2025 was a long year, in a good way, and also the one with the most change so far in my life as my wife returned to work and I took over full-time parenting of our daughter (who is now almost 1 and a half years old). My time available to write has dropped dramatically and the energy, though not enthusiasm, to do so along with it but I have still been sitting down everyday to create even a little bit, Robin Hobb wrote her first published novels while raising four kids and working as a waitress so I really have no excuse.
This change will mean my publishing schedule and types of projects I choose to work on will change in 2026, precisely how it will change I will post about later in January.
(If you want to read what I planned for 2025 read this post.)
On with the year review:
Reading - 61/52
Achieved. Fairly straightforward success that includes some children’s books and picture books but only the ones I most enjoyed, a lot I did not bother to track on Goodreads.
My favourite books of the year were, in no particular order: The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin, Pallas by Lisa Kuznak, Within my Branches by Nicholas Michel, The Search for the Giant Arctic Jellyfish by Chloe Savage, The English Resistance: The Underground War Against the Normans by Peter Rex, The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect by Roger Williams, The Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki, The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan, and The Burnout Society by Han Byung-Chul.
Disappointments of the year were: Butter by Yuzuki Asako, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe, by Niall Ferguson, 2020 by Kenneth Steven, and Hearthspace by Stephen Baxter.
Short Stories - 35/52
Missed the goal, though it was going very well until the late summer when my writing time was radically reduced. I utilised a ton of prompts throughout the year and some pushed my writing into new areas or styles which was my hope. I will continue to write short stories but at a much reduced rate due to both time constraints and a general myopic feeling about the format, I should probably write something about this at later stage but anyway here are the most popular short stories from the year.
First is; Arrival at Proxima b -https://reddoscarwrites.substack.com/p/arrival-at-proxima-b -, which was expanded into the novella Atlanteans of Proxima b, and the second is; The Pain of Home - https://reddoscarwrites.substack.com/p/the-pain-of-home - which was about an adventurer returning home and having to deal with family and friends he had left behind.
Novellas - 3/4
The last three chapters of Famfrit’s Jewel were published in January and the novella was followed by The Atlanteans of Proxima b. I was pleased with both but know that with The Atlanteans could have explored much more cultural, technological differences, and religious elements regarding the clash of Hellenic religion with no knowledge of Christianity and the Christian faith becoming multi-planetary but such things would required a novel length story. The style, diary entries, was also quite limiting towards the end as everything had to be written after the fact while also having to make reasons for the character writing to have access to the writing tool. This meant the story was almost entirely told and not shown, which I don’t think made that big a difference in the end, and that some events happened near the end that I found a little implausible given the severity of the situation but it had to be done.
The Mage Hunter went on for almost double the chapters that were intended but I am glad I took the time to expand the original idea while also maintaining plenty of room for further stories (before and after) and innovative uses of the magic system.
So while I missed the goal of 4 novellas I think with The Mage Hunter becoming a 45’000-ish word short novel there isn’t anything to be disappointed about.
Word Goal - 242’704/520’000
I wrote almost everyday of the year (I missed a handful of days over Christmas, though not Christmas Day itself), something I have never managed before, and wrote the most words ever in a year since I started writing fiction in 2017, so while half-a-million words was critically missed the whole endeavour was a success in my mind, but why? Well the goal was a small motivator compared to the rash decision I made in early/mid January to post a Note to SubStack every day recording how much I had written. That requirement of myself made me write at least 100 words a day but often far more. Certainly something I recommend other writers do if they want to increase their output or merely practice writing regularly.
While I did falter in the latter half of December due to sheer busy-ness I do intend to return to the method of posting about how much I am writing each day but also sharing more information on what project and other updates. I have taken a short break from writing fiction while I compose this essay and the Year Ahead essay as well as proofread a friend’s PhD thesis. I suspect I will return to writing fiction in the second half of January.
Essays - 1/?
I think I penned a number of essays but only published one of them, about esoteric ideas and detailing some conspiracy theories - https://reddoscarwrites.substack.com/p/a-collection-of-esoteric-ideas?utm_source=publication-search -, a fun essay to research and write though a little light in the end and it didn’t seem to be well received, which is understandable as it had very little to do with fiction writing. It’s been almost a decade since I was at university and my ability to write non-fiction essays has certainly diminished in that time from lack of practice, whether I have time to do something about this in the near future is uncertain but I would like to do more analysis essays of books/films/games, a Deep Dive on top of the monthly reading reviews is likely the way to go and only about media I am enthusiastic about.
Overall the year was a good one and while creative endeavours have taken a bit of a backseat I still intend to chip away at them. See you in the Year That Will Be post in the coming days.
Many thanks for reading.
Quite a prodigious feat!