The Fictional's First Newsletter

The ups & downs of this week's writing adventures

I don’t actually think I have any “downs” when it comes to writing. If anything, I’m sure the only thing I could consider a “down” is that I haven’t written 10k words since last Sunday, finished six novels, published 11 books, etc. That is, I have unrealistic expectations of myself. Luckily, I’m aware of this, so it’s okay.

One of the things that I did do, however, was spend a lot of time this week trying to figure out what exactly I’m trying to do on Substack. What exactly is a newsletter, and should I be writing one? What kinds of things would my readers like to know? Or should I just randomly drop stories and articles on this site? Lately, my thoughts are on organization — what’s my artistic workflow? What’s my system? Where am I trying to publish, and who might read that work where?

It's tough when you’re trying to do everything and be everywhere all the time. It’s tough when you have an endless supply of fiction, thoughts, ideas, and little moments that scream out for you to explore them. It’s tough when you have books you want to read, too — how does one find the time to do the reading? A stranger’s novel that looked good. A Substack serial that is enticing. A series on Medium written by someone you know. A friend’s novel.

How to fit it all in? Part of that is prioritizing things, and part of that is building a system. And part of that, of course, is being a 56-year old addled ADHD guy who spontaneously writes 5k words for a short story that just needed to be told right then.

Gaius Darkspell and the Duel of Fates — Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Instructions for Strange Desires is an idea I had late last year to write a short story anthology of fantasy and science fiction and ‘the new weird’ and just let it all hang out. I miss short stories, but they’re so much fun! The above certainly was. And I’ve already started working on the next one, Prime City’s Last Wizard — you can see some images below, or seek out my Pinterest for all the ideas I’ve started collecting.

Sesame Swallow

I’m still faithfully working on the rewrite of Sesame Swallow, Private Investigator, her debut novel. I did some significant plot arranging, which has also resulted in adding at least three new chapters. Sesame, if you didn’t know, is a young woman with big dreams of becoming a private investigator, and in this novel, she gets her big break.

She’s tough, smart, funny, and has a great cast of characters around her. I like to say she’s six parts Nancy Drew, three parts Charlie’s Angels, and one part Californication, although the mix changes in accordance with each novel. I’ve already written the second and third books, started the fourth, and have the other six planned out. I just need to get this first one out the door, and that will happen this year.

In the meantime, I’m also obsessed with something I wrote 10+ years ago.

In Case of Alice, Break Glass

This paranormal retelling of Alice in Wonderland has been lurking in my Google Drive for ages, but it’s finally getting its due. I can’t say “no.” I wanted to rewrite it at some point, so I’m doing so, but I’m also restructuring it into a serialized fiction. The chapter version is fine for publishing ultimately, but I’m quite enamored with serials of late, so here comes Alice — dirty, mean, angry and fallen down a rabbit hole into a world nothing like Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland.

I’ve put together a couple of teasers I think you might enjoy. The first is a video narration of the first couple of paragraphs by Trinity, who’s telling the story. The second is the entire first chapter and a few questions about it. I think I finally have a good feel for what I want to do here with this story, and I hope you enjoy the little taste I’m offering in the links: Teaser Video; First Chapter.

Questions:

I thought I would ask a couple of questions here, before we move on. What do you think about audio and video for excerpts and teasers? I’ve been working with Eleven Labs for text-to-speech and Headliner to create videos. You can see this in action in the Teaser Video above. You can also see it on my YouTube channel - SJStone. I have videos/shorts on YouTube for Duel of Fates, Alice, Dorothy: Locked & Loaded, Sesame Swallow and even Just Right.

Each of the above has a different vibe. Did you like them? Which ones did you like? Which ones got your interested to know more? What else could I do with audio or video? Any answers you shoot my way are totally appreciated. I really do like creating all these other things for my writing, so I hope you enjoy them, too.

Last Bits & Pieces:

So, as I wrap up this first newsletter, I hope it was interesting and fun to read. I do have a million things going on in my head, and think it would be useful for me to spend a little time talking about them, help me prioritize and just think about the totality of what I’m trying to accomplish — so many things!

I’m still working on populating my website with the full Just Right serial, which I delivered exclusively on Medium in 2023. And I’m bringing back 150 episodes of Dorothy: Locked and Loaded on my website, too, because more than 10 years ago, it was a hit. I think it deserves another run. Should I just bring them here to Substack, or should I post them to my website and be done with it? I still can’t decide.

Thanks again for reading, and I hope to keep them newsletter thing going. So, let me know how it worked for you and what more you’d like to know about.

Scott