What a year! My first rotation around the sun as a full time writer, and it was a pretty good one! A few bumps along the road, but I think a few teething pains are to be expected.

  First, my break. It was good, and very much needed. I spent time with friends and family, played a good bit of Arc Raiders and Barotrauma over the last week, and read roughly half of Lord of the Mysteries (like 5k pages, wheew!). I’m feeling refreshed, and eager to get stuck into some writing. I did a full disconnect — no work, other than the couple of times I edited and queued a few chapters.

  Over the course of the year I’d let writing consume a little too much of everything possible. Effectively, I was either writing, thinking about what to write, editing, or procrastinating those three tasks. That was… silly, and it did have some negative outcomes on the task itself, which is a little self defeating.

  Writing doesn’t happen in a vacuum (goes for all creative endeavours really). Get too little sleep, and your cognition goes kaput, which makes the words gluggy and slow. Spend too much time thinking and engaging in a single thing, and you start to miss the forest for the trees and pacing can get weird (crucible…). Even just the basic fact of not spending the time to enjoy reading the genre I write in is detrimental — it means a lack of interesting ideas, settings and systems to inspire me.

  Stress is the killer though, as it can create an unconscious aversion. That, plainly, makes everything above worse.

  I think the biggest challenge of the year was just… fucking around. I’ve always struggled to work a normal 9-5, and tend to leave things to the last minute (thanks adhd), and this job has been a mixed blessing. I can do it whenever, but on the other hand, I can do it whenever. It led to a slow tendency to start writing later and later, until I’d spend most of the day doomscrolling or playing games while constantly on edge about putting off work, which then led to stressed out writing between the hours of 4-11+pm.

  Stressed out writing is rushed writing, and it also meant I got to spend less time with my partner than I would like. Plus, late nights lead to staying up late to spend time with my partner. That meant I normalised 2am+ bed time, with waking up at 8ish. I cannot. My brain was the consistency of mashed potatoes for like 4 months. Adhd meds only mask fatigue. You feel alert, but the sleep debt is still effectively lobotomising you. (Thanks, psych degree. Laying awake at night stressing about the health impacts of sleep is my second favourite gift of yours, behind only stressing about the health impacts of stress.)

  I attempted to give dictating a go, but despite the nominal increases in output, all it really did was make it easier for me to go ‘oh I can bang that out in x time’ and leave it till later. Plus, I would always discount the massive increase in editing time. Silly, considering it's my least favourite part of writing (dev edits/rewrites are fun, but proof reading something I already know like the back of my hand leaves me clawing at the walls).

  I think dictating, in general, is a useful tool, and I don't regret giving it a full 4-5 month crack. I Definitely know heaps more about how to use it now. That said, for me personally, it is really only useful in those flow moments where the words are racing to get out and I’m bottle necked by my janky two finger touch typing (using my left ring finger of all things. Thanks median nerve damage). Outside of those, it enables a little too much waffling, makes blocking action scenes way harder, and makes my writing a little too…loose for lack of a better phrase.

  For context, everything I wrote with dictation is from roughly the second trial of the crucible, through to a week or two ahead of where Patreon is now. Not terrible writing on the overall, and that chunk even has like 2-3 of my favourite moments in the series, but it's…loose. Sloppy. A little languid, even.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  That said, on the overall, I feel good about last year. I got approx 3.x books written, which i’m genuinely proud of, especially considering the shortest of them is 330k words. That's like 1m words! I’ve learnt a lot about writing, and managing myself (turns out I am much more functional with TurkeyBlocker removing my ability to do anything fun on my computer during work hours lol).

  Plus, my favourite achievement, I am this close to finishing my outlined plans for B2! (I’m not kidding, the entirety of B2+B3+B4 was a 2 page outline for a three act structure of b2. Idk how I thought that would work when it took me 330k words to do a bloody dungeon start opening. I blame reading Martial God Asura at a pivotal age.)

  I think, overall (and aside from a few bumps along the way), the story is in a healthy state. I’m still trying to find that right balance of narrative where there’s a good blend of action, stakes, character, progression, and plot, but I think I've come a whole lot closer. Early B4 is a little too focused on low stakes character and narrative, and the crucible is way too deep in pure progression and lore/plot without engaging in enough action or character, but I’m very happy with how Strangspine and the imperial ruins turned out. A little slow on the set up, but hey, if this was a traditional job I'm still effectively in a graduate position. I got room to grow and learn. I do think, however, that future delves will need to be much more dynamic — other teams, competing parties, etc.

  I’ve got some good ideas for b5 too. They’re still nucleating, but I'm excited to get to the Dukedoms, and play around with some new toys.

  Editing B1 also turned out great, and I can't wait to show it to all of you — whenever that is. I’m still only 75% done with line edits for b2, which is then followed by rewrites, but balancing that with writing is a goal for this year. 100%, all three will be released this year — after which I’m aiming to do an ebook/audio every 6 months, if they stick around that 1200+ page mark, at least.

  I do want to get snappier with my plotting and arcs. While I don’t mind the overall pace of the series, nor the detail I put into things, but waffling is officially out for 2026. Gold star for me if I finish a book in <100 chapters (press x to doubt).

  I’m aiming for a little more sustainability this year. I pushed myself a little too hard at points in 2025, doing silly things like aiming for writing 3+ chapters a day, which would lead to me flaming out and just barely getting 4ish done for a few weeks (and therefore immediately destroying any backlog progress I made). Even just coming up with plot that fast is bloody hard. Sure, when I first started dictating I managed some 15-20 chapter weeks, but that also led to the Crucible, so…..

  Some people are just built different. Ostensible Mammal is one of them, I am not.

  This year, I’m going to return to the old faithful of 2/day, m-f, which would net me +4 a week. Absolutely fine for holidays and my eventual plans for world domination. (I want to finish Runeblade 1+ years before you guys, so that I can spend 6-8 months cooking up something new, and overlap the posting schedule).

  To do that, I need to actually work in the mornings, instead of dicking around so much. Made some good progress already, but more to go.

  Most immediately, my plan is to fix the sleep schedule, and then later get back into picking things up and putting them back down. A healthy body and mind is good for the creative juices.

  Hope you’ve enjoyed the journey, and here’s to sticking around till the end!

  Bacon/Maxim

  (My names gonna be on the ebooks so may as well reveal it now)