Hello Horror Friends,

I hope you are doing well and that madness and despair stayed out of your way so far in 2025. Unfortunately, they didn’t in my life.

Looking back at newsletters in 2024, I made some bold statements about releasing a debut novel this year and to be consistent with newsletters and writing more. These promises didn’t seem foolhardy at the time I made them, but life threw some shit into our family’s face early this year, which developed into a full-grown shit storm that hasn’t passed since.

We had to deal with major, life-threatening illness and other medium severity health issues that were not too dangerous but incapacitating enough. This was—and still is—a lot to take on, and there was little to no capacity left to write. I made so many promises to myself and to you in the past, so now, I decided that I won’t anymore. I’m not stopping writing, but it seems that I just can’t adhere to a schedule at this point in time.

In the future, I will only tell you that I’m releasing something when it’s one hundred percent ready. I thought that scheduling these deadlines would create more momentum and discipline, but I didn’t calculate in the additional life stuff. Maybe some prolific writers can carry on with their work despite being sick or their loved ones being sick, but I can’t. My creative juices are not flowing when I’m this stressed and overwhelmed. I had to come to terms with these limitations myself.

Long story short, the novel is nowhere near ready for publication. I barely touched it in the last five months. So, I changed the pre-order to the next volume of The Uninvited Words Collection, but I’m not even sure I can deliver that.

I hope you don’t mind me sharing this with you. I’m trying to present the facts without moaning or complaining. I think being transparent is always better than evading the topic or delivering a half-done book. Having said that, I don’t want to become the next George Martin and not releasing anything for a decade, so I will finish something before the end of 2025, but it might just be one or two short stories.

In the meantime, I will keep you updated with the progress or the lack of it, and I will keep the chalice raised in your name.

S