For some time now, I have approached each new year saying, “This shall be the year I publish a book every month!” I published only two books in 2024, but in my humble opinion they were doozies — Dejah & Summer in the Time of Magic, my October instant adventure, and A Declaration of Peace aka War IS the Crime. The new title fits what I hoped to accomplish better, and the new cover is prettier, but I guess I still don’t expect it to be a best seller, although I hope and pray its philosophy will someday be more universal.
If I published 12 books in 2025, what would they be? It would presumptuous to list the full dozen — circumstances change and inspiration usurps expectations — for the first three quarters of 2024, I had no inkling that I might write and publish a fantasy about my golden retrievers, after all.
But if I had a guess, the books most likely to be published under my name in 2025 are:
1. Jeep Thompson and the Lost Prince of Venus — I have been writing this novel in fits and spurts for nigh on five years, and it is so close to the finish line that I felt like I could wrap it up in a week. The thing is, that particular week has’t arrived in close to a year. I wonder if the reader will be able to detect which parts were written in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024, and how much of the last part was written in a 2025 burst of creativity?
2. See the World — I thought my post of that title would make a lovely opening to a book about paying attention to the wonders around us at any given moment — and we are given so many moments every day! — so I have been slowly collecting posts along that theme. As of today it’s a small collection, but it’s almost big enough to be a short book. I would not be surprised to reach the tipping point to comprise a volume in 2025.
3. Write Anything Until You Write Something — I’ve written plenty of times over the years about the art and craft of writing to the point where I could publish a disorganized but book-length collection of essays tomorrow. Two things hold me back: First, they really do need to be organized in some semblance of order. Second: Imposter Syndrome. Many writers who are better and more successful than I have written better and more successful books about writing. Who am I to presume I have anything worthwhile to add on the subject? Fortunately, the first obstacle is more powerful than the second, and so this is the most likely prospective book on this list to see the light of day.
4. No Chance to Dream — Back in 2018 (!?!) I wrote the first chapter of a fantasy detective story featuring the team of Adam Comfort, a rumpled human private detective, and Joy Emerson, a pookha who takes the form of a 6-foot-high skunk on two legs. Then I wrote six more chapters during NaNoWriMo 2019. I stumbled into Resistance when I couldn’t decide whether to determine whodunit before continuing to write or just continue romping along until the answer presented itself. Maybe 2025 is the year I decide.
5. The Girl, The Alien, and Me — Much like Dejah & Summer in the Time of Magic, in 2017 (!!!??!!) I wrote 10 blog posts that could be the first 10 chapters in a novel narrated by Hank Stiller, who meets a winsome young woman who seeks his help in a struggle against, well, Martians. The narrative stopped cold after I found myself killing off a character I really liked. The decision here is whether to go back and write earlier chapters to flesh out the character so the reader really feels the loss, go back and rewrite so he’s only injured and doesn’t die, or suck it up and continue the story after his death. (And as I’m writing this I suddenly OMG thought of a fourth alternative that might be The Answer.)
6-7-8. Myke Phoenix — This might be cheating, but my thickest book is Myke Phoenix: The Complete Novelettes, 700 pages compiling the 16 novelettes and two short stories I wrote over the years about the guardian of Astor City. If I broke them up into three volumes of five or six novelettes each, that could technically be the sixth, seventh and eighth editions in my challenge to publish 12 books during 2025.
9. I have written enough poems to produce a small book of poetry. Whether they’re any good is another story.
10. I have written enough short stories to make a small anthology. Again, I’ve only written a handful that make me think, “Yes. I’m glad I wrote that.”
11. Oh! I almost forgot that I have enough flash fiction to expand my soon-to-be-out-of-print volume 24 flashes and produce 96 flashes. Actually the only obstacle here is whether there’s a better title than 96 flashes, or I could have published it yesterday.
• So there are 11 ideas for books I could publish in 2025. Surely a 12th will occur to me by next Dec. 31.
What the heck. I accept the challenge.
