Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Much like nearly everyone else on the planet, I like to use the end of the year/beginning of the year to do a reset. Unlike a “resolution”, I prefer to look at it as a way to do a little reflection on what happened in the year before, mark the progress (or lack of progress) I made on certain projects, before turning to 2025 and setting a number of goals for myself.
In Our Dreams Awake
After a two year gap between issue 1 and issue 2, we successfully funded the second issue of In Our Dreams Awake. In addition, we completed issue 3 and are looking to launch that comic in early Spring. Finally, we have all the pencils and inks done and half the colors done on Issue 4. I’d hoped to get at least a second issue out in 2024, but ran out of time.
The Crossing
A little bit of tweaking to the project caused the need for a little bit of a rewrite of issue 2. The good news is I finished that up around the beginning of December, and Robert has started in on Issue 3 to help close out this first arc of the project!
Novels/Prose
No releases… but I have been writing/outlining/etc a ton of different things. I have been working on my Fantasyish series, a couple of short stories morphed into something more than I was expecting, and more and more I feel like I’m inching closer to a big series of releases.
Blog Posts
I posted something for 51/52 weeks of the year (only missing last week as I was on vacation). While I did use a few of the weeks to repost some oldies but goodies, I feel like there were a good assortment of Convention Reviews, Comic Reviews, Movie Reviews, Life stuff, and the other randomness my brain comes up with at 1 in the morning.
Social Media
The last quarter of the year I tried to expand my footprint in a couple of places: BlueSky and Instagram. I am far from a master at either, but little by little I’m hoping to find a way to get more eyeballs on the projects I’m releasing in the future.
The Look Ahead to 2025
In Our Dreams Awake
Issue #3’s Kickstarter and Release. As I wrote above, we are looking to launch in mid-March. Then my hope is to fulfill during the late Spring/Early Summer with an eye for a Fall release for Issue #4.
<Redacted Comic Title>
I’m in the process of securring an artist for my next comic book series. The biggest hurdle to anything a writer (or artist) does is having too large a delay between releases. While I have one potential solution for my prose writing that I’ll likely get into at some point closer to when my series is ready, for comic books I’m looking to go ahead and launch the next thing while the previous thing (In Our Dreams) is about to finish up. In an ideal world the schedule will look like this:
IODA #3 – March
<Redacted> #1 – June
IODA #4 – September
<Redacted> #2 – February 2026
Conventions
I need to do more conventions. That really is the beginning and end to it. I’d like to target one a quarter at least. Somewhere between 4-6 appearances seem like a doable goal for 2025.
Prose Work
I’ve said it many times, but it is just as true… others don’t see what the heck you’ve been working on until you actually release it. Just to give some insight into this, I currently have the following Prose pieces in the works:
Fantasy Series – 2 1/2 books written. These are in 2nd draft format. They will need at least one more self-editing pass before I get an editor to look at them.
Sci-fi/Romance – 2nd Draft written. One more pass before an editor.
Hollow Empire Novella(s) – 1 is ready for an editor. 1 is about 10%. The last one hasn’t been started.
I’m progressing over here. But with the series, I want to have the majority of it written before I release the first one.
So, I’m going to continue on, moving at my own snail’s pace until I get enough to unleash upon the world (cue evil laugh).
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A few big swings for the upcoming year, a few attempts to collect some singles and doubles (can you tell I’m ready for baseball?), and a lot of excitement for the new year. I hope you’ll continue on the journey with me!
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John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.
He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!
Click here to join John’s mailing list and receive preview chapters of upcoming novels, behind the scenes looks at new comics, and free short stories.
His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.
He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com
