying to avoid causing motion-sick stomachs in the back seat was also a real feat. I think I glimpsed Big Sur, though.

Moonstone Beach

This was our second destination, and the one that I was most excited about. As luck would have it, I also obtained a cold for this section of the trip. Thankfully, Zicam and Alka Seltzer did their magic, and it never damped my enjoyment of being on the coast.

I fell in love with the ocean at some point in the last decade, and I can’t fully explain why. Maybe it’s Tolkien’s description of elves being called to the sea, maybe it’s the fact that its waves have such a muted sound compared to the clear, crisp crashes of the Great Lakes, maybe it’s because the ocean never stops moving, even if the wind is calm. I found myself staring blankly at the waves for long stretches of time. Never once did I want to pull out my phone and scroll or do anything else. Story ideas flooded into my mind with every other wave. The changing tides, the pools it left, the spray, the soothing roar...

Here I could be content, here I could be prolific. I love the Great Lakes. I love how clean they are, how near, but at some point in my life, I must grow closer to the sea. All of this left me thinking of one of my favorite Tolkien passages:

Jenelle desperately wanted to visit the nearby Hearst Castle, so on the last day, she and David headed that way while Julia and I went back to our happy place, the ocean, with the kids.

Yosemite

The drive to our Airbnb in Fresno was interesting. We went over and through mountains and across miles of farmland until we reached our destination. Once we did, we let the kids spend time in the pool and hot tub until we headed out on a double date and an Aldi run to feed the kids. When we returned, the temperature of the hot tub had dropped precipitously. Something was wrong, and hell if we could figure out what that was. (Keep reading for the thrilling conclusion to this sub-plot!)

The next morning, we got on the road to Yosemite. The park was grand and beautiful. The views of the valley, El Capitan, and Half Dome were astounding. Everything was HUGE. We went on a paltry one-mile hike that ended up climbing about 1,000 feet in elevation over steps of rough stone, and while it was quite difficult, the views it afforded were worth it.

However, the drive in was stressful (and gut-roiling, for the younger lads), and at every intersection, we felt that if we made the wrong turn, we would miss out on everything good. The place was overrun with park-goers, and parking was at a premium.

Beautiful? Yes. Stressful? Also yes.

Sequoia

Ahhh…here it is—we’ve found the sweet spot. Giant, majestic trees, the calm of the woodland, enough hiking to heat but not burn, and a hell of a lot fewer tourists; I think we all agreed that Sequoia topped Yosemite for us. Sure, the massive chunks of rock in Yosemite looked cool, but they had just sat there, worn down by the ages. The sequoias had grown up on their own, defying nature for literal millennia. Many of these trees had been around for two thousand years before white men began to settle this continent.

I can’t explain what it was like to exist in this forest, and don’t want to try. Suffice it to say, I nearly teared up when I was looking through pictures for this section.

Pinnacles

Check out at our Airbnb in Fresno was 10 AM, and our flight from San Francisco was 10:40 PM. The drive was three to four hours, so what to do on the last day?

Enter Julia, consummate travel planner: “I might drag my family to another National Park, but you don’t have to come.”

Us: “Ha! You underestimate our FOMO!”

So to Pinnacles we went and...golly, was it a sleeper! I still think Sequoia holds the crown, but holy Helen was this place cool. Jenelle and I felt like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as we hiked into the rock formations.

Soon, the trail bent down into the ground, below fallen rocks. Flashlights were necessary, the signs said. The kids went down into the cave first, and I think some panic began to creep in. They needed an adult, so down I went. Were we going to get stuck and die in this place? Did it end unceremoniously underneath a giant rock?

No, the trail kept going deeper and deeper until it found a small waterfall through the rocks, and followed it out the other side.

Then we climbed back up out of the valley and experienced some of the best views yet.

Friends

On the last full day at our Airbnb (this was between Sequoia and Pinnacles), we made it a point to leave earlier and get back earlier. The kids were dying for more pool time, and we all just wanted to relax together. (Alas, David and I inexplicably fixed the ever-cooling hot tub, despite the owner lying about the pool guy coming the day prior, only for it to finally reach full temperature the morning we had to leave.)

We finished all the wine, beer, and long drinks that we had purchased and made a real night of it. Everyone had a blast, and us old tired parents partied and played cards (Wizard) and ping pong in the garage until after 1 AM. We learned things about each other, shared life, and solidified more than ever that in each other, we had found something special.

Home

When we arrived back in TC, we hugged. Jenelle and I thanked Julia for the trip planning and told her we had the best time. She said she hoped we were being honest because she loved every minute of it. I’m not positive, but I think her eyes were wet when she asked this.

We assured her that we were.

Then, as soon as we arrived at our respective homes, our group message thread lit up again.

We missed each other.

What was the next trip? When?

It was then that I fully appreciated the adventure we had just been on. The mountains, the trees, the caves, my beloved ocean...and none of it could compare to the friends we did it with.

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The gist: Pheidippides famously ran roughly 25 miles from Marathon to Athens (after a shit load of running and battle fighting) to deliver the news of victory, only to die promptly. In this story, Zeus and Hades resurrect Pheidippides as part of a bet to see if he can survive the Chicago marathon.

For Phil, I jokingly proposed portraying him as Chris Traeger, Rob Lowe’s amazing character from Parks and Rec. Hallie loved the idea, so I…ahem…ran with it.

Zeus was another story. Later in the series, he is described as looking like Jeff Goldblum. Inadviseably, I watched a few videos of Jeff and tried to approximate a few of his mannerisms here and there. In hindsight, I wish I had just gone with an old-sounding, godly voice. Oh well!

Hallie played Jessica, Hermes, the narrator, and a few other voices, while my illustrious Prompt Response co-host, , played Apollo and Hades. Hallie’s husband, , swooped in for a cameo at the end.

I don’t know if I can keep the Chris Traeger schtick up for future installments, but for now, I’m just happy to have been included. Jay and Hallie are my closest friends on Substack, and it was so dang fun getting to screw around on screen with them for a while. I encourage you to listen to at least the story part, which is about half of the run-time of the entire video. In other words, it won’t take you long, and I hope you enjoy it!

In the meantime, consider subscribing to my pals and their various Substacks:

Fabled Lines: Soft Magic with a Sharp Wit

Stories of real life meeting whimsy, with chaotic rom-com energy.

By Hallie Jules

The Hot Mess Press

A place for updates on my publishing journey and safe space for all my fellow chaos goblins pursuing publication for their own novels.

By Hallie Jules

FOR SALE: Baby Shoes. Good Shit!

Hello, all! I retrieve writing prompts from far-off lands where men fear to tread. My work has been featured in diverse locales, such as right here, in the substack you are currently looking at.

By Jay Wilcox

Prompt Response with Jay & Andrew

Prompt Response is a Substack live podcast in which hosts Jay Wilcox and Andrew Thomas discuss writing techniques while also interacting with attendees to create (and respond to) writing prompts and facilitate micro group activities.

By Andrew Thomas

The Desk in the Lantern Room

On the desk are The Keeper's Logbook, a chronicle of significant life events, and a typewriter with a stack of fictional stories next to it.

By Andrew Thomas

Welcome to The Desk in the Lantern Room. Today, I’m reflecting on some thoughts that made it into my Bullet Journal this week.

This is my 100th post since joining Substack—if you don’t count the growing library of Prompt Response episodes—so it’s a shame that I must use the time to speak to such a dire subject.

Because it really is the worst of times, isn’t it? I don’t care what side of the political or moral or ideological aisle you fall on, we can all agree that things are shit. Here, let me outline a few examples:

1. We got absolutely hammered with snow up here in Michigan earlier this week. I had to walk to the gas station (thankfully, it’s a block away) to get more gas. I paid $5.10 for Premium to put into the old shitty snowblower that my neighbor gave me for free when he moved out of the neighborhood. It’s saved my hernia for over a decade now. On my way home from the gas station, a woman stopped at a green light to grab my attention and ask if I wanted a ride home. I smiled and thanked her, but declined since it was right around the corner.

2. I got home and continued snowblowing the driveway. I had almost run out of gas the day before, after 90 minutes of blowing, and I had only gotten halfway done. As I slowly worked my way around the driveway, I noticed a neighbor I hadn't met yet snowblowing the entire alley behind our house because it still hadn’t been plowed. I kept at my task because her snowblower was way beefier than mine. When she finished, she walked by again with two shovels to dig out the end of the alley that had been plowed in, and even her blower couldn’t touch. I flagged down my boys and sent them her way with metal shovels. When I finished up the drive, I grabbed another shovel and helped them. I thanked her for clearing the alley, and she said she “just wanted to help out.”

3. That night, our friends came over for Tuesday Movie Night. Each week, the movie pick moves to the next person, ensuring that our slate of movies is about as eclectic as it can get. This is a tradition that has been in place since Covid when we were all so sick of being alone and just wanted to see other humans. The cast has rotated significantly over the years, but on Tuesday, we had the current usual crew, which includes:

   1. My wife Jenelle

   2. Aaron, my found brother since second grade

   3. Greg, who lives two blocks away and has helped me with more mechanical projects than I can count

   4. Ken, my stepdad, who walks in with a smile and a hug for everyone, even if he just met them

   5. David, my newest and probably most unexpected friend from the past year

4. The next day, I logged into work at home because the sidewalks still weren’t cleared. I went through my Slack messages like I do every morning and found one from someone I had never met. She said she was newer to the company but that she wanted to tell me how important and valuable my role is and how much she appreciates me.

5. And then…

Shit, I think I grabbed the wrong list. Hang on, let me review my notes for a sec… Oh yeah, that’s right. We are at war for every reason and none, the USA is killing children because they can’t be bothered not to, we attack other countries for killing protestors while we kill our own, prediction market bettors are threatening journalists for reporting missle strikes on days that don’t earn them money, a certain AI company is about to turn on "Adult Mode” despite myriad mental health and ethical concerns…

You know what? Fuck it. I’m screwing with you, and don’t think for a minute that I’m minimizing the concerns I just outlined or all the concerns you hold that are different from mine (there are many more; those were just the ones that came to mind). I don’t normally comment on current events or get worked up about this stuff, but what I learned in the last week is that the world is a beautiful place.

The examples exist at every turn of the head.

That person who just said something stupid as shit on Facebook also probably just made someone’s day. That guy whose neck you could literally wring because he believes something different than you, also probably just put a massive smile on somebody’s face. That woman who screamed for a manager at the checkout likely snuggled up with her grandkids that night and read them Harold and the Purple Crayon. They will probably speak at her funeral one day and have beautiful things to say. Maybe it’s a good thing that the task doesn’t fall to you.

Two things can be true at once. Hell, seventeen things can be true at once. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t things that are absolutely wrong, though—that’s not what I’m saying. People can be misled. Bias exists.

But I absolutely defy you to tell me that the world is a terrible place.

I recently turned 40. Call me old, call me young, I don’t care. I’m neither. We had a large swath of people at our house that night. Some were new friends, some were old co-workers, some had known me my whole life, and some were as close to family as you can be without sharing blood. I could’ve stood back and looked at them all. I could have asked them to sort themselves by age, then by religious beliefs, then by politics, then by current grievances…

But instead, I just popped around the room, joining one conversation after another and marveling at the fact that everyone was having such a god-damned good time.

I’m rarely happier than I am in moments like that.

There is good in the world, and it’s everywhere. That doesn’t negate the bad, and it will never be overcome by it.

So, maybe Dickens was right when he said, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

As luck would have it, Alexa was the only one to join the live video, so that worked out just about perfectly. Anyway, here’s the photo in question:

Have you ever seen an orange cast a shadow that long? Have you ever seen an orange that appeared to have careened from the heavens like a citrusy comet, only to crash craterless upon cement?

I hadn’t either.

I’m not a photography guy—I usually leave that to my wife—but I couldn’t pass up this opportunity. I felt a brief tinge of embarrassment as I crouched to take it.

These are both things I’m working on: being aware of (and documenting) my errant thoughts and surroundings, and not worrying about what some rando in a car will think about the guy crouching to take a photo of a stretch of sidewalk.

One way I’m working on this stuff is by using the Bullet Journal Method. I’ve been doing this since September 1st, and it’s been very difficult to let it be anything more than a task tracking system. However, I’ve had more luck noting actual thoughts recently, and that seems to lead to the formation of more of them. I then transfer viable thoughts to Obsidian later to construct a sort of Zettelkasten system1. (I should note that I’m doing absolutely terribly at using this last process, and have nothing more than a slowly growing inbox of weird notes that I haven’t done anything with yet.)

Another way I’m working on this stuff is through therapy. This has been a wonderful experience so far, and has done a great job of shining a light on the deficiencies of my brain that are the result of things that happened many years ago. I actually complained to my therapist last week about the fact that I struggle with forming, identifying, and explaining my thoughts. I said I feel like I go through life without much awareness of anything other than what is directly in front of me, and that I want to have more thoughts and ideas. He laughed and told me that it was the first time in his 30-year career that anyone had complained to him about not having enough thoughts. We had a good laugh at that one; the guy is an absolute gem.

In a nutshell, I’m trying to understand myself better, grow from that, do a better job of observing the world, and, you guessed it, translate that into writing.

It all comes back to writing these days. If only I had discovered this life sooner.

On that front, you may have noticed that I’ve been rather quiet on here lately. That is due to several factors:

1. I’m querying my novel, Rue

2. I’m co-hosting a live podcast called Prompt Response

3. I’m working in office three days a week after six years of being fully remote

Here are a few tidbits on each of those things:

Querying Rue

If you are unfamiliar, “querying” means pitching your manuscript to agents. Essentially, you are trying to get them interested and to show them that you have something they can sell. Once you sign with an agent, they (usually) help you improve what you’ve got before they start pitching it to editors at various publishing houses.

I’ve taken this process very slowly. I sent my query letter and sample pages to ten different agents just under a month ago. They say to start with your “dream” agents, so that’s what I did. All of these were either agents I knew of from podcasts, were mentioned in the Acknowledgements of novels I liked, or…were Stephen King’s agent.

Out of ten queries, I’ve received two “form” rejections. This means the agent passes on your project with no personalized comments. Basically, they glanced at it and felt it wasn’t for them. A third agent responded almost immediately to thank me for my kind words (the author I discovered them through, had passed away) and tell me they weren’t looking for more fiction at the moment. So basically a form rejection, even if it was technically personalized.

From what I’ve heard, this isn’t all that surprising, especially since most agents say to expect a response in 6-8 weeks. However, one of my selected agents responded to within 24 hours, so I know I’ve got a problem: my pitch is too boring.

I’ve since overhauled the entire thing, and I think it’s much more interesting now. (Or rather, I hope.) I’ve also added 58 more agents to my list that might have varying degrees of interest in what I’ve got, and plan to start cranking up the cadence here soon.

Fingers crossed.

Prompt Response

Prompt Response is a great big writing party, and like the best parties, you’ll leave with a story.

I stole that from my co-host, . He’s a genius.

In each episode, we:

1. Read stories people wrote based on our prompts from the prior week.

2. Learn some writing techniques from Professor Jay (he’s literally a Creative Writing Professor!).

3. Create new prompts, spend time writing quick stories together, and then Jay and I read them live.

It’s an absolute blast, and you should join us on Monday (8 PM ET)! Here’s our latest episode:

Prompt Response with Jay & Andrew

Prompt Response: Episode 7

Prompt Response is a great big writing party—and like the best parties, you’ll always leave with a story. Thanks to everyone who joined us live! If you didn’t make it, watch the recording above and/or read on for what we have so far, and how you can participate before the next event at 8 PM ET on Monday, March 16th…

Listen now

2 months ago · 5 likes · Andrew Thomas and Jay Wilcox

Working In Office

This one is a little different. Admittedly, I was not happy about being asked to come back three days a week, but I’m also super lucky that said office is only one mile away.

But it does take extra time to make all 360 degrees of your head presentable, put on real pants, pack a lunch, and walk a mile to and from work.

Being amongst my co-workers again has actually been really great. I hate to admit that it’s been positive, but admit it I shall. It does take time, though.

So if it all comes back to writing—even this—then that means I have less time for writing.

Going Forward

If you don’t join the Prompt Response party, that’s ok. You’ll still hear from me here periodically, whether you want to or not. I did read my second novel about a month ago and will be getting to work on that as soon as my query letter is out to more agents. That will slow me down as well, but having Substack was never about having a Substack and posting all the time. It was about having an outlet to write in between all the other writing work.

As always, thanks for reading. If you’ve made it this far, I really appreciate it.

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This piece is part of “Day of the ___ Writer” an open collab on the daily experiences behind our writing. You’re welcome to join by posting about your day on your pub. Check out our growing mosaic of many lives.

I’ve got my headphones in, noise cancellation mode: engaged. I’m at my favorite writing locale, Earthen Ales, and the Juniper Rye IPA I ordered (my fave) is half gone already because that’s how long it took me to get to what I came here for. The sun is beaming through the window, and for the first time in months, spring feels like it’s on its way. Not near, no, but on its way. Things are melting, and that means it will be here at some point.

I left work early today. I was stuck waiting on two other people (not their fault, just the facts), so I decided to get the walk home out of the way and log in later in the evening to finish things up once I had what I needed from them. On the walk home, I got to thinking about this collaboration series and how I had no idea what to say about my daily life as a writer. I am one, sure, but there isn’t a whole lot of writing happening at the moment.

By the time I arrived home, I had decided to buzz off to my happy place and figure it out. When I arrived, I read a few more posts from people who had participated in this collaboration so far. I began to feel feelings. Then I read the loose guidelines for this thing and saw this line:

The honest part of my daily self that maybe peeks through here and there, but isn’t immediately obvious, is that I feel wholly inadequate as a thinker of thoughts, as an owner of a brain, and as a writer. Reading some of the other entries for this collab only reinforced that. I’ll give you a few examples of what I mean.

1. Today I had a conversation with a co-worker about a few local bands. I tried to explain why I didn’t really care for one of them, but all I could come up with was that I didn’t love them, and I couldn’t figure out why.1 Within 10 seconds, he perfectly explained my feelings using obvious observations, evocative vocabulary, and a streamlined assessment of exactly what is off with the band. I’ve thought about this multiple times, and all I could come up with is “I don’t know, I just don’t like it,” and he whips this out on the spot.

2. This summer, I took a writing class. With each story we read, the teacher asked, “What do you think this story is about?” I never had anything more than “aliens” or “people who found themself in a shitty situation” or <insert literal facts from the story>. My classmates rambled on for solid minutes about how this story is about AI replacing our brains, and that story was about southern racism, and…Andrew is looking at sailboats outside the window again.

3. In the other posts I’ve read from this collaboration, I see so many people with brains afire. Ideas, dialogue snippets, notes, plot points…I could go on. I don’t have those things! I’m trying so hard to observe more and journal more and think critically, but the fact of the matter is that I’m only ever thinking about what is right in front of me or a random salad of crazy stuff that I can’t do anything about right now. Unless I have a specific writing problem to solve and go for a walk with the goal of solving that problem, I’m probably not thinking much about stories or my writing projects.

I hate all of this.

It really, really bothers me (this is part of the random salad of crazy stuff mentioned above). I’m a pantser through and through, and I think this is why: because I can only really work on a story when I’m sitting down and saying, “This is the time to work on this story.”

So what business do I have being a writer? At what point does the well dry up, and I say I have nothing more to offer? Do I have anything to offer now?

Yet despite all my moping, the ideas still come at some point. I might not have hundreds of them assaulting me, but I suppose I do have them. More importantly, I suppose I do DO something with them, yet they are so infrequent that it feels like stealing.

For the last couple of years, my writing took place in the mornings, before work. I’m absolutely not a morning person, so between yawns, wiping yawn tears from my face, blowing my nose after said yawn tears, staring out the window blankly, getting distracted by my work computer, and sips of coffee, I might eke out a couple of hundred words before work.

Now, though, my novel is done and sent off to the query horizon. I haven’t fully dived into a new project yet, and at the same time, my employer forced us back to the office after 6+ years of “WE ARE REMOTE FIRST!” The time that I spent writing is now dedicated to such things as showering (ok, fine), walking the mile into work (actually delightful), and walking back home (even more delightful and WARMER).

When I do get started on revisions for my second novel, I’m not sure what a “Day of the Thought and Time Stealing Writer” will look like. Even more concerning will be how to WRITE the next first draft? Do I get to work as early as possible so I can rush home after and steal time from my family to write? Do I lean into my nocturnal proclivities and write after the fam goes to bed, only to sleep in and miss them in the morning? Do I only get true writing time on the one to two days a week that I head to Earthen Ales?

I don’t know yet, and since I apparently can’t have meaningful thoughts, that freaks me out. It also feels like no matter what, I’m stealing time from somebody that I care about.

The only thing that keeps me going is that, stealing or not, the time will be found somewhere, and that the stories will keep coming.

If you’re new here, let me take a moment to draw your attention to two things I’m quite proud of.

The first is my novella, The Wheel, which I serialized here over the summer of 2025:

The second is a podcast I co-host called “Prompt Response.” and I would love to see you on our next live video, or in the subscriber chat afterward:

Prompt Response with Jay & Andrew

Prompt Response: Episode 6

Prompt Response is a great big writing party—and like the best parties, you’ll always leave with a story. Thanks to everyone who joined us live! If you didn’t make it, watch the recording above and/or read on for what we have so far, and how you can participate before the next event at 8 PM ET on Monday, March 9th…

Listen now

2 months ago · 3 likes · 3 comments · Andrew Thomas and Jay Wilcox

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Welcome to The Desk in the Lantern Room. Today, we will be perusing The Keeper’s Logbook to see what I’ve been up to lately.

Voice Acting

When I first started writing, it took me a long time to admit I was a writer. I don’t know why, and that is why I’m going to start saying right now that I’m also a voice actor, however amateur I might be.

After all, I did narrate my novella, The Wheel, and have read many hours of Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, Aesop’s Fables, and The Brothers Grimm Fairytales, among others, to my kids, in character.

But as of last night, I have now lent my voice to someone else’s story!

I had such a blast recording it and fiddling with all the voices. I even caught myself gesticulating and posing while reading particularly voicey lines. You know, like you see voice actors do in the studio and wonder, “Why do they move like that when they read?” Well, I guess I found out: it just happens.

The story belongs to my great Substack pal, , and is just as hilarious as the other stories she’s written. Months ago, I read this story on Substack Live and, on a whim, decided to do voices for the characters like I was reading to my kids. Hallie loved it and made a comment about using that audio for the narration, and so I decided to record it for her, for real. Months later, now that my novel is finally sent out on query, I found myself with the time to do it. I can’t believe someone else would want my voice for their story; it’s absolutely an honor, and I mean that in the most sincere way. Your stories are your babies. Letting someone else be a part of the delivery isn’t easy, especially if that person is just some internet rando. So thank you, Hallie, for giving me this opportunity.

Anyway, you should definitely head over and read the dragonific, piratic story, but I hope you listen to the audio, too. It’s only ten minutes long, and I promise you will laugh at least once, probably at Hallie’s wit and maybe at my ridiculous voices. You will also likely catch very obvious strains of Maggie Smith’s (RIP) Professor McGonnagall, large helpings of Benedict Cumberbatch’s Smaug, hints of Sean Astin’s Samwise Gamgee, and maybe even a very slight slip towards Alan Rickman’s (also RIP) Professor Snape in some of these voices.

Fabled Lines: Soft Magic with a Sharp Wit

Why Is the Rum Gone? A Tale of Dragons and Pirates

Read more

7 months ago · 47 likes · 17 comments · Hallie Jules

Let the Great “I Should Start a Podcast!” Mid-Life Crisis Begin!

I mentioned above that I read stories on Substack Live some months ago. People actually liked this, but it petered out pretty quickly. The whole thing felt a little odd to me, and deciding what to read was tricky, mainly because so many people are posting serials. Do you take weeks to read the whole series? Just read the first installment? Read the newest installment and hope people are caught up? I don’t know, I got in my head about it, but I also knew that there was a better opportunity for this type of content on the horizon.

In steps Prompt Response with Jay & Andrew!

If you are a writer and haven’t hopped on the Prompt Response train yet, you definitely should. and I host highly interactive live podcast episodes every Monday at 8 PM ET, and they are a blast! Jay is literally a creative writing professor and brings his expertise and wit to every episode. We learn about writing techniques, create characters, build story prompts, write stories with our audience on air, and then read those stories out loud. It’s been so much fun, and I hope you will join us next time. For now, here’s last week’s episode, which even includes Jay’s Grammy-worthy freestyled theme song from our first episode. Consider subscribing while you are there!

Prompt Response with Jay & Andrew

Prompt Response - Episode 3

Episode 3 was the highest attended, most unhinged Prompt Response yet! Thanks to everyone who joined; we had a blast interacting with you all…

Listen now

2 months ago · 4 likes · Andrew Thomas and Jay Wilcox

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Prompt Response with Jay & Andrew

Prompt Response is a Substack live podcast in which hosts Jay Wilcox and Andrew Thomas discuss writing techniques while also interacting with attendees to create (and respond to) writing prompts and facilitate micro group activities.

By Andrew Thomas

Welcome to The Desk in the Lantern Room. Today, we will be cracking open The Keeper’s Logbook and reviewing some entries. Some big ones.

For some reason, major writing milestones keep falling near my birthday (2/20). For multiple years now, I’ve taken this opportunity to treat myself and either start or finish a project. Sometimes both.

2/20/23 - I finished writing the first draft of The Wheel, which is now finished and serialized in its entirety.

2/23/23 - I began writing a short story named Rue. (The short story version was short-lived. Seven months later, I was roughly a third of the way through expanding Rue into a novel.)

2/20/24 - I read Rue in novel form for the first time.

2/21/25 - I finished the second draft of The Water Tower, which is likely the next story I’ll post here.

2/3/25 - I started sending query letters and novel samples of Rue out to nine literary agents.

That’s it. That last one is the big one. If you would have told me nearly three years ago that I’d be attempting to sell a full-blown novel at this point, I’m not sure I would have believed you. I’m not even sure when I accepted the fact that I am a writer. I hadn’t done it before, nobody told me how to do it, and guys like me don’t just become writers…

Until we do.

Sending that first letter last night was so strangely surreal. And terrifying. I could have vibrated out of my chair. I could have lain down and died. Instead, I sent a few more and then the rest today. That means that as of this moment, there is nothing more I can do with Rue. Considering this has been my main project for three years, I don’t even know what to do with myself right now.

The only thing I must do is wait—wait for the rejection emails to roll in over the coming days and weeks, most likely. Of course, there is always the chance that one or more of the agents from the first round will request the full manuscript and then offer to represent me. It happens to some people, but it is very rare. The odds are quite low, and in fact, I’ve received one rejection already. It was very kind, and I know it was actually personalized because it responded to the unique first line of my query letter, but went on to say that he isn’t looking for fiction right now. That’s ok. The fact that he didn’t refer me to another person in the agency likely indicates he didn’t care for it either, but spared me the hurt. That’s a bummer, but also ok.

If I get eight more rejections, that just means it’s time to dig up another round of agents and start again. Plenty have done it before me, plenty will do it again. With any luck, I’ll receive some feedback that will give me better chances for round two.

In the meantime, what in the hell do I do with my writerly self? My mind immediately goes to the things I should do: revise and serialize The Water Tower on Substack, revise other pending short stories, or the big one: read my second novel, Gull Island.

The problem is, all of those things lead to more work—no matter how enjoyable that work might be—and I’ve been working non-stop on Rue for five months. I’ve got a terrible responsibility problem. It’s hard enough to say no to these things. If I were to start on one of them, I wouldn’t be able to allow myself to do anything else until that thing was done.

So for now, I’m going to try to force myself to do some fun stuff. Actually read a book for no other reason than that I want to, write short stories, respond to some prompts from other Substackers…

But in two weeks it’s my birthday, and at that point it will have been nearly eighteen months since I finished writing Gull Island. I think reading that for the first time might have to be this year’s self-gift, even if it leads to a whole lot of work.

Two weeks of fun, that’s what I’ve got. Hopefully, that will result in more posts here. We will see.

Unless, of course, I hit the jackpot and an agent wants to get down to work on this manuscript of mine ASAP.

Anyway, thanks for reading and thanks to everyone who supported me, read Rue in its various stages over the years, and gave me the feedback that helped make it the pretty darn solid novel that it is. I do think it’s pretty good, so we can only hope that I grab an agent’s attention long enough for them to read it and decide if they agree. Either way, my fate now rests with others outside these four walls, and that is both weird, scary, and exciting.

That’s it, that’s the update. Stay tuned!

I’m also a cohost of “Prompt Response with Jay & Andrew”. If you are interested in a writing-focused live podcast, please subscribe to this alternate publication as well!

Prompt Response with Jay & Andrew

Prompt Response is a Substack live podcast in which hosts Jay Wilcox and Andrew Thomas discuss writing techniques while also interacting with attendees to create (and respond to) writing prompts and facilitate micro group activities.

By Andrew Thomas

My name is Andrew, and I’m the keeper of this particular light. Today, I’m pulling a story off my typewriter and reading some passages from my logbook. I hope you stick around for both.

The Story

It’s cold, and snowflakes are drifting down around the lighthouse. The sea is still, maybe more than I’ve ever seen. It’s smooth as glass, and steaming like a cup of coffee.

And to think just last night the ocean spray rose higher than the cupola.

The island is shut down for the winter, and I am its sole guardian. In all my years as a keeper, I’ve never endured such a thing—no keeper ever should. My wickie took ill last week, days before the monthly supply boat arrived. A good thing, that, otherwise, he certainly would not have survived.

And maybe he didn’t. He’s gone now, so I can only hope for the best.

As it turned out, the Captain of the supply boat had more than goods to deliver; he had a message. A consequential message.

“There will be no relief this month. You can unpack your things.”

I hadn’t packed. This part, I at least expected—even welcomed. The second part?

“I cannot provide a new wickie.”

I received the news with a blank face. “So I will be alone,” I told the Captain.

“What of your wickie?” he asked.

I told him of the wickie’s illness. I watched the muscles at the corners of his jaw tense as he pushed his teeth into each other, then relax. His mustache bristled. The captain of a vessel knew a hard decision when he saw one. He also knew when it was the right one.

“I’ll bring you another as soon as one is available.”

I shook my head. “Not in February, it’s too dangerous.”

His jaw flexed again.

That was three days ago, and no sooner had the Captain and my wickie departed than a storm the likes of which I’ve seldom seen roared in behind them. Only the heat of the lamp prevented ice from forming on the lantern room glass. Water streamed down it like a giant egg had been stuck upon the lightning rod.

One month. One whole month of solitude. No relief. No shift change in two weeks, four weeks. No barkeep in town to visit on a clear day and warm me with whiskey.

If there is anyone up to the task, it is me. I’ve kept lights for the better part of two decades, and this particular tower is my home. If I am the keeper of the light, she is my bride. I know her temperament and her needs like I hope I’d know my own wife’s, had I taken one instead of the light.

February is known to be cold in these parts, and this is the bitterest. The watch room—below the light—is cold, and its windows are hung like paintings of the ocean; beautiful, but incomplete.

So I dragged a desk up the spiral stairs, one twist at a time. I dragged it up and placed it in the lantern room, then descended for a chair. It makes for tight quarters, but I’ve always enjoyed the heat of the lamp. Some wickies call me crazy, and others think it, fearfully. I take it with good humor. My face is stern, and I like to keep the place right, so if a wickie has it in them to give me some gruff, I’ll let them have it.

At the desk, I can sit and give myself as much of a view of the sea as I desire at any given time. If it is not enough, I can stand, circle the Fresnel Lens, and stare across the other side of the island. The town is empty, and the chimneys do not smoke. After a full rotation, I’ll return to the desk. On it are a few things:

• Another lamp. I cannot read or write in my own swirling shadow.

• A stack of books, brought by the captain.

• A pen and inkwell.

• The Keepers’ Logbook. I used to leave my entries in the morning. Now it is with me nearly all the time. I’m alone with the cold of February. The logbook is my companion.

• A typewriter. I keep it here, at the top of the tower. Should the wind whip up and decide to tell me a tale; should the waves churn and illustrate it for me; should I bear witness and transcribe it all for the mainland, the next keeper, the next wickie—it will be written.

I sit at the desk at the top of the tower, the heat of the lamp surrounding me, the light oscillating, the weather my beacon, my muse.

I sit at the desk in the lantern room.

The Rebrand

I fell in love with lighthouses around the same time that I watched the movie, The Lighthouse. At first, I didn’t know what the hell I had just watched. Then I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Then I watched it again and decided it’s a top 5 movie for me. Since then, I’ve often wondered why I like lighthouses so much. What’s the underlying deal here? It seems like such an odd thing to suddenly become enamored with.

Only recently did I decide that it doesn’t fucking matter. I like the things. They are cool, that’s it. Somehow, this realization coincided with me finally deciding what I want to call this Substack publication—a decision I’ve waffled over since I joined in August 2024.

I had the idea for the story above shortly after I came up with the name. It’s inspired by The Lighthouse, sure, but gosh, did I have fun thinking about how a lighthouse keeper might find himself alone on an island, with nothing more than his thoughts and imagination to keep him company. Well, shoot, I think I just figured out why I like lighthouses so much.

What does this all mean for this newsletter?

Not much, really. I’m still Andrew Thomas, but my publication will now be known as “The Desk in the Lantern Room.” Is it corny? Sure, but I hope that the story above makes it feel kinda cool and mysterious too. When you read something I’ve written, think of me slouched over a small wooden desk, sweating from the heat of the lamp, and gazing out over the roiling ocean. Maybe if you all think hard enough, it will actually happen. Please let it happen!

I’ve since created two new sections on my publication site (you know, that thing that nobody ever looks at or remembers exists):

1. The Keepers Logbook

   1. This is where I’ll record significant events, share updates, and explore my thoughts. This is the life stuff, non-fiction section, blog, etc.

2. The Typewriter - Fiction

   1. Storytelling is an escape from life, from the mundane. Short stories, annotations on songs and previously published works, and anything that has sprung from my imagination will live here.

   2. Note: The Wheel is long enough that it will retain its own section on my site.

It is both a coincidence and no mistake that this rebrand is happening right now. (Don’t ask me how that works.) My good Substack friend, and I, have been dreaming of starting a podcast for months. Just this last week, we launched “Prompt Response with Jay & Andrew” so that we can do our thing without bothering those of you who might not be interested in writerly, Substacky-focused content. If you are interested in that, make sure to subscribe now! We purposely didn’t import our own individual subscribers so people can make the decision for themselves.

Prompt Response with Jay & Andrew

Prompt Response is a Substack live podcast in which hosts Jay Wilcox and Andrew Thomas discuss writing techniques while also interacting with attendees to create (and respond to) writing prompts and facilitate micro group activities.

By Andrew Thomas

Anyway, “Prompt Response” is where the community-focused content will live, including any future author interviews I might do through my “On Writers” series. Jay and I will own that together within the new publication for the same reasons that our live podcast is hosted there. If you are interested, I hope that you follow Jay and I over there. I also hope that you follow his personal content (hilarious micro-fiction and a serialized Novel!) and my own stuff.

Lastly, my wife, Jenelle, is working on more art for this thing, but for now, I’d like to thank Ivan Stepanov on Unsplash for providing my email header. His picture looked so cool that I had to crop it down and use it, at least for now.

So, welcome to “The Desk in the Lantern Room.” Light your pipe, put your back to the heat, and let’s see what the waves have to say, shall we?

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My name is Andrew, and I use this Substack to share stories and learn from other writers. I am the author of The Wheel, a serialized novella about loss, grief, and the way forward.

Thanks for reading!

Friends, family, subscribers…the winds of change are shifting, and I’m letting them carry me. If you haven’t read one of my posts in a while, I’d encourage you to stick with me on this one. It won’t be long.

I started this Substack almost a year and a half ago. It’s been a wild ride since then. I’ve used this space to try a lot of things, because, as I said early on, I joined Substack to grow, to do new stuff, and to get myself out into the digital world a little more. Some of those things worked, some didn’t. Some resonated with my Substack friends, and some worked better for my direct friends and family.

One of the things I tried last year was a series called “On Writers”. A guy named was my very first guest, and our live interview turned out to be fateful in the best way. Neither of us had any clue what we were getting ourselves into; we only knew that we had to figure it out in front of a (small) live audience. Considering we didn’t know each other at all, it was an absolute shock to me when Jay and I hit it off immediately, had an absolute blast on air, and began to learn things about each other that seemed really telling. For instance, we are both guitar players, our favorite guitar player is David Gilmour, we are dads, we love Stephen King…I could go on, but the biggest one was that we had immediate chemistry on camera.

Days after our first video, Jay and I connected again. I tentatively offered that I’d been thinking that we should do a podcast together and, to my surprise, he said he’d been thinking the same thing. The stars were beginning to align, but the kaleidoscope had to be twisted a little further. Jay and I stayed in touch, frequently sharing our enthusiasm to do something together, but with no clear idea of what that should be. Months later, we began to have new ideas, then we started to try them, then we realized it was time to start a new Substack publication.

Why?

Well, here’s the deal:

I’m not a big stats guy anymore. I used to watch my stats pretty closely until I decided it didn’t matter. However, I did notice a shift as I branched out into the Substack universe more, and it presented a bit of a problem.

What started to become clear is that there wasn’t a lot of crossover among these things. Family latched onto the “Me Stuff,” Substack friends reacted to the “Community Stuff,” and everyone decided that the “Story Stuff” was take it or leave it.

So Jay and I decided that when we launched a new publication to host all our live, podcasty content, we wouldn’t import all of our current subscribers. It’s a bit of a risk because we could have started with 500+ people, but we opted to start with zero—let’s build it and see if they will come. More importantly, let’s not bombard our friends and family with a whole bunch of crap they don’t really care about.

I’ll get into all the “Me Stuff” and “Story Stuff” in an upcoming post, but for now, I would like to announce that Jay and I have officially launched our new publication! It’s called Prompt Response with Jay & Andrew and has a completely ridiculous logo. Why? Because we wanted to throw something out there and then dare everyone else to do something better. Here’s the logo, and our very brief introductory post:

Prompt Response with Jay & Andrew

Prompt Response with Jay & Andrew

Welcome to Prompt Response with Jay & Andrew, a brand new publication for sharing writing tips, prompts, and ideas, building community and stories together, and laughing a whole lot (hopefully) along the way…

Read more

3 months ago · 3 likes · Andrew Thomas and Jay Wilcox

So, what does this all mean?

Well, if you are in my current subscriber list and would like to keep tabs on what Jay and I are doing, click on the post above, subscribe, and restack it for your audience.

If you couldn’t give two shits about all that Substacky, podcasty, middle-aged dad crap in 2026, know that I won’t be inundating you with Substack and writing specific posts anymore.

That’s really it!

I hope that you’ll happily subscribe to Prompt Response with Jay & Andrew, or happily ignore it in favor of a more curated Andrew Thomas experience. God, that sounds pretentiously arrogant. Please know that it’s not.

Either way, thanks for being here, thanks for reading, and I hope you benefit from this separation a bit, regardless of which side of the spectrum you fall on.

My name is Andrew, and I use this Substack to share stories and learn about other writers. I am the author of The Wheel, a serialized novella about loss, grief, and the way forward. I also run a live interview series called On Writers.

Thanks for reading!

Yesterday was my oldest son’s birthday. He turned twelve. Twelve! A full decade ago, he was screaming and losing his shit because it was someone else’s turn to roll the bowling ball. He was bawling crocodile tears and bellowing with a mouth that was too large for his tiny face.

Last night, he was proving beyond any reasonable doubt that he and his friends are humans in the best sense. They are loud and polite and fun and willing to watch old movies. They are neighborhood travelers, refusers of sleep, and all we can do is hang around and hope they still like us.

Last year’s birthday party was delayed due to sicknesses, but otherwise largely the same. The biggest difference? The godforsaken piano in our house. I damn near lost my sanity due to that piano and the pre-pubescent fingers that rained their vengeance down upon it. Read about all of that here:

I handled the last 24 hours a bit differently. I chronicled the whole thing via Substack Notes as it all happened. Ironically, it wrapped up with twelve notes. Twelve notes for twelve years. Here they are, with some director’s cut material added throughout and at the end:

Seriously, just follow or subscribe to already. She’s a hilarious writer and one of my favorite people on Substack. It helps that we are in wildly similar phases of life right now.

This was a trip. 1: How do you guys know the blue song so well? 2: This is rap? You like it?

Archie insisted on jumping off the podium. Ope, we are about to run out of email space. Read the rest in the app or a browser!

The rest of the note says: “Thankfully, the piano was quickly abandoned, and the boys scattered to play hide and seek and run in the snow. All in all, the evening has been somewhat tame. Oddly, the majority of the boys are in my office with me right now, hiding from the ones with…THE SHOCK POTATO.”

It turns out they would spend half the movie talking and yelling at each other about not being able to hear it.

The moment we’ve all been waiting for.

Note, there was a 1:30 AM moment in there where I had to tell them to settle TF down again.

The boys have departed. They are truly the best bunch of boys, and I’m glad my sons get to grow up with such a well-adjusted bunch. It goes without saying that all of their parents are even better. With the house somewhat clean and the boys mostly dispersed, I decided to head to Earthen Ales, this time on foot. It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made due to Exhibit’s A & B:

The 1.3-mile walk was much needed and incredibly delightful. It allowed me to unwind and fully immerse myself in the psyche of a stranded lighthouse keeper. Why?

Well, you’ll have to stick around to find out.

Subscribe now

My name is Andrew, and I use this Substack to share stories and learn about other writers. I am the author of The Wheel, a serialized novella about loss, grief, and the way forward. I also run a live interview series called On Writers.

Thanks for reading!

What’s Up Lately?

It has been a while. Dry January is here, which obviously means that I’m at Earthen Ales sipping on a Juniper Rye.

I kid, I kid (but seriously, that’s all true). I’ve done some version of dry/moist/damp January for years in a row now. It’s always good for me, and this year I’m doing the same thing I did last year: no alcohol at home. I can only have any if it’s at Earthen Ales. Why? Because it’s my absolute favorite place to hang out and write. The beer is great, and the staff is even better. Giving up alcohol is easy. Giving up Earthen Ales is impossible. So that’s where I’m at.

Enough about me; how were your holidays? Did you enjoy yourself? What was your favorite gift?

I understand that the delivery of these questions makes them mostly rhetorical, but if you aren’t going to answer in the comments, at least maybe this caused you to reflect for a moment? In either event, I’ll answer too:

My holidays were a little rough. Archie, Jenelle, and I all got some days-long version of the flu: fever, congestion, lethargy, and such. We had to miss our nearly two-decade Christmas Eve tradition of a fondue dinner with my divorced parents, their new spouses, and my sister’s family. That’s the highlight of every season—one I’ve always been proud of—so it was a hard one to miss. We also couldn’t go to my aunt and uncle’s for Christmas Day. Luckily, I was the last person to get the sickness (Clyde never did), so I had time to go shopping for some fancy cheese, steak, seafood, and stuff to make a few nice homemade dinners. Nothing like a last-minute pivot.

Despite all that, we did enjoy ourselves. We made the most of it and, once we cottoned to the idea, we didn’t mind the excuse to stay home, take the days slow, and enjoy being just the four of us. I live with some pretty awesome people, so that was a treat.

My favorite gift is a tricky thing to answer so I’ll just say the first thing that popped into my head: a small poster from my wife displaying all the various plants of Middle Earth including Ents, Athelas (Kingsfoil?! It’s a WEED!), and even Laurelin and Telperion—the two trees which served as daytime and nighttime light sources before the sun and moon were created. I friggen love this thing. If I have one absolutely impossible, fantastical dream vibrating through my bones, it’s to be able to sit under those luminous trees for a day.

Anyway, all of that is to say that things didn’t go to plan. I took the week surrounding Christmas off with plans to ease into the holiday, finish reading and editing my novel, paint the basement ceiling, and maybe even write a Substack post for a change. All of that went straight out the damn window, of course.

How’s That Novel Coming Along?

Let me talk about my novel for a minute because that’s a big part of why I haven’t been so active on here recently. This fall, I was very focused on what was possibly my most consequential round of edits yet. It changed things a decent amount which meant I needed to read it very carefully to try and spot any new inconcistencies. I did finally finish reading it on New Years Eve, and...guys I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging, but I LOVED IT. I made some changes based on beta reader feedback, mainly from people who are so cool that they read it a second time, but there were a few newcomers in there too. The changes forced other unexpected changes upon me and it resulted in some much-needed streamlining. The finished product is now about 95k words—which is 10-15k less than it was during other parts of this process—and it sings. It is absolutely magical to write, read, and revise a story over the course of three years and then love reading it again despite being so intimately involved with it’s creation.

If this story gets rejected into oblivion over the coming year and I question why I ever wrote it, please refer me back to this Substack post. The feelings I experinced this week are what it’s all about. Tell me that. I might not beleive you right away but I will eventually.

So, my first novel is now three years old...

To quote my step-dad, Ken Foster, “Where was I when I was <x> years old?”

Well let’s think about this for a moment. My own birthday is February 20th. On that day in 2023, I finished the first draft of my first real story “The Wheel.” Hopefully you’ve read that one by now. If not, maybe add it to your new years resolutions! Anyway, three days later, 2/23/23, I started writing a short story called “Rue.” I was in labor for a full two months—TWO MONTHS—and then Rue was done and birthed into the world on 4/24/23.

Over the summer that story got noisier and noisier. It started to crawl around, grab me by the legs, stand up, and yell “Doyle! Da da daaa!” Like such:

That’s the action hero theme music I came up with for the Professor who hardly made an appearance in the original short story. Even my kids sing it to this day if they see the name “Doyle” somewhere.

By the fall, I couldn’t ignore the little bastard anymore and decided to write about Doyle and his experience trying to figure out what the hell happened to the college kid who starred in the first section. Then a detective got involved and David Bolton strolled onto the scene looking handsome but a little world weary. I fell in love with the guy, and soon, the unlikely pair got to the bottom of things.

On 1/6/24, I finished the first draft of the novel. The thing was toddling around on it’s shaky legs and generally making a nuicanse of itself.

Since then, it’s had a lot of very helpful babysitters over the years, and between their efforts and my own, it began to talk in almost complete sentences. Now, nearly three years later, you can damn near have a conversation with the thing! I think it’s about time it got out into some sort of school program to begin the long process of making something of itself out in the real world.

Ok I’ll drop the overwrought metaphor but for real, this is where I’m at. It’s scary! So scary, in fact, that I’m doubting the first chunk of it enough that I’ll probably read it again after I finish writing this post. (You know, its the part that agents are most likely to lose interest in and ruin my chances of becoming a published author). Otherwise, I’m very happy with it. Once I’m certain the beginning is as good as it can be, it’ll be time to start filling out my list of agents, finalize my query letter (basically a sales tool), and start sending it out into the world.

Like I said, it’s scary but it’s also very exciting. When I start getting it out there, I’ll have time to work on other things for a change. I can’t wait for that! I don’t know that I’ll start writing on here a ton more but I do have another story, “The Water Tower,” that I plan to post here in the not too distant future. I also want to write a short story or two before I dive into my next novel project, “Gull Island.” I finished that thing a year and a half ago and I still haven’t read it. I’m very excited to read it, but also absolutely terrified. I’m afraid it’s crap but on the off chance that it’s good, I’ll start revising it and hopefully have another novel ready to sell if “Rue” never goes anywhere.

Speaking of which, what happens if “Rue” doesn’t get picked up?

I’m not sure yet. I really like it, and so have my beta readers, so I think it deserves to be read even if the publishing industry doesn’t end up agreeing. Whether that means self-publishing it, serializing it on Substack, or hanging on to it in case I sell something else and then editors take more interest in my other work, I don’t know. For now, I believe in it enough to not make plans like those.

Whatever happens, I do know that I have a story that I love and am damn proud of. If that’s all it ever is, that’s enough.

So what can you expect from me on Substack in 2026?

1. Blog-style posts like these, albiet less frequently than in the past

2. Stories.

   1. “The Water Tower” is coming. If you like light horror and ensembles of misguided young boys ala “Stand by Me,” you’ll like this.

   2. I also want to write short stories and respond to more writing prompts when I’m not in the midst of large projects.

3. My “On Writers” series will continue, but likely at a slower pace.

   1. Finding writers who want to be interviewed can be tricky. If you want to do an intervew, please let me know!

   2. The “Storytime” episodes are currently up in the air. For multiple reasons, it’s hard to decide what to read in this format. As such, live readings might be relegated to this next idea…

4. and I are putting together a new live series! The “pilot epsiode” aired on 12/29 and will be posted very soon.

   1. This truly was a spaghetti moment. We had a few loose ideas, tossed them all at the wall to see what stuck, and stood back to watch the mess do what it would. I think a lot of it stuck but there were some chunks of meat in there that tasted great but rolled away pretty quickly. In other words, some aspects of it were pretty cool but added to the mess a bit. Not a problem! We’ll just cook less meat next time and hope what’s there gets suspended in all the noodles.

   2. If you are a writer, stay tuned on this one. We have some cool ideas and might even spin this off into it’s own joint publication.

That’s a wrap! Happy New Year and thanks for reading. I’ll talk to you soon.

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It’s been quite a while since I’ve gone that long between posts, so I figure I owe you an update, even if you aren’t asking for it. In fact, the two-week break was probably nice for your email inbox. You’re welcome?

Before we get started, how about a slo-mo video of some pumpkin smashing? That way, we can get the whole pumpkin thing out of the way.

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So why have I been uncharacteristically MIA? Well, there are a few reasons.

The truth is, each new line—yes, even this one—is a struggle to write. I keep finding myself stopping to stare at my fingernails. They are in need of trimming, and somehow that’s easier to focus on because my brain is a god-forsaken mess at the moment. Without getting into all the details of it, I’ll just say that I spend most days oscillating between unhappiness and guilt for feeling unhappy. I do the things I need to do and want to do while feeling guilty about not doing what I should do. This post is a perfect example. Why am I wasting my time on this when I could be spending it making revisions on my novel? Especially after sitting in front of a different computer all day, so a public company can make more money? My family, my friends, they are the lights in my life right now, and I’m so thankful for that. I’m just burnt out, I guess.

I thought I had my midlife crisis already. Maybe it’s going to be an annual thing from now on?

Anyway, my novel, Rue, is the main thing I’ve been working on lately. I’ve actually seen some bright moments of success with it. I’ve gotten to this weird point where I read things and go “wait, what if it went like this? Wouldn’t that be better?” and then wonder why I didn’t think of that during any of the last five read-throughs. I think that’s a good sign. It means I’ve finally gotten past my attachment to the words on the page and am looking at the merits of the story itself. If my writing is going to be successful, that has to happen. Let’s hope I get to that point more quickly with book #2!

I do want to resume my “On Writers” segment soon, both with new interviews and some Storytime. I’ve been holding off due to life obligations, but also because I know if I go on camera right now, I won’t be bringing my best self to all of you, and that feels like a bad idea. Moving on…

Tomorrow is an exciting day. First, we are priming the walls of our basement. It’s a dreaded task I’m ready to have finished. Perhaps even more dreaded is the next one: painting.

That’s not the exciting part, though. is coming to town, and I have a ticket to see him! I’ve been reading more of his stuff recently to prepare for the event, and I’m honestly blown away. I actually asked for a Joe Hill recommendation over in his Substack subscriber chat (they are brothers, if you didn’t know), and he told me to check out Strange Weather because it’s a collection and shows Joe’s range so well.

Boy, does it ever.

When I finished the first story in the collection (Snapshot), I got full-body chills. It’s been a good long while since that has happened. The writing was overwhelmingly beautiful, but a big part of my reaction is owed to the fact that Joe’s story reminded me so strongly of my experience with my late Grandma’s dementia.

So yeah, I’m pretty excited to see Joe in person tomorrow and get my signed copy of King Sorrow. By all accounts, it’s an amazing book, but I might need to throw away about five more to make room for it on my shelf…

And now, having typed this simple, ill-advised, uninteresting update for all of you—one that I probably should heavily trim down or delete altogether—I feel ready to dive into novel edits.

Yeah, I used you. I USED you!

Maybe someday you will get to read this novel, and it will feel like it was all worth it.

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This entire post is about life as a writer on Substack and my thoughts about why I haven’t gone viral and don’t expect to anytime soon. Unless you are a Substack writer, the following will be of little interest to you. If you simply want to hear what I have to say anyway, well, you are kinda proving the rest of this article wrong, so maybe just keep it on the DL, ok?

I’ve been wanting to write a post about The Substack Angst; you know, that feeling that I don’t have enough subscribers and how can I get more of them and does anyone actually care about my writing AND IF YOU STOPPED RIGHT NOW WOULD ANYONE EVEN NOTICE?!

**gasp**

If you think this message is directed at you, you’re right! But it’s also directed at a bunch of other people because I’ve seen the above sentiment come up a LOT. I’ve also dealt with it myself, so I’m not going to tell you how YOU feel, or what YOU are doing wrong, or what YOU should do differently. I’m so sick of those kinds of posts. I’m going to tell where I’m at, as an apparently rehabilitated sharer of those same feelings, and it all goes back to one main point:

GOING VIRAL ISN’T REAL.

I’ll explain why in the main bullets, and use sub-bullets to show how this changed my thinking.

• Point 1: Well, I guess going viral is real, but it’s about as real as winning the lottery. (Why does this guy lie in his Substack posts so often?!) The only way to increase your chances of winning the lottery, though, is to buy a shitload of tickets. Luckily, writing and putting your work out there is a hell of a lot more fun (and cost-effective) than buying a truckload of lottery tickets. You also have something real to show for it at the end. You also grow as a person and hone your craft along the way. You also fill in the blanks, dear reader: __________________

  • How this relates to me: I’ve been on this Substack gig for over a year now. I’ve posted 80 posts. I don’t know how many notes I’ve posted, but it’s a lot more. Neither of these stats are amazing. None of these posts or notes were earth-shattering. None of them offered my readers something they could use. Sure, I put some original stories out there, but I’m a young writer with a small platform. It’s just not realistic to think my rookie story is going to blow up. It may grow slowly, organically, but that’s it.

• Point 2: I’m going to claim, entirely unscientifically, that most people who go viral have been putting in some WORK before that happened. Have you read “On Writing” by Stephen King? I have, twice, and my eyes got all misty both times when I got to the part when Carrie sold and changed his family’s life. Why? Because he was a provider and a dad, carving precious hours out of his day to do what he loved and chase a dream he believed in—just like me. Countless hours of work and hundreds of rejections went into King’s success.

  • How this relates to me: King didn’t have Substack. He had a typewriter and a brain full of story ideas. That was his focus, and he put everything he had into it. Am I putting all I have into writing? No, but I’m trying hard. Am I putting all I have into Substack? Not at all. It is, at best, a side gig, and one where my “customers” get nothing more than a smidgeon of enjoyment. When it comes to writing, my novel is my priority.

• Point 3: These things all sort of bleed into each other, so think about the point I just made about what YOU get out of my posts. When I put it that way, it’s pretty clear why I’m not surging with subscribers and making bank off paid subscriptions. I’m not offering anything other than a few stories here and there, some bloggy blabbing, and minor insight into some of our fellow writers here on Substack. If I put all of that behind a paywall, would you pay for it? Probably not, otherwise I’d have a lot more free subscribers right now. (Shout-out to those who have paid for no other reason than to support me.) With this in mind, let’s look at my current and former paid subscriptions and how that relates to what I’m doing.1

  • - I started reading Colin’s Substack the instant he launched it. I’m a huge fan of his band, The Decemberists, and of him as a songwriter and human. I didn’t pay for the first couple of years, but eventually decided I had to get my hands on the paid stuff. I forked over the cash, worked my way through all of the paywalled stuff I had missed over the last few years, and recently renewed my second yearly paid subscription. This man is a celebrity and a fucking savant of a songwriter. He’s inspired me in multiple ways for literal decades. Of course, I’m going to pay to see behind the creative scene of one of my ultimate heroes.

    • How this relates to me: Am I a celebrity? Anyone’s hero? A savant? No, no, and no. I think it’s likely that I’m decent at what I’m trying to do, but until I have a successful piece or even a body of work to show for myself, I can’t expect people to knock down my Substack door.

  • - I’m not sure how long I was a paid subscriber of Courtney’s, but it was a decent amount of time. Close to a year, probably. I learned some good stuff from her posts, and then I bought her book Before and After the Book Deal and learned tons more. She provides so much insight into the industry, and her advice is invaluable to a young writer.

    • How this relates to me: Am I well-versed in the industry? Is my advice invaluable? Heck no! There is another lesson here, though. One reason I stopped my paid subscription is because I learned what I needed. People pay for what they want/need. I both wanted and needed Courtney’s advice. I’ve gotten quite a bit of it now, and I can’t keep paying someone until the end of time once I have it. If Courtney sees this, I hope she understands (and I think she will). Will I ever pay for a subscription to her newsletter again? Probably. While I’m good for now, I am about to enter the querying trenches and might need it again. For the same reason, I will likely pay for here soon.

  • & - It’s simple. I’ve read a ton of these authors’ work and I enjoyed what I’ve read. I wanted to support them but I can only justify so many subscriptions so that’s part of why I had to turn off payments to Courtney. I wanted to spread a little bit of money to my fellow Fiction Crew writers as a show of support. My plan is to leave these in place for a few months and then switch to new writers that I want to support. It’s not much, but I hope it means something and at least buys a latte or two to fuel new writing.

    • How this relates to me: Am I as prolific as either of these writers? As imaginative? As entertaining? Nah. They both have a metric fuck ton of fiction available on this platform and I’m highly impressed by all of it—even if the two of them are wildly different. I’ve got a few middling short stories and one serialized novella that is the first thing I ever wrote. I loved how it turned out but I’m not sure how entertaining it is—it’s pretty horrific at points—and it’s about a father/son relationship so it probably doesn’t resonate with everyone.

• Point 4: What’s the last thing that I remember going viral on here? The death of the corporate job. (I’m sure there have been plenty since.) Why did it go viral? Because wrote a very well thought out piece and absolutely hit the nail on the fucking head with how it feels to be a young/middle-aged rat stuck on the corporate excerecise wheel. Are we even running anymore or is the pent up momentum spinning the wheel so fast that we are simply stuck in one spot, and letting it fling us around the axis repeatedly until death do us part?

  • How this relates to me: Alex went viral because he resonated, hard. We all wanted to say these same things but didn’t know how. Unless I want to take a hard left with what I write about, I’m never going to have a post on the viral potential level of Alex’s. Yes, I understand that the post you are currently reading seems like it’s trying to do that, but I swear I’m just trying to make my fellow fiction writers feel a little better.

So, what does all that schmutz you just read mean?

It means that as I encountered and mulled over all these situations over the last six-ish months, I realized it makes perfect sense why I’m not growing like bamboo or catching some crazy updraft of virality. I’m simply not doing the right things in the right way.

But, I don’t want to do those things. I want to do what I want to do and if that means I grow at the rate of **checks stats** a couple of new subscribers per week, that’s ok. If I quit my job right now and ate my children for dinner, I would for sure dive into this whole thing more and try a lot harder but still, I’m a fiction writer. The odds are stacked against me for that reason alone. I don’t want to be the next Substack self-help guru and unless my WIP novels are truly special, I don’t expect to have any sort of celebrity or industry street cred anytime soon.

And that’s just fine.

I say this phrase sometimes, and I always mean it. I’m happy with what I have now and unless something drastic changes in what I can bring to the table, I fully expect things to stay the way they are. As soon as I embraced that thought, my subscriber stats—and all the attached anxiety—fell out the window.

I don’t expect you to arrive at the same conclusion at this very moment, but I do hope you get there at some point.

Why?

Because it feels pretty good.

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…

Wait, what are you talking about?

…

Oh, no, you go first, it would be too awkward if I was...

…

Yes! All the videos! That’s exactly what I was...yes, you are right. I did say that, and I do still plan to write stuff on here, but sometimes I don’t have the time or inspiration for writing new stuff, and I really do love getting on camera with my fellow writers. As it turns out, I also love reading their stuff aloud.

So it’s going to be a mix for a while, ok? Watch what you want, read what you want, and skip the rest. I won’t know either way, and that’s ok.1

You see, you can’t please everybody. Ever. I’m well aware of that, and it (usually) doesn’t bug me. I know some people like the more bloggy life stuff, some people prefer the fiction, and still others probably prefer the video content. My audience has shifted considerably over the last year. At first, it was just my closest friends and family who knew me best, then more acquaintances and Facebook friends started clicking subscribe, and for a decent while now, the only new readers I get are from the Substack ecosystem itself. 140+ mixed subscribers later, it only makes sense that I would keep doing all three of these things.

In fact, I’m about to undertake reorganizing my publication—yet again—to match those three categories. We’ve got the Non-Fiction section (which is stuff like this), Fiction (self-explanatory), and On Writers (will house all community-focused stuff). However, “The Wheel” will remain as its own section due to its length, and Pick a Print with Jenelle will likely keep creeping in the corner like Spagett.

I might try to brand those main three sections more fancily, but as we’ve seen with the “On Writers” title, branding isn’t really my strong suit. (And I still don’t know what to call my overall Substack publication, but this re-org might help.)2

Anyway, let’s move on. I thought my last opportunity to write on the Earthen Ales patio was long gone, but would you look at that?

It’s balm for an ailing soul, that’s for sure. You have to do the things that keep you sane, right? It’s irresponsible not to, as far as I’m concerned.

In fact, let’s chat about that for a minute. I got into this topic late in my video with last night. It’s actually surprising how many different people I’ve seen posting messages on Substack lately, saying that they aren’t doing well and that if they aren’t as responsive or prolific as usual, to know that they are going through something hard and will be back eventually.

Honestly, I’ve been feeling the same. We can all agree that breaks are ok, though, right? Just because we have a Substack publication doesn’t mean we owe anybody anything, right? Maybe if someone is paying us and we promised a certain thing for that payment, we should let them know if that thing will be delayed. However, we are all writers here—empathetic people. (I don’t know how you could write a character without empathy.) I’d rather you withdraw and take care of yourself than worry about whether you are posting or not. Substack is pretty cool—it’s nice having a little corner of the internet to call your own—but it doesn’t really matter in the end. Or at the very least, little blips in the schedule don’t matter. Like Jay and I talked about last night, discipline and forward motion are important, but not at the expense of your mental health. Sometimes, it’s ok to miss a day. Or even a week. Or even a…

I digress, so let’s chat about what’s next on tap.

1. I’m currently out of guests for “On Writers.” If you want to join me for a Substack live interview, let me know! Otherwise, I’ll start poking people soon. I’ve got one potential guest for November, and am currently working up the nerve to ask , too, but he’s ridiculously busy promoting his new book, so I’m afraid to ask. We will see. Either way, I’ll be seeing Joe and getting my “King Sorrow” book signed on 11/15, right here in Traverse City. (In other news, I’m listening to The Loser’s Club Podcast’s interview with Joe right now, and their author series is also called “On Writers”. Oy vey….)

2. MY “On Writers” has currently expanded to include “Storytime”, though, so I expect I’ll be reading more stories aloud, on camera, soon. At the very least, I’ll need to read ’s story tag, which I participated in. It’s imaginative, fun, and hilarious, so please watch out for it!

3. I’ve got a new short story lined up for right around Halloween. It’s a weird one—more experiment/exercise than story—but it’s interesting. It was a result of my summer writing class and has both extreme dark themes and some silly humor. Should be a wild ride. I’ll be curious to see if you all like it.

That’s about it. If it seems like I’m taking it easy on the Substack front, it’s because I’m working through what will hopefully be a final round of edits before I start submitting my novel to agents. I’m doing all of the “easy” stuff first, and cutting everything I can (it’s too long!), but then I have some character stuff to fix, and that scares me a little. I’ll figure it out, but these people become certain entities in my brain, and changing them just seems…wrong. So wish me luck on that, and hope that the next time I sit down to write something like this, I have something a little more meaningful to say.

<insert Dwight salute gif>

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As today drew on, I found myself feeling the increasing draw to get out and write something with no expectations—to start typing and see where the hell I ended up. Everything I've been working on for the last two months has been soooo task-focused:

• Serialize The Wheel

  • Record and edit narrations

  • Talk to Jenelle about the art

  • Set up and schedule the upcoming installments (it’s done now, if you missed it)

• Write a long note about hitting 100 subscribers

• Write a post about being on Substack for a year

• Schedule and conduct interviews with Substack pals

• Contribute to multiple Story tags (stay tuned!)

It's been fun, but also a lot. Getting “The Wheel” posted on time until it was finished was the main throughline of it all, and when that was all done, I felt I could breathe again.

For about a week.

Now I've got a list in my Bullet Journal (a brand new thing Jenelle and I are trying. Results TBD) that goes something like:

Rue:

• Identify & read comp titles

• Revise prologue

• Revise Bolton section

• Write query letter

• Research querytracker.com

• Find more agents

• Submit to TSNOTYAW?

That list is probably both shorter than it should be and longer than it looks, and it's honestly scary. I think I can now identify what I did this morning before work as procrastination rather than meaningful preparation: I sifted through the feedback I've gotten on my prologue and put all the notes in one place. Again.

The feedback itself was great. Five wonderful, supportive, talented friends of mine on Substack agreed to read the thing with a critical eye. It was immensely helpful and could make a big difference in how this project gets received. I'd love to name them all and give them credit, but it strikes me that they may not want to publicize this possibly begrudgingly rendered service and risk receiving more requests. Who knows. I'm a communications guy, so I know when to play it safe and when to take a risk. Suffice it to say, you ladies know who you are and hopefully know that your help was highly appreciated.

Beneath all of this is my day job that...well, it’s a communications job, and that's where I learned that I probably shouldn't finish this paragraph.

Anyway, have you read this completely unrelated article, “The Death of the Corporate Job”? It's making the rounds lately, and damn is it interesting.

Side note: I just watched a dude that isn't even as tall as the mirrors attached to his giant truck, clean the raindrops off them with a mini squeegee the size of a Bic razor. Folks, if this is a thing, I've never heard of it. Oh, the places you will go...

Anyway, so with all that offloading done (this is basically a public journal entry, if you haven't noticed yet), I'm here at Earthen Ales with the intention to pants a Substack post. I've done this before, perhaps most notably in the post where I discussed Pantsing.

Like I said, I didn't know what I wanted to write, I just knew I needed to. I needed the freedom, the discovery, that comes with free-wheeling a thing, rather than writing to a defined goal. I debated walking to the nearby Right Brain, but it was kinda raining, and while I feel like walks in the rain are way underrated, I also wanted a calmer vibe than RB can provide. Hence, my arrival at Earthen Ales and GOLLY was I delighted when I walked up to the brewery door. You see, it was drizzling, but also kinda sunny—one of those amazing between-the-pages moments of life—and I noticed that the table next to the door was almost entirely dry thanks to the giant umbrella over it. So I went in to grab a beer and came back out to sit under it and write (and watch dudes squeegee their mirrors). The sun is now gone, and so is the rain, but I'm hopeful that one of them will come back eventually.

And now, having barely started, I find myself at the end of the ideas train. This is probably no way to write a newsletter that goes out to *checks phone* 124 people's inboxes, but as I said early on—like probably a year ago—Stephen King (there he is again!) told me to never come lightly to the page. Maybe you could define this sort of cavalier drafting as lightness—especially if I'm intending to post it mostly as-is—but I disagree. I say that I'm writing what my heart says I want and need to write, and I’m going to be brave enough to post the result. That's not light! That's ballsy, in a "are you even trying, bro?" kind of way!

So, I guess I'll wrap this up by taking a few moments to look at the near future of this Substack, now that “The Wheel” has passed:

• My next "On Writers" guest needs to wait until November, which means I'm currently out of guests! I'll start knocking on doors soon, but if you want to do this with me, drop me a line! (It's a long shot, but I'm going to try and get before he comes to town in November. Every single finger is crossed!)

Another side note: Ahhhh, it's raining again, and this umbrella is working just fine.

• I'm taking a pause from posting serialized fiction now that “The Wheel" is done. I've got another too-long short story I want to bring to you all, but I need to focus on my novel for a bit. Once I've made some progress on that, I'll see what I can do.

• However, I might have some one-off fiction for you. The first will likely be a joint venture with . The second will be a writing prompt exercise from my summer writing class that grew more legs than I expected, hence why I haven’t posted it yet.

• It's been way too long since I've talked to Jenelle about her art. My next "Pick a Print With Jenelle" will likely focus on one or all the lovely pieces she made for "The Wheel." I probably should do that soon.

And another: Ope. The umbrella has a hole. Guess I'm heading inside...wait, no, I'll put my empty beer glass under it and go get another! Either way, hang on just a sec...

• Alright, I'm back. Once upon a time, I started this series called "Things That Make My Life Better," and I’m not sure if I’ll post in it again because I still can't decide if it's dumb or not. I can tell you that writing and/or reading in the rain makes my life better for sure, though. Boom. Print it.

• I guess I'll write about life in general and tell little non-fiction stories that pop up from time to time. That's what I've always done and it's always worked, for the most part...maybe.

• Otherwise, I've also got a list of tasks for this Substack in my BuJo, and one of them is to finally pick a name for the dang thing. We will see where that ends up.

If you made it through this disjointed slog of a post, thanks, as always, for keeping up on things and supporting me here.

Speaking of which, I could use your help! Did you read "The Wheel"? Did you like it? If you haven't already, I'd really, really love it if you could help promote it a bit. I'll even give you the link to the first chapter. Friends and family, please consider posting it on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, whatever. If you have done that or restacked it on Substack, thanks sooo much! This stuff grows by word of mouth, and "The Wheel" hasn't gotten a whole lot of it. I guess that's on me and the quality of the story, at the end of the day, but truly, if it did move you even a little, I would appreciate the share so much. If not, I swear I won't hold it against you. It’s my first real story, after all, and I'm still learning. Maybe the next one will be your jam.

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And then did it again on August 7th.

And then I realized something was wrong and copied/pasted the contents of those Notes into actual Posts and published them both on August 10th.

Talk about coming out with a bang, folks!

Today, I’m going to take a walk back through my Substack memory lane, leave some comments along the way, and highlight some of the fairly decent (maybe) posts that many of my newer readers may have missed. I promise I won’t bloviate too much.

Before that, I must take a moment to thank you, dear reader, for coming along for the ride. Whether you just got here or have been here since email number one, it means so much that you take the time to read what I’m putting out there. Thank you!

The Beginning

These first two posts are interesting to read now. So interesting, in fact, that I didn’t re-read them. (I’m being self-deprecating. I’m sure they are fine, but I just plain don’t have the time. Oooh. Poetry.)

The first was about my journey to being a writer:

The second post dealt with what exactly I was doing on Substack, and a quick scan of this one reveals it to be sort of fun. In it, I consider my original statement that I was writing on Substack “just for me,” and look at how the evidence does and doesn’t support this. Was I lying when I made that statement? I won’t tell you where I landed on that—you can read for yourself—but I think the assessment still stands.

From there, I wrote more things about my life.

• I detailed weekend trips to the U.P. with my sons, Clyde and Archie.

• I opened my aged wallet and reacted to all the schmutz I found in there.

  • This one was a wild ride and fairly decent, if I remember right. Who knew that rifling through your wallet would lead to publicly coming out as an atheist?

• My grandma died, and I wrote about all four of my passed grandparents not long after.

  • This one was my “top post” for quite a while.

At some point, I need to stop linking to every single thing I wrote, so suffice it to say that I branched out after that. I wrote about the origins of some of my stories, including the now Substack exclusive “The Wheel,” and my novel Rue. I ranted about how fuckced up our politics are and that we should all probably ditch any news source other than AP News if we want to save our country. I annotated some of my stories, and I will link to a few of those because the Substack Fiction crew that adopted me probably hasn’t seen them. The first was called “Watching” and basically recounted a recurring dream I had as a child. The second deserves its own thumbnail, I believe:

The Middle

Things changed after those first few months. I started to worry about subscriber counts and engagement numbers. I obsessed over what I could do to get more traction. I got kinda stressed about things, and I’m not proud of any of that. Luckily, this was a short-lived phase, and I managed to crank out some decent writing anyway. I’ll keep this section short (this is why middle children are loud) and just link to a few of the bangers:

• A heartfelt story about, you guessed it, a Kleenex Box

• Our beloved mailman died! (He didn’t, but it really, really felt like it)

• I finished reading Lord of the Rings to my firstborn son (we cried)

• I documented my son’s birthday sleepover party with a heavy dose of sarcasm

Towards the end of this era of my Substackian existence, things got a little squirrelly. I’m tempted to be embarrassed about this, but I can’t be. After all, I was just a dude trying things and hoping to find my place in the writing world. Is that such a problem? No, it’s not, and if I’ve learned anything about being on Substack, it’s that people don’t care about you as much as you think. You are only the main character in your own story, and that’s just fine.

The End

“Wait! Don’t call it that, dude! You aren’t leaving, are you?!”

No, I’m not, but when the first two sections of a three-act structure are “The Beginning” and “The Middle,” it’s what makes sense.

“How about ‘The Future’, ya doof?!”

The Future

Ok, sure, let’s call it that.

Because you know what? That’s what now is. The future! I’ve finally found my crew on this platform and—surprise—it’s not the people who complain about AI and algorithms or pontificate about how to grow your Substack.

It’s the FICTION CREW.

I don’t know why it took me so long to find these guys. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t until I saw a post from saying something like “Want to get into fiction on Substack? Here are people to check out!” (or something like that) and I started subscribing to stuff. I believe , , and were on that list, but I’m very much going from memory right now. Either way, what a difference it made! Suddenly, I was interacting with a group of people who all read and supported each other, rather than telling me what I should do with my Substack. Suddenly, everything fell into place. Suddenly, the metrics fell out the window of my brain. (Like, literally, I almost never look at them anymore.)

Then I had an idea for a (very) short story, and posted it as my first brand-new piece of fiction on the platform.

Woof, went a little over the top with that one, didn’t I? Oh well. I WAS EXCITED.

Then I started interviewing my wife about her art:

Then, I started a new series called “On Writers.” Yeah, it’s not the most inventive name, and sure, I ripped it off from Stephen King (there he is again!) and multiple others, but whatever. It makes sense. This was my chance to meet the Fiction Crew!

My first guest was . I reached out to him because, I don’t know, he seemed funny? His flash fiction based on story prompts is fucking hilarious and more inventive than you can imagine. If you aren’t reading it yet, you really need to. We are talking about a time commitment of 1-2 minutes per post, and I laugh out loud at almost all of them. (When I restack his posts with an “LOL”, you know I mean it.)

Sure as shit, he was game for an interview. I was nervous, to be honest. Not about being on camera, not about going live, but…what if he was weird? Awkward? What if I found myself in front of the whole world (lol, dreamer) with a guy who was falling apart in front of my eyes?!

Boy, was I wrong. Jay was an absolute delight!

“On Writers” has continued to be my favorite activity on Substack, and I’ve gone on to interview the following writers:

• (A debut novelist!)

• (Another Andrew T., this time with the voice of a manly angel! Seriously. He does narrations and they are PRO.)

• (A voice from the Void!)

• And many more to come.

I’m about to wrap this thing up, but I would be remiss not to mention my novella, The Wheel. I’ve only got five more chapters to post over the next two weeks. It’s been such a thrill to get this out into the world after all the hours I’ve spent working on it.

And that’s all, folks. I’m having more fun on Substack now than ever, and of all things, that takes me back to the beginning. I joined this platform to have fun, and after a year of fumbling, I’ve managed to continue doing that.

It’s no longer just for me, though. It’s so gratifying to interact with new writers and to amplify their voices out into the world! Sure, I get some return on investment there (in the form of sporadic new subscribers), but if I said that’s what it was all about, I’d be well and truly lying.

Thanks for hanging out, and I’ll see you all around. Here’s to year two!

Andrew's Tip Jar

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To get us all on the same page, I have a novella that is very close to my heart. It’s about a young family in my hometown of Traverse City, Michigan, and how an unspeakable tragedy can affect a person. Since novellas can be tricky to publish traditionally, I’ve decided to serialize and post it here over the course of (checks notes) 16 installments.

So why is it taking so long to get this thing started?

Let me tell you.

The Story

This part is…well, it’s done, I think. It scares me to say that. I’ve been fiddling with the thing for years, and for some reason, it doesn’t feel right to ever consider it “done.” It’s my first start-to-finish attempt to write a fictional story, and every time I’ve revisited it, it has required a lot of revision to bring the story in line with my current abilities. When I first started this story, I was bumbling around fiction land with nothing more than a dying flashlight and a will to put one foot in front of the other. Now, several years later, the dawn is approaching, and the sky has pinkened just enough that I can put the dead flashlight in my pack and walk upright with some sense of where I’m heading and why.

Will this ever be my best story? Probably not.

Will this always be the closest to my heart? It’s likely, and for that reason alone, it’s worth sharing.

The Art

This has been trickier than expected. My original conception for the art was way too much. Jenelle (my wife) and I have since been going through the plans again and looking for ways to trim back the number of pieces that she will need to create while keeping them impactful. She plans to start on the title banner image as early as today. I can’t wait!

The Audio

I knew this was going to be a slog, but…wow. It turns out that countless hours of reading aloud to your children do NOT prepare you for recording an audiobook. It doesn’t matter how good I am at Snape, Hagrid, Smeagol, Aragorn, even McGonagall, for heaven’s sake! Reading with the “Recording” light flashing is a trip.

It can also be hilarious:

With all that said, I think I’m in a good spot to start publishing this really soon! My dream is to start it next week during the National Cherry Festival here in Traverse City. Why?

Well, that’s where the story starts, and let me just say that you might want to ride the Ferris Wheel before you read this thing…

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I knew it was possible to solve—easy even—but no one ever tells you about the sadness that creeps in after the deed is done; the post-cubal self-loathing that settles in as you stare at the completed thing limp in your hand, naked in its uniformity.

It all started at the Lawsons' house weeks ago. Lord Emmett (or so we call him) had solved a cube in the blink of an eye. Thirteen. The Lord is thirteen. David (the Lord's father) rather rashly told me it wasn't that hard once you knew the moves. Would that David had been more guarded, more considerate, with his comments. This all could have been averted…

So I said to myself "If Lord Emmet and countless other CHILDREN can knock one of these things out in less time that it takes the males of most species to orgasm, by golly I can do it too!"

It took me less than twenty-four hours to learn all the right twists and wrist flicks, and before I knew it, I too could finish the thing on a whim.

I had crossed the Rubicon. I was a cuber. I had strangled the remaining sense of magic that the world still contained with no more than my scrabbling fingers and a will to succeed. My vision was strained, almost painful, as if scarred from the hundreds of bright, colorful blocks that had rotated and spun roughly across it throughout the day. I needed to stop, but I couldn't. Just one more time, I said, and then I would know for sure that I had done it, I had figured this thing out.

Five solves later, I could barely see for the blazing sense of loss that assaulted my eyes like the colors of a flashing disco dance floor.

I slept.

In the morning, I messaged David at work (Excuse me, ahem, I mean on our personal cell phones via SMS):

"I don't know how to feel about my post Rubik's cube solving life. There's no more mystery left in the world. I am dead inside."

David, rather callously (yet wisely) assured me that, "Once you go through all the stages of grief, you will be okay, I promise."

This is the story of that grief.

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1. Denial

An apt first stage. Hence why I solved the thing again. And again. And again. Hence why my eyes bled.

LOL, David, I have no clue how to solve the yellow cross. Yeah, I know I did it a few times, but I still can't remember what the steps were. WHY AM I NEVER PAYING ATTENTION TO WHAT THE STEPS ARE HAHAHAHA

2. Anger

Who are these "Lawsons"? Why do we call one of them "Lord"? He’s thirteen. THIRTEEN! Surely he knows the dangers as well as his father, if not better! The kid has a 4x4 cube! A 5x5! If that isn't a dangerous rabbit hole of addiction in plain sight, I don't know what is. I've been betrayed. WHERE ARE THE PARENTS?!

3. Bargaining

What if I teach my son to solve this thing?! Surely that will be harder...impossible even! Maybe then I will feel that same...... no, I can't do that to someone. Not to family. Maybe another Lawson, but never family....

4. Depression

I solved it again during a conversation with the Lawsons. (Why do we see them so much, anyway?) I was right in front of David, and he didn't even notice! He didn't say anything. He's just as dead inside as I am, I know it. Sure, "Just move through the stages of grief," he said. "You will be fine." Ok, pal. Have you done that? Or are you still stuck on number four? Number one? What has this friendship come to…

5. Acceptance

Today, I scrambled and solved my Rubik's Cube four times during a work meeting. Maybe five. They didn't even notice. I never once lost the thread of conversation. None of that "I'm sorry, my Zoom froze for a second, what was that?" B.S. It hardly even took brain cells, which is good, because I hear you lose those over time, or something.

This is my life now. I'm a cuber. I'm not ashamed, I'm just, well, dead inside, and as far as I can tell, speedcube.com shows no algorithm to solve that.

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After the credits scene:

“Hey Siri, how hard is a 4x4 Rubik's Cube compared to the original?”

**OMINOUS MUSIC**

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Ok, so back to the title. Considering that hair is one of the easiest outward ways to display your personality, even when you are stark naked, I'm sure I'm not the first person to chase this train of thought.

When I think of my childhood as it relates to hair, it likely explains a lot about my adult personality. I didn't always have much say in how my hair looked—I wasn't one of those kids who could do whatever they wanted with it, whether that meant it was colored, long, unruly, etc. I was given a few options, and that was it. I don't ever remember being upset about that—it's just the way things were—but I think it's saying something that as soon as I graduated high school, as soon as I was an "adult," I began to grow it out. I think it's also noteworthy that I have a really hard time with any constraints that are put on me, whether they are real or imagined. My alter ego is "Overly Honest Andrew," after all.

I graduated in 2004 and my hair around that time looked pretty damn awful. I'm trying to conjure up pictures from that time in my defunct mind's eye and the best way I can explain it is that it looked like a coked out artist placed a square of shag carpet on a dogs rump, dyed it brown and said "I'll call it Andrew."

My hair grew longer over the year after graduation. There were more ugly stages than there were days (my inadequate facial hair didn't help anything), but eventually I had a ponytail. It was bushy, but I liked it enough to keep it. Regardless, I spent a significant amount of time wondering if Andrew Thomas had any business looking like I did at that time. Despite what “Overly Honest Andrew” might portray, I’m not all that secure in myself at times.

Fast forward to July of 2007, and I was over it. Washing that thick, curly hair was about as annoying as it got, and I hadn't yet discovered the miracle that was ditching shampoo almost entirely. I needed that hair to be gone so badly that I convinced my sister and mom to cut it for me on the night of July 4th, 2007, presumably after the fireworks or something. I "met" and began dating my wife days later. In another year, we would be married.

Years went by. My hair and beard oscillated wildly from one style to the next to the point that people even remarked that they never knew what to expect me to look like when they saw me next. It was always within reason, though. Respectable. You see, I was trying to build a career at Hagerty and, for a while, I was doing a pretty good job of it.

Eventually, I took the role of an Assistant Manager. I saw disjointed pockets of success in this role, but the truth is, I was never any good at it. It was a very different role when I first took it, and as it morphed more and more into a coaching role, it became less and less of a fit for me. It turned out I had no interest in trying to help a person to improve if they couldn't accept that improvement was needed. Years later, I also realized that some trauma from childhood confrontations was also a major factor in my inability to have effective conversations with my team.

Throughout all this, I maintained a mostly professional hairstyle, but as the years drew on, I began to feel more and more trapped in a role that wasn't a good fit for me. With each passing day, I thought about growing my hair out again. In my mind, a manager couldn't do that, though, so it only exacerbated my mental condition.

Eventually, things came to a head (pun intended) and I was told I either needed to commit to serious improvement in my current role, or take this other role that was a much better fit for my skills. That was one of the hardest moments in my life—I felt like a failure—but it was so generous of them to offer me another role rather than demoting me or firing me altogether. You see, they knew I cared and that I was a good egg, but I had found myself in a dead-end situation. Simply, I needed a way out. While I jumped on the new role almost immediately, it was many months until I was able to shake the feeling of being a failure.

I did, however, begin growing out my hair almost immediately.

This all happened around Labor Day 2017. Archie was born in April of the next year, and, as you can see, I was well on my way:

From there, I had the same hairstyle for the longest period of my life so far: the man bun. I found a job that fit my strengths, that let me be me, and allowed me to grow and pursue new interests within the department. This eventually led to me creating a communications job for myself and, most recently, being promoted to Manager of Training and Communications.

Speaking of that communications job, here's how my coworkers will learn about my new "do" on Monday.

I kinda want to be an actor, too, if you can’t tell…

Despite all of this, I feel trapped again. I'm a known quantity. I want new things for myself. Perhaps that's why I've taken so strongly to writing. Perhaps that's why I keep expanding this Substack. (Don't forget to join me on my latest venture at noon tomorrow!) Amidst all this, I think it's no surprise that the need to cut my hair came upon me again.

That's not why I cut my hair, though. Obviously, changing your hair doesn’t lead to any real change…but maybe it allows your brain to wander, to try a new way of doing things. I just can’t shake the feeling that when I feel the need to change my hair, my life is aching for change as well. Maybe other, more meaningful changes will follow this change in visage. Maybe not.

I can only work towards it and hope.

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