Happy New Year, friends.
It’s been a glorious week-and-a-half of vacation but, unfortunately, all good things… etcetera and so on. Here we are three days into 2026 and the world is already burning. But did we expect anything different?
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking over vacation. Thinking is not always good for me. I tend to get into trouble when I think too much. Actually, the same happens if I get bored, too. Now that I think about it, there really isn’t many times when I don’t get into trouble for something.
Anyway, here we are. This week’s essay has something to do about all this thinking, I think…? It’s a strange one and maybe the rest of the newsletter is better to read. With that said….
Welcome to the 154th installment of Gauthic Times, the newsletter about my writing, my life, and trying to figure things out and get past the inner storms. If you’re a reader who subscribes via Substack, my website, or Patreon, your encouragement helps motivate me. I’m not breaking any records but I’m thankful to have any audience.
Thank you.
Supporting creators is so important right now. As such, I would love if you became a paid-Patron on my Patreon.
Paid-Patrons get exclusive daily check-ins about works-in-progress including the actual names of my works-in-progress and not just codenames. I also show art that I do.
You can also buy me a coffee through Ko-Fi.
Preorder my novel The Monster in the Closet or grab my novel Echoes on the Pond, my collection Catalysts, or my novellas Alice on the Shelf and Shadowed if you haven’t already. And if you’ve read them, please consider leaving a review on Amazon or Goodreads, and wherever else books are sold and reviewed.
***
This past week I finally revealed something that I’ve been hinting at for a while. The project that I’ve referred to as Project: Moons is actually a novel called Four Moons, which I am currently serializing on Patreon.
The introduction and first installment are up and free for anyone to read. The next installment will be made available to all paid-Patrons. From installment 3 on, only Patrons at the $5 tier and above will have access to the novel. There is also a feature where a person can buy the collection on Patreon. This means you don’t have to subscribe. If you pay for the collection, you’ll be notified every time a new installment is posted.
I must warn you, this is a first draft, and very rough, and still incomplete. The introduction post explains the whole thing, so I recommend you reading it if you’re interested in reading an early version of Four Moons, the project formerly known as Project: Moons.
I didn’t do as much work on Project: Amusement Park as I would’ve liked. I got through about 35 pages, finishing a section that takes place in 1994 and returning to 2024 and a chapter that is unsettling and tough because of the human monsters in it.
After thinking (there’s that word again!) about it for a few years, I finally wrote out a proposal for something I’ll call Project: Hear Me. It’s not something I want to go too far into yet but it’s something I spoke to a friend about around a year or two ago and we’ve talked about it since. I’d like to finally do collaborate with them on this. It’ll take planning and an investment but I think it’d be good.
I worked a little bit on the comic book project I’ve been playing with for a few years about the old cowboy Gabby Ray, who is a caricature of my father but his own character. I’m almost done with the pencils (finally) and will have three or four pages to ink, color, and letter. From there, I may self-publish it just for shits and giggles.
I played with my website, which is still in shambles. Why is WordPress more difficult to use than it was 10 years ago? I need to get it up and running correctly soon.
***
***
I’ll be honest in that I don’t really know where this week’s essay is going. I have an idea, maybe, possibly, of what I think I want to write about, but it’s not solid. It’s kind of vague and ephemeral, ethereal. Vapor seen one moment and gone but felt the next. I’ve had some Thoughts but I’m not sure if I want to share them because I’m not sure of their validity. That’s one of the things I love about writing. One can take these vague notions and put them down in black-and-white. They can be moved around, changed, but eventually solidified.
I had a realization last night that might be an epiphany. I’m not sure it’s that important, though. Time will tell. The thing is, the realization is scary in that there’s no security, no certainty to it. But then, Harlan Ellison said, “There is no security this side of the grave, I promise you that, and if you want something you must take it.” While Ellison certainly had major issues and is a divisive figure as a person, one cannot argue that he made his way through the world in his own way.[1] He’s also one of the best short story writers of the 20th century. If I could be a small fraction as good as he was, I’d be happy.
One of the things I see right now, though, is a lack of security. When I went to bed last night, the United States hadn’t invaded Venezuela and captured its president. Now we’re in an even more dangerous world than it was yesterday at this time with a bunch of evil, evil people in charge, and a long, hard road ahead of us that needs to make change. I believe that artists and creatives will be a huge part of this change, perhaps even at the forefront.
Big Tech is coming for us, too. AI is being trained in education as well as in many other places but there aren’t any guardrails to protect workers from being replaced by nonprofessionals who can type into a computer. Education leaders love AI and is selling it hard to teachers as a way to make your life easier. Easier for what? More bullshit initiatives? More soul-sucking, energy-leeching paperwork that doesn’t mean shit? And that’s just education because I’m familiar with it. Medicine is in the same danger. Many jobs are. But there’s nothing in place for alternative work.
We saw in 2020 that things were broken and we did nothing to fix it. Probably because it was too hard. It was uncomfortable. Well, I think things are about to get even less comfortable, friends. The only things we have to help us are our wits and our creativity.
When I look back on childhood I see a kid who knew something that no one else around him seemed to understand but let it get filed down, ground into pieces, and shoveled away because “that’s not how things are done” and “you’ve got to play it safe.” But where is the safety? My yearly salary as a teacher would’ve put me in the upper-middle class back when I was a kid and would’ve made my parents well off when they were kids. Now there’s real worries about how we’ll get through 2026. I know that we will but it’ll be difficult.
And yet…the yearning. The sense inside that there has to be a better way. Others have figured it out. I think I have, too. But it’ll require discomfort and risk. Alone, that doesn’t bother me. I’m not alone, though.
So now I sit in an emotional holding pattern with some really good ideas in my head and heart and the fire to do something with them. I wrote out a plan for something yesterday and shared it with a friend, who seemed to like it (maybe love it?). It’s a step.
I have a book coming out in February and my plan now is to try to get it out there and into hands of readers. This may mean traveling, which is something I’m not comfortable doing but may have to in order get people outside of my 20-mile radius to read my work. I need to push myself to reach out to people and places and not be afraid of rejection because, damnit, I’m great with rejection! I’ve been rejected over and over again in a myriad of ways and still I persist.
I often say to myself, “Something’s gotta give.” And I think I’m at that point. It’s time to take hold of the narrative. I don’t know what that’ll look like and it doesn’t mean it’ll be anything drastic, but maybe a shift in my thinking and how I move forward.
I’m hesitant to publish this. I’m afraid of the feedback it’ll get from those close to me. But one of the things I love about writing is that sometimes an essay or a blog post or even a social media post isn’t really meant for others to read it, sometimes these things are for me to read and to be inspired. Because if I have this inside, imagine what can happen if I let it out?
***
I finished reading Joe Hill’s King Sorrow at 11:59 PM on December 31st, making it the last book I completed in 2025. And what a way to go out! I sensed Hill had fun writing the book because the fun permeates this hard, scary, intense novel. I loved it. I love big books, and this was big. I love multiple characters, and this had multiple characters. I love ideas that sound stupid on paper but work in the story (like a real-life monster in a kid’s closet, amiright?). This is about a dragon. But it’s so much more.
Which also leads me to Stranger Things because, goddamn!, what an ending! I’ve loved every season of this series and this last one was no exception. Emotional, joyful, hopeful, and scary. It’s hard to believe that the show began in July 2016, back when we still believed the world made some sense. It was a helluva ride and the ending was superb.
I bought the Bruce Springsteen biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere but still haven’t watched it yet. Maybe this weekend.
I began reading Greg F. Gifune’s Pack Animals, which has a terrific first line. I’m only a couple of chapters in but it’s good so far.
***
That’s this week’s newsletter. I wish you a happy New Year and hope that good change is coming for you, for me, and for all of us. Thank you so much for subscribing, reading, and for your support.
If you’d like to be a part of making my dream of creating full-time a reality, become a Patron on my Patreon, which has a lot more information about my works-in-progress and the books I’ll be querying, including titles and some simple, non-spoiler details.
Don’t forget to share this newsletter with others and consider a paid subscription.
You can also tip/donate on Ko-Fi.
Get my collection Catalysts, my novellas Alice on the Shelf and Shadowed, and my novel Echoes on the Pond!
If you haven’t left a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or anyplace else for the books, particularly Echoes on the Pond, please consider doing so. This greatly helps.
Thank you for subscribing!
[1] I still regret never returning the voicemail he left for me back in 2007; a voicemail long gone because the carrier at the time automatically deleted messages after six months and I never figured out how to save it. You’d think I would’ve learned from that and would be more courageous about things now….
Gautham: Bill Gauthier.com 
Leave a comment