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Ever since I declared 2026 to be a year of comfort reading, I have been gorging myself on the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire. I’ve been reading so much that my reading glasses are making my ears sore. I’m not sorry. Not in the least.
I’m currently on book six, Ashes of Honor, and I’m starting to slow down a little. To savor more than gulp the words. I’ve needed this way of unplugging for a while. Picking up books I’d put down did not relax me like rereading old books has.
There is a certain sense of joy in the familiarity of the work mixed with the joy of rediscovery of forgotten details. It’s been long enough that I only remember bits and pieces of stuff and the end result. So, I know what’s going to happen, I just don’t remember how we get there. It’s the best of both worlds.
This means that I’m not looking for the big mystery. My mind is not trying to solve the problem of what happened and whodunit. My mind can relax and enjoy the small details the author put into their work. To know what is to come and compare it to what is happening on the page. To really see character arcs and relationship arcs as they happen and recognize them for what they are.
It’s like taking a walk from home to the store. The first time you do it, you’re more interested in getting to the place and not getting lost. You don’t really see details. Just big changes/turns. By the third or fourth time you take that walk, you know where you’re going so you have the bandwidth to notice the wildflowers along the road and to greet the dog that always barks at you. To notice the subtle decorations on the red door that you keep passing or, if you walk by at the same day/time, the habits of those along the walk.
Comfort reading lets your brain relax and just go along for the ride. I think that’s needed in today’s society of hyper-stimulation. At least, I know I need it. This was a good goal for me. So, I’ll be over there with my nose in a book and a smile on my face.
Lucky 13. That’s how many times I had to submit my novella, Between the Stars I Found Her, before it found a home.
At the 2018 Worldcon (San Jose), I attended a mentoring session hosted by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA). I was paired with Julia Rios, a talented writer/editor who managed Worlds of Possibility. She heard my pitch about two projects I was considering: a second-world fantasy based on ancient Yemen, and a science fiction story set in a socialist paradise that included cloning and personality transfers (i.e., functional immortality).
Julie said I showed more interest in the second idea and encouraged me to pursue it. She was right.
The result was a novella, Between the Stars I Found Her. My POV character is Mylene Vandenberg, whose ex-wife commits suicide. I wanted to explore themes of grief and loss, especially when the concept of true death had become rare.
The story really clicked for me when I put Mylene on a solo journey that takes her far from Earth. She and her ship, The Flying Dutchman, stumble across the corpse of an astronaut lost over a century before. That gave me the opening to play around with several puzzles—who was this person? How did their life pod get into deep space?
The answers could lead Mylene back to Earth. Full circle, as it were.
Easier said than done, certainly. The draft became a story which was rejected several times. I kept at it. My helpful critic group correctly pointed out that the story was too short (and boy were they right), so the story grew into a novella. It was rejected again. And again.
On the thirteenth submission, I found an editor (Mark Bilsborough at Wyldblood) who liked it enough to help me develop Between into a proper novella. Mark had published several of my flash fiction stories and I was happy to work with him again.
The novella’s journey wasn’t an easy one, I’ll be honest. Writing Between the Stars forced me to do research and—Gods forbid—write a real outline rather than simply banging at the keyboard for a few thousand words and call it a draft.
There was also Mundane Reality™ that many writers face: jobs and family and COVID, etc. Somehow, though, it all came together in a shiny wrap-around cover that you can hold in your hand. Imagine that.
In retrospect, I’ve learned a few important lessons. First, my idea for a secondary world fantasy novella/novel wasn’t bad, but I was trying to write something I thought would be popular (Everyone loves epic fantasy, right?) rather than telling a story that meant something to me. Bottom line: listen to your Muse. She knows the score.
Second, you have to back up your Muse with perseverance. And patience. The best stories sometimes take years to find the right editor, the right agent, the right publisher. And even if they do, shit happens. (Buy me a cup of tea and I’ll tell you all about it.)
I’ve often remarked to friends that I hesitate to write longer stories because I’m not willing to let the characters live in my head for at least two years. Well, Mylene lived in my head much longer than that and I still like her a lot.
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Karl Dandenell is a graduate of Viable Paradise and a Full Member of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association. He and his family, plus their feline overlords, live on an island near San Francisco famous for its Victorian architecture and low-speed traffic. Karl has published over 50 works of short fiction in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. Follow his occasional posts at Bluesky (@karldandenell.bsky.social) and read more about of his fiction at www.firewombats.com.
At the end of 2025, I burned out hard. I took 10 days off before my body and mind forced me to take a rest (this latter is always the worse option). Honestly, I could use another couple of weeks of doing nothing. Not going to happen. However, I do feel a lot better, calmer, and more ready to face the work world again.
So, 2026. I don’t do resolutions. I haven’t for years. I usually don’t do yearly themes. I’ve never needed them. But, I think this year, I do. My theme for 2026 is “Be present for yourself.” I spent a lot of the last couple of years working for/looking out for other people. I’ve made attempts to keep myself in mind, but *I* was always the easiest ball to drop when things got hectic. My writing goals, my physical goals, my wants/wishes/needs.
I’ve got to figure out how to stop putting myself last. It’s getting me in trouble. My novel, Shadowrun: Imre Grey, isn’t done and it should be. I’m barely holding onto my diet goals, and my movement goals are down to squats and wall pushups in-between other things. Thus, I guess that means I need to actually, physically, schedule movement into my week.
The other thing I am going to do is plan in quarters this year. I’ve been doing this for a long time in my head, but not on paper. This time, in order to be more present in my own life, I need to stop looking so far ahead that I can’t see the deadlines in front of my face.
1st Quarter (Jan-Feb-Mar). In addition to keeping my CGL lines running, I have two main projects:
2nd Quarter (Apr-May-Jun). In addition to keeping my CGL lines running, I have a single project focus:
I will worry about the 3rd and 4th quarters when I get there. Especially since convention season really starts in June.
* * *
On the Homefront, I have three new specific desires this year: Daily Journal, Comfort Reading, and Tranquil Thursdays.
That’s the plan for 2026: Quarterly project goals and showing up for myself more. As always, I will keep track of my metrics. (If you would like a copy of my blank 2026 Freelancer Summary document, contact me. I will send it to you.)
Shall we start with the numbers?
* * *
Thoughts about the Numbers…
(TL;DR: I did a lot more than I thought I did, and a lot less than I wanted to do.)
I did so much more editing and managing of fiction than I did writing it. As you see, I didn’t even finish a novel in 2025. On the other hand, I created a whole year’s worth of a magazine, managing/editing 14 authors, 5 fact checkers, and a slush pile just for it. That, in and of itself, is worthy. On top of it, I solicited, read for, curated, and edited three Shadowrun short fiction lines (Novella, FF, and GTM). That included so much overhead.
On one hand, it was a lot of work and I don’t really want to do it again. On the other hand, all of these Shadowrun fiction lines have a long tail and 80% of the hard work of them is already done. Now that I have them up and running, all I have to do is keep the ball rolling.
As for writing. I did get 5 new short stories written and sold them all. I’m in the throws of my third Colors Quartet Shadowrun novel, Imre Grey, after its released date got pushed from 2025 to 2026. Am I disappointed? A little. But not enough to castigate myself over it.
It’s taken me a lot of freelancing years to understand that I am not the sum of my output.
Decluttering: I’d say we got about 2/3rds of the way through the Declutter project list box. We’re still working on it, pulling a project out of the box each week. Mostly. Between my schedule and the Husband’s graduate school, we’ve had some “amnesty weeks” where life took precedence. So, it will continue on.
The Year of the Unfinished Book: In 2025, I read 33 books.
One Day Off the Internet a Week: By-and-large, I stuck to this. Boy, did I ever need that time away from the computer/work. This is one of those habits that will stick. I’ve got a new one I want to start but that’s a blog post for next year.
It’s the frantic end-of-the-year season. I hope you are having a lovely holiday season. Here’s a Bubble & Squeek for you. This time with some recommendations!
eBay and Signed Books: If you would like signed books from me for yourself or as gifts, we have a bunch of my books up on eBay. This will remain on eBay until all of my books are gone. All money goes to me.
Recommendation: Reminder. BBC has a beautiful radio drama of THE DARK IS RISING by Susan Cooper. You can enjoy it now with (found) family and friends. If you start on Dec 20, and listen to one a day, it will follow along with the book.
Recommendation: New to me version of my favorite holiday song, Carol of the Bells by Safri Duo.
Release: Augment 4 has been released. It’s the Winter 2083 issue and it’s all about city life and the vehicles we use to get around in the Sixth World.
Release: Marie Bilodeau and I have a new Aigmar and Ozan story in the latest Valdemar anthology, Smoke and Mirrors, number 19! I love this bardic duo and you can bet your bottom dollar there will be more from these two in the future.
Release: Skull X Bones anthology, with my story, “More than Blood in the Water” has been released!
Support: As always… if you appreciate my work and would like to support me, I love coffee. I am made of caffeine. This is the quickest way to brighten my day.
Tis the season! Whamageddon is upon us.
And should you fall…
We shall die and dine together…
Remember, this is all in good fun. Don’t be a jerk, and don’t yuck on someone else’s yum.
Most of my writing career has been spent in long form novels set in the grim and perilous worlds of Warhammer, but I often like to venture beyond that into other forms of writing, genres, and tones for variety and texture. What I mean by that is I need to feel like I’m exercising different writerly muscles when I embark on different projects, whether it’s a novel, a comic, a short story, a screenplay, or whatever. I feel this is good for me and the reader, as it helps keep things new and exciting. It means that when I return to each different genre or project type, I’m enthused to explore it again and not likely to get pigeonholed into one corner. Likewise, as a reader, I like to vary my diet of books between SF, Fantasy, Horror, Crime, Non-Fiction, etc., so I don’t ever get tired of one genre or writer.
The reason I do this with my writing is that each project employs different sensibilities and creative choices, whether it’s the discipline of the word count in a short story, where you want to get in and out of Dodge with speed and clarity, or a novel where you can afford multiple sub-plots and be (a little) more self-indulgent. Then you have screenplays, which have a very definitive structure and format, where all the emphasis is on the dialogue and providing a ‘blueprint’ for the folk who have to shoot what you’ve written. When it comes to comics, I love working with an artist to bring the words on the page to life and leaning on their talents for how to lay out the page. With comics, you also have the fun challenge of pacing the story in such a way that the big reveals, splash pages, and so on all come at the right time on the reader’s page turns.
It’s the same with genre and mythologies, I love to mix and match or slam together wildly different origins to see what comes out. So, you’ll get books like Dead Sky, Black Sun, that fuse a grimdark SF tale with Barker-esque body horror, or A Thousand Sons, that’s a story of space wizards in a gothic tragedy of hubris.
That variety is what I had in mind when I first started developing the ideas for Wolves of Winter. I wanted to write an epic story of Viking warriors that ventured into magical and supernatural territory, which combined my love of various mythologies. As much as I love Roman, Greek, and Egyptian mythologies, I didn’t feel they were the right fit, and given that as a kid in Scotland, I’d grown up on stories of Celtic mythology, with its Kelpies, Selkies, and the Tuath Dé Danann, that seemed entirely appropriate a mash-up. Bringing the grand mythologies of the Norse and the Celts together allowed me to delve into both cultures in a way that felt real and authentic (and, most importantly, exciting!).
It’s my hope that, so long as I stay enthused for my craft by allowing for that blending of story types and genres I can keep entertaining my readers in exciting and unexpected ways for many years to come.
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Graham McNeill is a Scottish, LA-based, award-winning, New York Times best-selling author, screenwriter, and games developer. Over the years, Graham has written for numerous global franchises, working on Riot’s League of Legends and on their Emmy-Award-winning Netflix show, Arcane; Games Workshop’s Warhammer and Horus Heresy settings; Blizzard Entertainment’s Starcraft universe, and the Dark Waters trilogy for Fantasy Flight Games Arkham Horror range. To date, Graham has penned forty-five novels, ninety-plus short stories, audio dramas, and comics. His novel, Empire, won the David Gemmell Legend Award for Best Fantasy Novel in 2010, and four of his novels in the Horus Heresy series have gone on to become New York Times best-sellers.
Augment is Shadowrun’s official magazine. This is a fully in-universe magazine, and can be used in Shadowrun games as well as enjoyed by the casual reader.
Augment, Winter 2083. In this issue about city life and vehicles, Leach tours around his hometown of Seattle to sample its delights. Marques Reille gets caught shopping in one of his favorite stores by none other than Gabrielle Spinrad! Yuta Nakata has a feisty interview with our cover artist, PR4NK-r, about art and life. Louise Sashey, new columnist of The Cutting Edge, spends time in Montreal and Kyoto, finding ways to experience city life in style. Enjoy these articles, reviews of new products, clothing, tech, and so much more!
Augment your life with Augment magazine!
Even the back cover is gorgeous!
I had such a good time editing this magazine. It’s a ton of work but worth it. I hope you check it out. I’ll put pictures up of all four issues together when I get my hot little hands on them.
You’ve all heard it said: Two great tastes that taste great together. Peanut butter and chocolate. Yum. I tend to look upon writing fiction in the same way I look at my snack options. I love mixing genres. Blending genres into something unique thrills the creator in me and I think my characters enjoy it too.
I write thrillers often. The beauty of this is that thrillers pair well with almost anything. Action/thriller. Check. Crime/Thriller. Yep. SciFi/Thriller. Uh huh. You get the idea. If you look at any of my thrillers, there is definitely a blending of multiple genres. It even boils down to the way I pitch titles to potential readers. For example, the pitch for Evil Ways, my first novel that was released in 2005, is “Imagine if Die Hard’s John MacClane found himself in an 80’s slasher movie.” It also works outside of thrillers. Horror also pairs well with others. I write a horror/western series, for example. In my Dante series, it’s “Imagine if Deadwood also had monsters.”
This blending of two different, but recognizable, ideas let readers know what they are in store for before they open to the first page.
How do writers know when blending genres works? That’s a tough question to answer because all writers are different and our unique voice helps us determine how scenarios play out. If I am writing a mystery, for example, there are different types. A cozy mystery has no, or very little, elements of danger. The odds of your main character getting hurt, killed, or even severely startled is infinitesimal. Mixing in a thriller component changes the dynamic because thrillers inherently come with an element of danger, of thrills. It’s right there in the description. Characters aren’t always safe in a thriller.
Even if a cozy mystery and mystery/thriller use the same plot, you will get two different stories because of the thriller element added. Thriller adds a sense of danger to stories and, as a writer and reader, that appeals to me. I recently co-wrote a cozy mystery with a friend and it was a bit of a struggle to not add in thriller elements as I normally would when writing a novel. I use thriller elements to enhance the story. A lighthearted story gets a bit of bad news that gives the characters a problem to overcome. In a mystery, thriller elements can knock a character down and then help them grow by how they rally and get back up. Thriller elements are usually impediments to the status quo. How your characters respond to these elements adds weight to the story and the characters themselves. Do they learn something from this element? Do they grow? Do they buckle under the pressure? Thriller elements allow me, as a writer, to test my characters. The best of them come away from these stories stronger thanks to the adversity they faced.
For me, writing always starts with character. Not every character is the right fit for every story. Certain characters are perfect fits for a thriller while others are not. Also, thrillers can be funny, romantic, and even heartfelt, each with an element of danger. That’s one of the reasons I like using the genre as a mixer. I encourage everyone to experiment with blending genres. You might discover something interesting in the process.
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Bobby Nash is an award-winning author, artist, and occasional actor. He writes novels, comic books & graphic novels, novellas, short stories, audio scripts, screenplays, and more. Bobby is a member of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers, International Thriller Writers, Southeastern Writers Association, and Atlanta Writers Club. From time to time, he appears in movies and TV shows, usually standing behind your favorite actor. Sometimes they let him speak. Scary, we know. For more information, please visit Bobby at www.bobbynash.com, www.ben-books.com, and across social media.
All four Dante ebooks are currently $0.99 for a limited time.
I’m doing a lot of project management, editing, and novel writing. Have a Bubble & Squeek!
eBay and Signed Books: The holiday season is coming! If you would like signed books from me for yourself or as gifts for the holiday season, we have a bunch of my books up on eBay. This will remain on eBay until all of my books are gone. All money goes to me.
Kickstarter: Forthcoming anthology, Waterborne. I’m sharing a ToC with people like Seanan McGuire, Jonathan Maberry, Nancy Holder, Yvonne Navarro, and many other stellar authors. You’ll want this one for sure.
Kickstarter: Skull X Bones anthology. There’s still time to do late pledges for this SF&F themed anthology about pirates from the small press Zombies Need Brains! Warning: Contains me, too.
Panel: Gen Con 2025, Recorded Fiction Panel Gen Con on Sunday, with John Helfers, Jordan Weisman, Jennifer Brozek, Jason Hardy, and Bryan C.P. Steele… Catalyst authors and editors discuss fiction. YT link.
Support: As always… if you appreciate my work and would like to support me, I love coffee. I am made of caffeine. This is the quickest way to brighten my day.
Jennifer Brozek is a multi-talented, award-winning author, editor, and media tie-in writer. She is the author of Never Let Me Sleep and The Last Days of Salton Academy, both of which were nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. Her YA tie-in novels, BattleTech: The Nellus Academy Incident and Shadowrun: Auditions, have both won Scribe Awards. Her editing work has earned her nominations for the British Fantasy Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and multiple Hugo Awards. She won the Australian Shadows Award for the Grants Pass anthology, co-edited with Amanda Pillar. Jennifer’s short form work has appeared in Apex Publications, Uncanny Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, and in anthologies set in the worlds of Valdemar, Shadowrun, V-Wars, Masters of Orion, Well World, and Predator.
Jennifer has been a full-time freelance author and editor for over seventeen years, and she has never been happier. She keeps a tight schedule on her writing and editing projects and somehow manages to find time to teach writing classes and volunteer for several professional writing organizations such as SFWA, HWA, and IAMTW. She shares her husband, Jeff, with several cats and often uses him as a sounding board for her story ideas. Visit Jennifer’s worlds at jenniferbrozek.com or her social media accounts on LinkTree.
