2025 Round-up

Looking back, this year turned out to be one of those rare, confidence-restoring stretches where a few thousand of hours worth of tippy-tapping away on my own suddenly become public... and occasionally come with emails titled 'Congratulations!'

Last year's contest-winning short story The Frogman's Son has seen interest from publishers and I'm hoping to be able to announce the details soon.

I completed the first draft of my (sixth!) novel, The Eyes Among Us, and on a whim submitted it to the Black Blade Literary Competition which to my surprise it went on to win. Hugely encouraging, and with the grand prize of free editorial services--along with other feedback from beta readers--my focus for the first half of 2026 is to rework and clean up the manuscript, with a view to submitting to agents in the second half of the year.

Another long-running project that has born fruit this year is Desperately Seeking Satan, the feature screenplay based on a true story about an evangelical preacher and exorcist who went on tour with the thrash metal band Slayer to investigate their links to Satanism.

With the involvement of Circus Studios alongside Fancy A Jam Pictures, the project has seen initial development funding which is both extremely exciting for the project overall and also constitutes my first professional payday as a writer. After a decade or two of working with little expectation of financial rewarded, it's a strange feeling to come away from a project with my bank account looking healthier for it, and in all honesty, it's a feeling I'd quite like to continue having.

And then in November, another competition win with my short story Jellybean and Snickerdoodle winning Best Plot, Best Character arc, Best Style, and Best in Show in the annual Spectrum Short Story Competition. I'm hoping to moonlight from novel work to act on the feedback from readers and get it out on submission in the new year.

In all, it's been one of those years that makes me feel that I should keep plugging away at this whole writing malarkey, continue passing milestones, and keep working to making this hobby/obsession into a career.