Progress Report: March 2024

Hey, Everyone.

If you’re listening to this instead of reading, I guess you’ve figured out the first update already; I’m going to be trying to produce a lot more audio updates here on Among the Stacks. Some of these will be typed out ahead of time and recorded from a prepared script, while others will be free-form rambles that I’ll transcribe after the fact for those who’d prefer to read instead of listening. Honestly, I’m not much of an audio person myself, but I’ve recently developed a much better appreciation of just how valuable it is for people to be able to consume media in the format that best suits their personal preference.

One of the biggest hurdles with me recording audio when I attempted it last year, is that I’m very much a perfectionist who becomes frustrated when I can’t produce things that meet a certain technical standard. My apartment is LOUD. I live in a two-story walk-up on a major street, and no matter how low I set my microphone gain, what kind of noise-filtering tech I use, and what sort of post-processing noise gates I apply, the sounds of traffic and sirens still trickle through. For a casual newsletter audio update like this, that’s not a big deal, but it’s painfully frustrating when trying to record audio narration of one of my short stories. At one point last year, I went as far as trying to build a little recording studio in my tiny closet. I hung blankets and towels to buffer the sound, but still the honking of cars and rumbling of trucks made it into the recording.

So I’m letting go of perfect and going to allow myself to record some of these newsletters with all their inevitable messiness. And that means some serious rambling once in a while. Most of my audio posts will be as considered and as concise as possible, but those who know me best know I’m a rambler. And friends, sometimes I’m going to settle in and let myself ramble at you without any prepared script. Some of you are going to love it, and some of you are going to hate it. As a consolation to those who aren’t a fan of long-winded audio posts, I promise I’ll do my best to ensure no important information is buried inside an hour-long monologue.

State of the Newsletter

Embarrassingly, I drafted a newsletter in June of last year explaining that life and writing had become a little too overwhelming for me to juggle Among the Stacks, so I was pausing billing for paid subscribers for at least the rest of the year. I somehow convinced myself that I’d posted that update, when in reality I left it languishing in my drafts folder. The main reason I felt I had to step back from putting out newsletter updates is that I was really stuck on my Traveling Librarian revisions. I’ll talk about that more in a bit, but for now let me just say that it was a real struggle to consider posting updates when I was so stalled out on the one project on which I was already so far behind schedule. I originally thought I’d have that thing published in the fall of 2022, and there I was half a year later feeling no closer to publishing it.

I’m not entirely sure when I’m going to unpause billing again, but for those of you who’ve been so supportive of the newsletter in the past, I assure you that I won’t flip that switch until I’m ready to start producing regular updates again. Your paid subscriptions help me write and publish stories like The Traveling Librarian that I believe would be mangled beyond recognition in the gears of the traditional publishing engine, so it’s important that you know how grateful I’ve been for your financial support.

As far as future newsletter updates are concerned, I basically plan to ignore all the common best-practice advice and do everything wrong by posting without a real schedule or focus. I’m still going to share progress updates and I have two short stories in the pipe that I’ll be releasing in the coming months, but until The Traveling Librarian has a locked-in publication date, I’m only going to post here when I have something to say. Some weeks you may get two updates, and some weeks there might not be any. This is so I can focus on the important writing work when I need to, and so I don’t feel compelled to release filler content to meet an arbitrary newsletter schedule.

The Traveling Librarian

The biggest piece of news insofar as this newsletter is concerned, is that a first revision of The Traveling Librarian has finally been completed! Not only that, but it’s already been read by my writing partner and deemed not terrible! That’s not entirely true; her actual reaction was much more effusive. It’s a scary thing to pass a story off to a reader for the first time. The day after I sent over the file, I experienced a bout of panicked insecurity like nothing I’ve felt since I was a teenager. The Traveling Librarian is in many ways a simple book that makes no overt effort to tackle intensely dramatic themes, but it’s probably the most important thing I’ve ever written. It’s the book that so far comes closest to being what my writing career has been evolving toward over the past decade of selling fiction. There’s enough of me in this book, that it’s difficult to separate myself from reader reactions to these early drafts.

But all is well, and though there’s work yet to be done to get it to a publishable state, I’m feeling confident that the bones of the story are good and that the characters are coming across the way I’d hoped they would.

The next phase in Librarian’s journey is a small revision to fix a few minor issues before it goes off to my alpha readers. What follows from there is another round of revision, beta reading (in which some of you may be able to participate), yet more revisions, copy edits, and then final publication. I don’t want to make any firm commitments on that front, but my current most realistic target is a September 2024 release. I’m going to try very hard to hit that fall deadline.

Other Work

Leading up to that, I’ll be sharing at least two more short stories as newsletter exclusives. Both are set in the same fictional world as The Traveling Librarian, and one of those stories concerns the Library itself.

I’ve also begun writing the second Traveling Librarian novel. I’m not going to give away any details just yet, but my current plan is to get that draft done before summer so that there won’t be a huge gap between the first and second book.

I’m also still doing client work, writing under anonymous pen names, and pursuing other creative projects when I have the time. As much as I wish The Traveling Librarian and related works were my sole focus, the frustrating reality is that I have a lot of demands on my time that make it very difficult to work as quickly as I’d like.

Personal Life

I’ve been largely offline for a while now. For privacy reasons, I’m not going to share any details here, but my parenting obligations have been quite demanding for a while now. As much as I identify as a professional author, my daily reality is that I’m a full-time parent to my kid for more hours of the day than I’m able to allocate to anything else. While I have some wonderfully supportive people in my life to take some of the pressure off, it continues to be a very large emotional investment that often makes it hard to do difficult work like assessing my own writing for weaknesses so I can publish the best possible version of a book. There is some good news on that front, however…

As of yesterday (as I’m writing the first draft of this newsletter), I’m engaged to be married! My work and parenting schedule doesn’t leave a lot of room for dating, but I was fortunate enough to become writing partners with someone who quickly became one of the most important people in my life. Unbeknownst to either of us, intense romantic feelings developed as we got to know one another, and before long it came to light that we were both falling hopelessly and irredeemably in love with one another. I’ve always convinced myself that there was something about marriage as a concept that didn’t work for me—that all two people ever needed was a desire to be together and a willingness to do the work that makes a relationship withstand the test of time—but then I met this woman and knew not just that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, but that I wanted to give her a ring and celebrate our love for one another with our friends and family.

It’s no exaggeration to say that I would not have gotten through this Traveling Librarian draft yet had it not been for her. Not for any specific thing she did to help in the writing and revision process, but for the perfect support she gives me on a day to day basis. This newsletter isn’t the place for me to go on at length about how wonderful I think she is, but considering that I’m in my forties now and have never in my life considered marrying anyone, it seems like pretty big news that’s worth sharing with those of you who know me or are invested in more than just my writing. Having my fiancée in my corner has made me happier, healthier, and wildly more productive than I’ve ever been before. After some rough years, I’m feeling better than ever about my creative work, and that means more books and short stories for you to read!

What I’m Reading/Listening To/Watching

Books

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa. This short novel is about a math professor who, as a result of a car accident in 1975, has only eighty minutes of short-term memory. Through interactions with a new housekeeper and her son, this lovely little story explores the overlapping beauty of mathematical logic and the inherent fuzziness of the human experience.

The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley. These days a lot of my reading is skewed towards historical explorer biographies or tales of fantasy adventure, so when I discovered a historical fantasy book about a man who goes to Peru in order to smuggle out cinchona cuttings as a potential source of quinine during the malaria outbreaks in India in the mid-1800s, I dove into it immediately. I won’t give away what starts happening once the fantasy elements begin kicking in near the middle of the book, but if you enjoy a slow-paced tale of exploration, this is a must read.

Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing. If you know anything at all about Ernest Shackleton, I don’t have to tell you how astonishing his experiences in the Antarctic were. I didn’t read a lot of non-fiction before I started researching true histories of exploration as research for my own fictional projects, but something that comes up a lot among writer friends of mine who do similar research reading is that so many of these true stories are so astonishingly unlikely that they’d never pass for believable fiction. I’m still only partway through Endurance, but so far every chapter has had something that’s left me utterly amazed at either the bad luck these men had to endure, or the grit and determination that allowed them to persevere in the face of trials that would shatter most people’s spirits.

Film & TV

Poor Things by Yorgos Lanthimos. So much has been said about this movie on the internet already that I’m hesitant to say much of anything at all about it. It’s not for everyone, but if you’re familiar with Lanthimos’s work and know what you’re getting in for, I highly recommend carving out time for Poor Things. If not, maybe give The Lobster or The Favourite a short before diving into what might just be Lanthimos’s masterpiece.

Shōgun. Only three episodes of the TV adaptation of James Clavell’s 1975 novel have aired as of when I’m drafting this newsletter, but I’ve really been enjoying the adaptation. I was fourteen when I first read the novel, and though I can’t say how well it’s aged, it was a very important book in the grand arc of influencing what sort of things I write about today. There are few shows I watch on a week-to-week basis instead of waiting for the entire season to emerge so I can consume it on my own time, but new episodes of Shōgun have quickly become something I look forward to each Tuesday.

The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin. Noel Fielding as 18th century highwayman Dick Turpin? Yes please! Again, only a few episodes have aired so far, and the show is obviously a little absurd, but I’m a sucker for a comedy set in this period, so of course I’m happily watching this one.

Our Flag Means Death. It took me a while to catch up on the second season, and the show has sadly been canceled, but if you somehow haven’t heard of this show or haven’t seen it yet, it’s well worth your time if you’re into pirate fantasy in which Taika Waititi plays Blackbeard and Rhys Darby plays gentleman pirate Stede Bonnet. Though there’s no proper series finale, I think the second season wraps up satisfyingly enough that I didn’t feel like I was left hanging in the middle of an important story arc in the wake of the season finale.

Music

Music is kind of a funny thing to share, since it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the kind of books I write, but it’s a big part of my life, so I’m going to share a few things that have been getting consistent airplay around here on the off chance it resonates with any of you.

Stranger in the Alps by Phoebe Bridgers. I’m very late to the Phoebe Bridgers party, but I’ve been obsessed with this album for the past few months.

Nostalgia Killer by Lightning Dust. Vancouver duo Lightning Dust were a couple when they first began performing as a side project from Black Mountain (another of my favorite bands), but when they ended their romantic relationship some years later, they decided to come back together and collaborate on this gut-wrenching exploration of love, longing, and loss. Nostalgia Killer may be too brooding a vibe for many of you, but if haunting indie rock is your thing, I can’t recommend this album enough.

The Book of Secrets by Loreena McKennitt. I don’t often listen to music when I write, but this album has become something that gets me into a certain headspace when working on stories set in the world of Tellen. I don’t know how well known Loreena McKennitt is outside of Canada, but if you’re at all interested in Celtic and Middle Eastern folk music, give this album a listen.

That’s all I’ve got for now. This is going to be a bit of a process for me. I’m not necessarily used to speaking my thoughts. I’m definitely someone who composes my thoughts much better in a typed form, but I’m recognizing that for a lot of people it’s much easier to consume audio. So I’m going to try to, at the very least, read out all of my newsletters going forward. Part of that means going back and recording audio for some of my short stories, and I’m also going to put some real effort into trying to figure out how to produce an audiobook of The Traveling Librarian for those of you who’d rather consume it in that format. Audiobooks require a lot of effort and some good narration talent, which is a little tough to do on a budget—and we are a budget outfit over here—but that’s a huge priority. So those of you who are following along and hoping for an audio book, the good news is that there’s going to be one for you to listen to when this book releases… or very shortly thereafter the print version comes out.

Thanks for staying with me after all these months of silence. I’m not sure when the next newsletter is going to come out, but I’m going to start working on those short stories, getting more content out for you, and really focusing all my energy on getting The Traveling Librarian out.

So long, and see you Among the Stacks!

- Mark