Hello, friends!
Vacation is over. Tomorrow I go back to the day job. I’m pretty sad about it but that’s the way it is. The past week was pretty good. Did things around the apartment, did things for writing, and basically just was, if that makes any sense.
Let’s get into the update for some details.
Welcome to the 103rd installment of Gauthic Times, the newsletter about my writing, my life, and some thoughts on 2025.
Know what would make a great beginning to 2025? If you became a paid-Patron on my Patreon, where I write about things in more detail than I do in the newsletter or on my website and include the actual names of my works-in-progress and not just codenames. The lowest tier for Patreon is $1 but at $5/month, we’re looking at some serious help.
If every subscriber or reader of this newsletter, or every social media follower I have became a Patron at even just the $1 tier, I could write more and pay my bills better. The same would happen if they bought copies of my books.
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Anyway, let’s go!
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I reached page 474 in Project: Amusement Park. That means I have about 208 pages left to edit. I finished writing the chapter where the main characters all come together to tell each other what’s up. There were many small edits and a few big ones to tighten things up. First-to-second drafts are always the most time consuming edits because I’m finding the main shape of the novel, trimming fat, seeing what needs to be added or explained. When I finish the edit, I’ll quickly go through to key places and see if I can add some symbolism and foreshadowing. There’s already some in there from the first draft (especially when I’d go back and add something while I was writing it) but this is the time when I really add those things.
I also worked on another project that I’m playing with. I don’t want to say too much more about it but it’s a kind of story I’ve wanted to write awhile now. One of the first novels I wrote, way back in 1998-1999 I wrote a novel in the subgenre but I don’t think it was very good. This one I’m looking at as a fun project. You’ll get a little more about it should it take off. Paid-Patrons might actually get a lot more about it.
This past week I also did research into agents. Well, I started doing research into agents. There are a lot of agents and I need to go through them. I did find an agent who looked interesting so I sent a query for Project: Monster to her yesterday. This brings me to three queries out for Project: Monster. One has been out since August 2023, another since October 2024. I’m still waiting to hear back on those. Both are to agents who have friends as clients.
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Last week I wrote that a whole lot of people fucked around in 2024, going to the polls and not going to the polls with the result of T—p getting the Presidency again. I have no doubt that he had help from Russia as well as the ridiculous mega-wealthy to help convince people either for voting for him or not voting for Harris. Like 2016 all over again. Well, 2025 will be the year where those people will find out.
Prices for things will skyrocket, for starters. If he puts in those tariffs he’s promised, everything will go up. There’ll be mass deregulation, I’m guessing. That will make people unsafe, which is already happening because of fifty years of Republican deregulation. It’ll get worse. The states that leaned toward him are going to be hit really hard by a lot of negative stuff because those states are already hurting.
There’ll be more violence. His mere presence has inspired people to be meaner and more hateful. There’ll be more of that. When things don’t go the way they want, they’ll act out. They’ll think they’re protected–and some might be–but they’ll generally make things more dangerous for everyone, including themselves.
Healthcare will decline in the US, which it’s already pretty miserable compared to many other nations.
There’ll be much more worldwide embarrassment by foolish antics and imbecilic behavior.
All of this will lead to power plays by even more unsavory people who may have a little more than one semi-working braincell and who can really hurt people.
And that’s just some of it. I suspect that the hard times will become really bad and the people who caused it won’t realize it’s their fault.
It’s scary.
Me? I plan on doing what I can. I plan on continuing to write and create. I plan on continuing to speak my mind but to also unplug from a lot of the noise. I already have. I’ve decided I don’t need a 24-7 news cycle in my life. I’m choosing not to be outraged by everything because the fact that this motherfucker is going back to denigrate the White House is outrage enough. I will save it for when it matters, when resisting is needed.
I plan on continuing to write about writing here and other things that makes me happy. I plan on doing what I can to make sure my family is good. I plan on having hope for the future.
It’s one of the things that’ll get me through. It just might get you through, too.
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I finished Memorials by Richard Chizmar this week. It was a really good novel and rounded out my 2024 reading. Memorials is a slow burn for sure. Chizmar’s characters come alive and there’s a sense of dread throughout. As weird, creepy things build up, the reader becomes more and more entwined with the characters and their situation. The story makes you think one thing is happening while something else entirely is. It’s a master class in building suspense through characters. The ending is relentless.
I also read The Bat-Man: First Knight by Dan Jurgens and Mike Perkins. This was a graphic novel that takes place in 1939, the year Bob Kane and Bill Finger introduced Batman to the world, and is a gritty, adult story that fits right into crime stories of that time period. The Bat-Man’s suit is a “realistic” version of what Bob Kane drew back then and the story is reminiscent of the kind of stories Bill Finger told in Detective Comics, where there’s some dark stuff and maybe-monsters. But it’s also a solely 21st century story. This is an R-rated book put out by DC’s Black Label. It is also excellent.
And after two years of sometimes-reading, I finally finished William Shakespeare’s The Phantom of Menace: Star Wars Part the First by Ian Doescher. Back in 2021, I got Doescher’s William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope for Christmas and loved it. I then bought all the other books in the series and started the adaptation of The Phantom Menace. Unfortunately, I kept putting it aside to read other things. Part of that is because when I’m reading Shakespeare (or work like his), I like to read it aloud. It helps me understand it. That means I have to wait for people to not be around to read it.
Doescher’s Shakespearean adaptations of Star Wars are terrific. They really are less like parodies and more like love letters to both the works of William Shakespeare and the Star Wars movies.
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And so ends my first update of 2025. Only 51 left for this year. Thank you so much for subscribing, reading, and for your support!
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Gautham: Bill Gauthier.com 
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