I'm in the Mood for Change

If you’ve been following me here on Substack, you probably know, at least peripherally, that I’ve been posting twice a week:

• Each Friday evening, I’ve posted a new chapter of a novel-in-progress called 23kpc. Since I started, back in September 2024, all chapters — through Chapter 7 (“The Surprise in the Mine”) — have been available for anyone to read, paid subscriber or not. Beyond that point, only paid subscribers have been able to follow along.

• Since October, sometime earlier each week — Tuesday or Wednesday, usually — I’ve also posted an entry in my so-called #jesstorypix series: each one a little “microfiction” of a couple hundred words or so, which I wrote based on inspiration sprung from a photograph I once took. These are all publicly available.

Last night, 23kpc’s Chapter 44 (“Pooches on the Brain”) dropped. This is the next-to-last chapter in the story, with the final one to come this Friday, May 23.

Since 23kpc has been, until now, in strictly “in progress” status: each chapter — and of course the book as a whole — has been its own first draft. For the second draft, which I’ll start work on sometime in mid-June, I’ll need to work on all forty-five chapters as a whole, as well as individually.

And so, at that point, everything I’ve posted in that series will “go dark”: I’ll “unpublish” the whole thing, and will not be adding to it further for a good long while — months, anyhow. The first draft was all caterpillar; all subsequent drafts will be taking place inside a cocoon. I can’t promise a butterfly at the end of the process, but something will come out of it!

Which leaves me with something of a dilemma, Substack-wise: I’ll continue with the weekly #jesstorypix series, but what else? Any ideas?

Care to, say, cast a vote…???

I should probably add that — until now — the only benefits I’ve offered to my lovely paid subscribers¹ have been (a) the ability to read the new weekly 23kpc chapters, and (b) a copy of the complete 23kpc e-book, when it becomes available. Whatever comes next, I’ll be coming up with more treats for those folks, too. (At the moment, I’m thinking of something like free prints of the #jesstorypix photos and text, or maybe of other photos of a less, uh, weird nature.)

That’s it for now. In the meantime, thank you very much just for watching this space!

1. To whom a very heartfelt thank you, thank you, thank you!