Month: January 2021

As a Christian dystopian author, I’m not as shocked by current events as a lot of people might be. I’ll admit, it’s all proceeding rather fast, but everything does that, these days. I know where this is going. I like to think I recognize where we are. And I like to think I have a place in it all—me and my art and writing.

Some of you might remember I did a giveaway on Instagram last year. I gave away a little paper booklet called “Strange Times” that included art on the subject of the coronavirus. Little booklets like “Strange Times”, which can be reproduced with a basic photocopy machine, are called “zines”, technically. They represent one of the purest forms of self-publishing in existence.

There’s a whole culture around the publication on distribution of zines. They are notoriously counter-cultural. That can be a good thing or a bad thing as far as what they promote, but in a world where truth is rapidly becoming counter-cultural…it gets me thinking. It gets me thinking about my art, my little flashes of insight…and my photocopier.

Guys, voices like mine are disappearing. Voices you might want to hear are being silenced, and they’re going to continues to be silenced as things progress. I’m cautious on the internet, but anybody who’s gotten as far as book 2 in the Dronefall series knows I’m not as apathetic as I pretend to be. These subversive home-printed zines would give me a channel the internet never will to communicate plainly and boldly. There’s a reason these things are utilized by the fringe—they’re kinda hard to censor.

Don’t think I have any intention of creating zines just as a vehicle for raging against mainstream culture. That would go against my creative philosophy. I want to create something fascinating and nuanced and beautiful. I want to create art that points art-lovers to God. I just want to do it in a way that makes me feel free. It’s getting harder and harder to do that.

I want to create zines with poems in them, little collections of intricate sketches, photos, collages, multimedia…I want to explore comical subjects, nonsense, inspirational stuff in the vein of my Instagram posts. The possibilities are endless. That’s what I like about this whole idea.

Okay, so why am I telling you this? Because I want to share my zines with you. How? That’s kind of up to you. The nature of the medium would make it easy to send them by email. The design I use is one single-sided sheet. You could easily print and fold them yourself. But you know it would be way more fun to get them—printed and packaged and possibly with extras—by mail.

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance I know who you are. Let’s face it, I’m not that famous. A lot of you are probably coming over from Goodreads or Instagram. You probably have some method for contacting me, whether it’s through a PM or by email. I want to get in touch with you. I want to share my work with you.

Are you interested? I’m not selling these things. I just love creating them and think it would be amazing to send them out to my friends via mail or email. Please shoot me a message. If you don’t have any other way, just leave a comment on this post telling me you’re interested and we’ll work something out. This is all in beta right now. I’m very flexible. We need to see how it works and go from there.

Because something’s up, and we’re going to need each other.

At the beginning of 2020, I made a list of twelve goals for the year. Not extremely ambitious goals. Nothing crazy. I thought it looked pretty doable and even a bit modest considering where I was in my life at the time. A week ago, I looked at the list again. Do you know how many points I checked off?

None.

Zero.

Not kidding.

You know, 2020 could have gone a lot worse for me. I didn’t get sick, lose my job, or get mauled by anybody for my political views. I didn’t suffer much from the increased isolation and the absolute heat-death of my social universe beyond cyberspace. And with all the extra time from shutdowns and cancellations, you would think I would have been pretty productive last year.

But I wasn’t. I couldn’t focus. The chaos outside, which really didn’t bother me much, emotionally, must have taken a deeper toll on my mental state than I thought. Focus and discipline in my creative life has always been a bit of a scarcity, but never so much as in 2020.

Still, it wasn’t all bad. I think I learned a lot and discovered a lot in 2020. I tried some things I’ve never tried before (and some I’ll never try again.) But I’m glad for a new beginning.

My list of goals for 2021 is a bit different than last year’s. I’ve broken my year down into three-month sections with only a handful of things per section I want to achieve. This gives me a timeline—rather loose, but just real enough to keep me focused on a few things at a time. I’m being realistic about my reading schedule this year. Guys, I’m not a mega-reader like a lot of you are. I can’t knock out 127 books a year like the pros do. I’m giving myself a minimum: one book a month. It beats last year.

I’m also going to devote more time to art this year. And music. I want to overcome some mental blocks that went up around music during my rather rough college days. I hope to start playing the piano again—and I want to write some new songs. I’ve also challenged myself to completing one painting a month this year. People who know me in real life think I paint a lot more than I actually do. Sadly, I haven’t painted on my own time in years.

You notice I haven’t mentioned writing goals yet. That’s because I know how slow I am and don’t want to make promises to my readers. But let me just hint that this might be a record-setting year for my publishing career. I’m excited. I’ve got a ton of work to do, but it’s my favorite kind of work.

So, here’s to 2021. A new year: mysterious, likely to be momentous, difficult, painful at times—but still full of hope an opportunity. Here’s to another chance to refocus and be a light in the dark. It’s time to celebrate, because there’s at least one good thing about 2020—it shouldn’t be a hard act to follow.