Andrew Knighton's Blog

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Voff’s dreams were ruining his life.

Everyone raised as Pack had soul dreams, whether you grew up on some fringe farming planet or an expedition ship with the grand fleet. Sometime in your teens, the chaos of the subconscious settled into visions of an animal whose soul matched your own. The animal whose genes would be woven through your body, whose features you would wear when you came of age.

“I saw a tiger again last night,” Yall said as they came out of the classroom. She made a slashing motion. “My dad’s a lion. He’s gonna be so proud.”

“I’ve been getting gazelles,” Howry said. “Looks like I’m gonna live fast.” He turned to Voff. “What about you?”

Voff flushed and scurried faster along the corridor, but his friends wouldn’t let him get away.

“Still mixed up,” he mumbled, clutching his satchel tight enough to hide his chin. Lying about soul dreams was a terrible thing, but so was admitting his truth.

Yall and Howry exchanged a pitying look.

“We grow up seeing all these different faces, cobras and eagles and whatever,” Yall said. “We’re bound to dream about all sorts of animals. Makes it hard for your own one to shine.”

“Ms Erdavay says it’s normal to have mixed visions,” Howry added.

Their crow-faced teacher had said that, but she’d said it years ago. Like saying that everyone would grow pubes in the end, it was only reassuring for so long. A pit opened up inside Voff, and he didn’t like to think what it hid.

“I need to talk to a teacher.” He nudged a door open, squirmed through the gap, and shut it before they could follow.

He thought that he’d picked the room for its concealing gloom, but the sound of scrabbling claws told a different story. There was a scent in here he’d known as a little kid, when his family hauled freight from one system to the next. A smell that lingered in the gaps of the ship, betraying their hidden passengers. Wherever people went, rats came for the ride. That faint, familiar scent that so many people found unpleasant, to him it was childhood and the shelter of family. No wonder he’d chosen this door; he had the most embarrassing instincts.

There were rows of cages full of rats for use in science lessons. After all, if rodents got everywhere then they might as well be put to use, their termite-faced psychology teacher had explained. Voff’s stomach churned as he approached the cages, not knowing what to do with his mix of affection and resentment. He tapped the wire and beady eyes peered out from a slender face.

“Hey, there,” Voff said softly. “I don’t suppose you lot could leave me in peace?”

When the dreams had started, his childhood had provided an excuse. Of course he dreamed of rats, he’d grown up with them all around. When his family settled on the orbital, he’d figured it would pass and his soul would shine through. But the rats still filled his dreams, no matter how many videos of apex predators, industrious insects, and elegant birds he fell asleep to. No lions or eagles or army ants for Voff. Just the scuttle and scurry of rats.

His lip twitched in disgust. He smashed his fist against the cage and the rat vanished into its straw.

“Why can’t you leave me alone?” he yelled. “Why can’t I dream proper dreams?”

He slumped against the wall and slid to the ground, chest shaking, fingers clawing at the corner of his bag. The rats came to the fronts of their cages and stared at him as he sobbed.

The door creaked open. Voff rubbed a hand across his eyes, trying to hide their treachery.

“Are you all right, mate?” Yall asked, prowling into the room. Behind her, Howry nudge the door shut.

Voff swallowed. Easier to face the shame first with friends than with family.

“In my dreams…” he began, staring at the rats, but the words stuck in his throat.

Yall froze, eyes wide, halfway to reaching out. Howry’s head did a quick flick back and forth, then he walked over to the cages.

“These little guys get a bad rep.” Howry placed a fingertip against the wire so a rat could sniff at him. “But they’re great at hiding, fast at climbing, and the way they get by on whatever they find, that’s how nothing goes to waste.”

Voff swallowed. He still couldn’t say it out loud.

“Right, Yall?” Howry added, nudging her with his foot.

“I… yeah.” Yall’s smile was forced, but at least she tried. “They’re cute too, with those funny faces. People forget how friendly they are when no one’s trying to kill them.”

For all the comfort their words gave Voff, it was the face in the cage that won him around. It was bright-eyed and inquisitive, eagerly sniffing at the world. A face that Voff wanted to emulate, a creature of curiosity, squirming into the hidden corners of the universe to see how they could sustain him. He got up, walked over to the cage, and faced the vision of his own soul through the bars.

The emptiness inside him didn’t feel like a pit anymore, but a pathway opening up to the vast potential of space.

“In my dreams, it’s always rats.”

***

Like last month’s story, this one is set in the same universe as my new novella, All That Is In the Earth. I’ve tried to play with some of the themes that inspired the novella, and flesh out what’s happening around it. In the book, there’s a character with wolf features, but not everyone in a society can get the most dramatic choice.

If you enjoyed this story and you’d like to read more like it, then you can sign up to my mailing list, where you’ll get a flash story straight to your inbox every month as well as updates on my books. And if you’re looking for something else to read in the meantime, did I mention that new novella…

***

When Clifford crash lands on the planet of Abaddon, he might as well be dead: a terrible plague and a strict quarantine mean that no one leaves alive.

Clifford isn’t the only dead man walking. Corporate mercenaries and desperate survivors are looking for ways to live in a hostile world. On the run from flesh-hungry monsters, there’s no chance to escape or to build something more. But when Clifford makes a startling discovery, loyalty clashes with survival in an action-packed novella about living with death.

All That Is In the Earth, out now from Luna Press Publishing.

The post The Spacefarer’s Dream – a science fiction short story appeared first on Andrew Knighton Writes.

When we talk about authorial inspiration, it’s often in romantic terms. The way an emotional experience moved the author, or a clever insight unlocked a world of wild ideas. But sometimes inspiration comes from something dumb.

When I was starting to outline All That Is In The Earth, I went to a Rozi Plain gig. I didn’t know Plain’s music, except as bassist for This Is The Kit, but an old friend wanted company for the evening, the venue was five minutes from my house, and it was a good chance to catch up. So off I went.

I really enjoy live gigs, but I’m not great at focusing on music, so my mind tends to wander. When I heard Plain singing a song about something green, I thought about jungles, then about needing a location for my first chapter, and the pieces fell into place. By the end of the song, I had a scene firmly worked out in my head. A crash landing in the jungle and a bewildered figure contemplating the destruction his ship had caused:

“Lush leaves rustled, grasses shimmered, trees a hundred times taller than Clifford swayed to the music of the wind. In the blackened trail he’d ripped through that life, chunks of dirt and debris shifted, while flames crawled with flickering brightness into the dryer stands of undergrowth. Oily smoke trickled upward, coalesced into a column, spread into a grey smear against which birds whirled. The whole world seemed so alive, which made it all the more bitter to know that he was dead.“

All that came from the green that Rozi Plain was singing about.

Except that she wasn’t. When I got home and put the record on, I realised that I’d misheard “agreeing” as “green”. The whole scene was built on my dumb brain failing an intelligence check.

(I’m pretty sure this video is the actual performance I saw. Obviously, the word is not green. Any fool could hear that.)

There’s probably a moral to this story, something about how inspiration can arise from anywhere, so grab it whenever you can. But really, my message is that, if you like whimsical folk-rock-ish music, then you should listen to the album Prize by Rozi Plain, and if you like scifi stories that bear no relation to their inspiration, you should go read my novella All That Is In The Earth.

The post Dumb Inspiration appeared first on Andrew Knighton Writes.

My new scifi novella, All That Is In The Earth, has been getting its first reviews, and I’m very pleased with them. Run Along the Shelves strongly recommended it in a launch day review, and Roseanna Pendlebury had an interesting discussion of it in a post about her holiday reading.

One of the things that particularly struck me from Roseanna’s post, and from a previous conversation with Francesca at Luna Press, is that this book is pretty action oriented, and I don’t tend to talk about that. Sure, the theme is how we face death, but it’s delivered through the medium of an action adventure on a planet overrun with zombie substitutes. I should probably mention that part when I’m selling this thing.

To quote Roseanna, “it’s so utterly visual, so constantly filmic. It really would fit on screen so perfectly.”

The post First Reviews for All That Is In The Earth appeared first on Andrew Knighton Writes.

Image by Tung Nguyen from Pixabay

Jill’s belly tensed as she reread the leaflet. It was the same design as the poster on the wall; the same as thousands of adverts across the city, the planet, half the system. An improbably beautiful woman in a lab coat beneath a message:

“Cellular Renew. Restore your skin to perfection.”

And beneath that the instructions that brought her to this waiting room, with its dirt-repellent furniture and bland background music.

She turned to the man next to her, a distraction from the leaflet and the pictures on her personal chip. He leaned forward, one knee jiggling, eyes twitching like a rat in a trap.

“What brought you here?” Jill asked softly, a question chosen by default but which she instantly feared she might regret.

The man looked startled. He was pale and skinny, the side of his face and back of his neck pocked with scars from cybernetic plugs.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude.” Jill pulled back.

“It’s cool.” The man grinned. “Shrink says I need to talk with real people. I’m Gorn.” He pulled up one sleeve, revealing a row of cable ports and the dark lines of outdated dermal circuitry. “Used to do digital runs, freeing information. Some corporate, some for causes. Me, Yardy and Cabbage, great team.” His smile faded. “Got busted running a bank. Yardy’s in the big house, Cabbage took a shuttle out, and I’m banned from biotech interface.”

Gorn ran a finger down the nodules on his neck.

“People see this, they know, and I feel judged. So…”

“You took on a bank?” Across the waiting room, the other customer leaned forward. She was wearing loose sports clothes, her expression eager. “That’s starshine, bro! Pure starshine!”

Gorn shifted in his seat, shrinking before her confidence.

“What about you?” Jill asked. “What’s your name?”

“Sash.” The woman gave a two-fingered wave, like the flare gliders. “Guess you don’t have to ask why I’m here.”

Ragged ridges made up one side of her face, running back into where hair should have been. The was a hollow at the heart of her laugh.

“That must have been painful,” Jill said.

“Shit yes!” Sash laughed. “You know the asteroid races?”

Jill had watched snippets, athletes wearing wing suits and rocket belts hurtling through courses of floating, spinning rocks, skimming over broken surfaces to shave seconds off their time.

“It looks exhilarating,” she said. “And terrifying.”

“It’s the best.” Sash thumped her chest. “I was the best, huge sponsorship, queen of the sports feeds. Then I got cocky, misjudged a spiral entry in the Iyer Biannual, grated myself across a semi-slab. Fucked up my rig, my face, half the bones in my body.” She sighed and sagged. “Docs say I’m as healed as I’ll get, but my body can’t take the pressure anymore.” She held up one of the leaflets. “If I can’t have that, I can at least look like me.”

She screwed the leaflet up and tossed it across the room, straight into a rubbish bin.

“What about you?” she asked. “You look good. Why are you here?”

Jill touched her own stomach. The scar beneath her t-shirt felt like a mountain ridge.

“Cesarean section.” Her vision blurred. She wanted to stop there, but couldn’t hold the rest back. “Complications in an early birth. The doctors saved me, but my little Poppy…” She caught a ragged breath, sucked it back in with the tears. “We regifted the cot, repainted the room, but the scar was still there. It got to the point where I couldn’t even shower, seeing that reminder of what I’d lost, how I’d failed her, I…”

Gorn’s hand on her shoulder was surprisingly soft.

“You didn’t fail anyone,” he said.

It would have been better if there was silence after that, but the soulless background music kept playing, a droning synthetic lullaby that made Jill want to scream. All three of them stared at floor, and into their memories.

Then Gorn sat up with a sad smile.

“Me, Yardy and Cabbage, we had good times.” He ran a finger around a plug socket scar. “Think I want a reminder of that.”

He rose like levers unfolding and patted Jill on the shoulder, but couldn’t look her in the eye as he headed for the door.

“Well, shit.” Sash sprang up, one hand on her scarred cheek. “I was the best, and the best push themselves no matter what. Why would I wipe that away?” She made her two-fingered wave at Jill. “Thanks bud.”

Then she was gone.

A door at the other end of the room opened and a man in a lab coat walked in. He looked around, puzzled, checked a projection on the back of his hand, then looked directly at Jill.

“I was expecting three people,” he said.

Jill looked at the door he’d come through, then the one where Gorn and Sash had left. She thought of Poppy, a beautiful, motionless bundle in her arms, breath gone before it began. She wanted to have the courage to hold on, but some scars hurt beyond enduring. Or perhaps, for some people, there was no living with the pain.

She stood and followed him into the clinic.

***

I wrote this story to mark the launch of my new novella, All That Is In the Earth, which came out this week. I’ve tried to play with some of the themes that inspired the novella, and flesh out what’s happening in its universe.

If you enjoyed this story and you’d like to read more like it, then you can sign up to my mailing list, where you’ll get a flash story straight to your inbox every month as well as updates on my books. And if you’re looking for something else to read in the meantime, did I mention that new novella…

***

When Clifford crash lands on the planet of Abaddon, he might as well be dead: a terrible plague and a strict quarantine mean that no one leaves alive.

Clifford isn’t the only dead man walking. Corporate mercenaries and desperate survivors are looking for ways to live in a hostile world. On the run from flesh-hungry monsters, there’s no chance to escape or to build something more. But when Clifford makes a startling discovery, loyalty clashes with survival in an action-packed novella about living with death.

All That Is In the Earth, out now from Luna Press Publishing.

The post Scars – a science fiction short story appeared first on Andrew Knighton Writes.

When Clifford crash lands on the planet of Abaddon, he might as well be dead: a terrible plague and a strict quarantine mean that no one leaves Abaddon alive.

Clifford isn’t the only dead man walking. Corporate mercenaries and desperate survivors are looking for ways to live in a hostile world. Constantly on the run from flesh-hungry monsters, there’s no chance to escape or to build something more.

But when Clifford makes a discovery that could change the meaning of Abaddon, loyalty clashes with survival in a story about how to live with the certainty of death.

My new scifi novella, All That Is In The Earth, is out today from Luna Press. It’s an action adventure that’s also a meditation on facing mortality, set on a planet I’ve been imagining for over twenty years. If the pitch above got your attention, you can buy a copy at any of these links…

Paperback

Kobo ebook

Kindle ebook

Click here for bonus materials including short fiction, a playlist, and commentary.

The post Out Now – All That IS In The Earth appeared first on Andrew Knighton Writes.

My new scifi novella, All That Is in the Earth, is nearly here! As part of the launch, Luna Press is running a premiere event on YouTube this Thursday, featuring both me and the excellent Lyndsey Croal, author of the other new Luna novella, In This City, Where It Rains. Come along at 7pm UK time to meet the authors, learn more about our work and these novellas, and hear a short reading from each of us. Link to the YouTube premiere is here.

The post Novella Launch Event This Thursday appeared first on Andrew Knighton Writes.

Forged for Destiny is on the longlist for not one but two best novel awards – the BSFA and the Prometheus. I found out while I was away visiting family, and had to resist spending the whole time obsessing over this, because it turns out that awards are exciting!

The BSFA nomination means a lot to me personally. I’ve been a BSFA member for years and I regularly attend Eastercon, so this is a nomination from within my community. To wheel out an over-used phrase, just being nominated is an honour, and I’m moved by the fact that people enjoyed my book enough to list it among the best.

Which is fortunate, because there are over 80 novels on that longlist, so realistically, I’m not making the shortlist, never mind winning. Nor should I! The small fraction of that list I’ve read includes amazing books and several flat-out masterpieces, any of which should beat Forged for Destiny to the top spot. I’m happy to be nominated, and will be delighted not to win.

While I don’t have such a personal connection to the Prometheus, I’m just as honoured to make that list. This is an award for sff that tackles themes of defendnig liberty and opposing authoritarianism, a great theme and a particularly important one right now.

The Prometheus is run by the Libertarian Futurist Society, so my politics aren’t 100% in line with its judges, and that’s one of the things about it I find heartening. This prize, and its history of recognising nominees who aren’t libertarians, shows that people of wildly different political philosophies can come together to oppose tyranny. We need that right now. The left-right binary is far too simple to reflect reality, and can separate us from people we could connect with.

The Prometheus Award has fewer books in contention, so I might make the shortlist there, though I won’t know for months. Until then, I can bask in the glow of another authorial win.

And if you want to know what makes it worth all this attention, the ebook of Forged for Destiny is only 99p right now – buy links here.

The post Forged For Destiny Up For Awards appeared first on Andrew Knighton Writes.

I’m not sure my books have ever made it onto an end of year best of list before, but Wiz Duos 3 has been on at least two people’s so far, which is very gratifying. This blog post mostly exists so I can have a little boast, and remember this moment when I look back through the blog.

Both those lists put my story, Walking a Wounded Land, in incredible company, so if you want some suggestions for other great books, check out the posts on Borrowed and Blue and Every Book a Doorway.

The post Walking a Wounded Land on “Best Of 2025” Lists appeared first on Andrew Knighton Writes.

Kelly sat on the beach, listening as the waves counted down towards midnight and the end of the year. The ocean was a black expanse broken by ragged crests of moonlight, shining lines that collapsed from silver into scattered foam upon the shore. Every groan of shifting pebbles was a moment of change, the coast renewing itself in a way that Kelly never could. Every year she came out here, hoping the universe would send her a sign of how she could make her life better. Three hundred and sixty-five days later she would come back down the beach wearing the same old walking boots, escaping the same party with the same friends in the same rented cottage, the same music drifting through the night.

With each wave, another moment passed, but the next wave was much like the one that came before, an invitation not to transformation but to monotony, a promise that she could have more of the same.

More overtime.

More bad dates.

More microwaved meals in front of soap operas.

But perhaps the blankness of the ocean was something else, the endlessness of oblivion instead of monotony. An invitation that she had resisted all this time, despite crying over the disappointing men, the unrewarded labour, the flavourless meals and the shows that never satisfied the hollow in her heart. Even at these parties she felt alone, left behind as her friends developed families, careers, and creative hobbies, while her existence seemed smaller each year by comparison. They didn’t understand, but how could they when she couldn’t say it herself?

Maybe the ocean understood.

Maybe the ocean could wash it all away.

With numb fingers, she unfastened her shoelaces, following a habit drummed into her by her mother: always take off your shoes before you go paddling. It seemed pointless now, but so did resistance. She rolled her socks down her feet and placed them in the boots, felt the stones beneath her toes, cold and round and more real than anything else in the world.

She stepped into the waves, the cold a startling slap against her shins. With gritted teeth and arms wrapped tight across her belly, she stared at the foam retreating across her feet. If she focused on that then she would stay here until midnight struck and someone came to find her. Instead, she forced her gaze forward and saw an image of herself reflected from the surface of the sea; impossible in this churning water, but surely the sign she’d been looking for.

She took a deep breath and another step, then another. Water up to her knees, her legs growing mercifully numb, pebbles still solid beneath her. A salt smell sharp as the wind.

More steps. Waves caressing her thighs, which shivered then stiffened. A little further, towards that image of herself she could see again, outlined in silver foam. She looked beautiful there.

Another step. Skirts clinging to her skin, an icy touch at her waist.

The woman in the waves looked back sadly at her. Then the foam rose in the light of the moon, breaking free of the dark waves and their numbing promise. Kelly’s eyes widened and her heart beat faster as the figure held out a hand, palm forward, halting her.

The two Kellys stood face to face.

“Please,” she whispered. “I need it to be over. You promised…”

She gestured at the place where ocean and sky merged, the world becoming a single mass of shadow.

“I can’t take any more.” She’d never said it to anyone. It sounded so absurd. She had a job, a flat, her health, enough money to buy the things she was meant to want. Her mother had told her she should be content with an ordinary life, yet somehow she’d failed even at that.

Tears streamed down Kelly’s face, dripped from her chin, joined the rest of the salt water. The moonlight lines of the other Kelly stretched out and a silver finger touched her chest. The feeling wasn’t like a weight lifting, but a lightness flowing in, just enough to keep her afloat. The figure stepped back, then collapsed into the waves from which she had come.

Kelly turned to see Lisa standing on the shore, a wine glass in each hand.

“Come on up, it’s nearly midnight.” Lisa squinted and her expression changed. “Are you alright?”

Water ran from Kelly’s clothes, and each step was a little lighter as she walked out of the waves, past her boots, up to her friend. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“Can I tell you something?” she said.

***

If you enjoyed this story and you’d like to read more like it, then you can sign up to my mailing list, where you’ll get a flash story straight to your inbox every month as well as updates on my books. And if you’re looking for something else to read in the meantime…

***

Ghosts linger amid the fields and streets of England, waiting to be summoned by those who can walk their paths. Paul is one of the walkers, returned home to follow in a friend’s last footsteps and learn how he died. But the land is a place of conflict, caught between connection and control. To find peace, Paul will have to confront his own past and other people’s power, in a poignant tale of grief, justice, and walking your own path.

Walking a Wounded Land, a novella about the magic of walking, available now from Wizard’s Tower Press.

The post Midnight Moonlight – a fantasy short story appeared first on Andrew Knighton Writes.

Well, that sure was a year.

Books

This year was my most successful one for books so far, in terms of both writing and publication, though not quite as successful as it first appeared.

I came into the year with publishing deals with both Orbit Works and Northodox, which shaped what I wrote. As well as revising existing books for publication, I wrote three new novels:

Forged for Royalty, the third and final book in the Forged for Destiny trilogy.The Executioner’s Prayer, the third book in my Executioner series.A post-apocalyptic fantasy story, current working name Dark Days in Gentle Vale.

For my own works, the most I’ve previously written in a year was two novels, so this was a very pleasing step up. It wasn’t the four novels I aimed for at the start of the year, but that was always an ambitious goal, and in falling short I’ve still got more written than ever before.

Forged for Destiny came out through Orbit Works in April, and its sequel, Forged for Prophecy, in August.

During the summer, I sold a novella, Walking a Wounded Land, to Wizard’s Tower Press. In an impressively quick turnaround, they published it at the end of October, with a launch event at World Fantasy Con.

Meanwhile, The Executioner’s Price, the sequel to The Executioner’s Blade, was going through edits ready for publication with Northodox in November. I was going to have four books out in a year!

Then the realities of running a small press caught up with Northodox. They’d been incredibly ambitious in their publishing schedule, putting out a whole range of great books, but the strain was showing even before one of the three-person team quit. To keep the company going, they decided to significantly cut back on their catalogue, dropping all their books except the historical fiction. I was given the option of having The Executioner’s Price published for a month and then cancelled along with The Executioner’s Blade, I decided it was better to keep my powder dry. Price wasn’t published and Blade comes off the shelves at the end of the year.

Obviously, this was disappointing. Northodox overstretched in their enthusiasm, and some authors have been hurt by how that played out. From my point of view, they did the best they could once reality kicked in, and far better than many other publishers. I think they’ve learned from what happened, and if the chance came up I’d happily work with them again. But in the meantime, my four-book year became a three-book year, and one of next year’s books is now off the schedule.

Still, three books published in one year, and thanks to Orbit, my highest profile and biggest selling book so far. That’s a year to be proud of.

Other Publications

I was so busy writing novels, I didn’t manage much new short fiction this year, and none of the old stories I’ve been sending around sold. This almost became the first year since 2007 where I had no stories published, but then the delayed BFS Horizons #18 came out in December, with my fantasy story “Painting a Path to Sanctuary”.

I also had three Commando comics out this year, including my latest Cadman story and one about a ship’s cat. I’m particularly proud of that last one – “cat-themed military history comic” really is a special spot in the venn diagram of my interests.

Freelance Writing

I made a conscious decision this year to do less freelance work so I could make the most of my publishing opportunities. Regular and occasional clients meant I didn’t have to fish around for much new work to make ends meet. I only earned half of what I did a few years ago, but it was enough, and it was worth it to get those novels written.

I’ve occasionally dipped into the pool of writing gigs to see what’s available, and things don’t look brilliant. Dodgy economies in the UK and particularly the US, combined with people thinking they can get by on large language models to do their writing, have affected what’s available. Though people are starting to understand why they can’t rely on LLMs, I suspect we’re still a year or two away from recovering from that, and things will never entirely go back to where they were. As for those economies, I don’t see either government getting this right, leaving us years out from an election and with the prospect of a tech bubble bursting. There are tough times ahead, and I hope they don’t screw too badly with the industry that pays my way.

Fortunately, I’ve got the skills and experience to get enough work when I need it. This year, that’s included some games writing, creating murder mysteries that are published as envelopes of evidence for the players to solve. If that sounds like your sort of thing, you can find links to them here. They were a lot of fun to write.

The Rest of Life

Away from the computer, life’s been great. The Prof and I got engaged at Easter, and now have a venue booked to get married next year. Very exciting!

Spooky the cat remains true to himself. He’s getting better at tolerating visitors in the house, but he’s never going to be the most affectionate cat with outsiders. I’m trying to train him to tolerate the travel box for trips to the vet and cattery – we’ll see how well that’s gone when the Prof and I go to Berlin in January. He and I are getting better at communicating, as I learn to identify some of the signals he’s putting out, and he gets better at sending those signals, mostly by getting my attention and then walking to where he wants me.

I’ve got more politically active. I don’t enjoy online political arguments or social media campaigning, but offline I’ve been helping out the local Green Party. There’s been an incredible energy in the party since Zack Polanski took over as leader this summer, the number of members is rocketing, and I’m proud of what we stand for. There’s potential for some big electoral wins in the near future, which is exciting. As a life-long progressive and long-time Green, it gives me hope in tough times, especially when activities like leafleting give me a chance to get out and make a practical difference.

On top of all that, I’ve taken up climbing again. Haven’t done that in years, I’d forgotten how much I enjoy it. It’s great to have a mindful form of exercise that’s also a mental challenge and a chance to socialise with friends.

Looking Ahead

Obviously, my biggest thing next year is getting married.

Outside of that, I still have two books scheduled – scifi novella All That Is in the Earth in February, with a later launch event at Eastercon; and Forged for Royalty, the finale of the Forged for Destiny trilogy, in March. I love both these books and I hope readers will too.

Meanwhile, I’m looking for a publisher to pick up the Executioner books, as well as two other novels I’m shopping around. I’m trying to find an agent, and though I can’t control whether that happens, I can at least put the work in to improve my odds.

I’m planning on writing three novels in a year again. One of them is already outlined, so I can hit the ground running. Which other two I write depend on whether and where my current books find publishers, but I have more than enough ideas to keep me busy.

This year’s been good, here’s hoping that next year’s even better.

The post 2025: My Writing Year appeared first on Andrew Knighton Writes.