Happy New Year & a Look Ahead

As I sit and type this, I’m finishing up my absolute favorite time of year. Yes, I’m talking about that weird limbo between Christmas and the end of the year. It’s a week I always take off (this year, I actually took two weeks! Lucky me!) to review the past year, rest, and prepare for the coming year. It’s a time brimming with potential, when I hype myself up for the coming year while reflecting on what worked and what didn’t last year.

This year, I won’t spend much time dwelling on the past. Needless to say, I’ve had a down year. At the end of 2023, The Silent Death was released, but all of the podcast appearances I had scheduled to promote it fell through, many after we had recorded the episode. As if that wasn’t bad enough, we then had the election from hell. That election threw me into a tailspin, and I abandoned a WIP I had just started. For a while, I dabbled in other things, such as two podcasts and an apparel company, but abandoned them all because my heart was not in any of those projects. The truth was, and still is, that my heart was in my writing.

I wandered in the wilderness a bit longer before coming across some very good advice. One piece of advice was that, as artists, we shouldn’t stop creating because of chaos. In fact, we should create because there is chaos. I needed to hear that. Creatively, I had almost completely shut down because of the administration’s nonstop chaos. By keeping all of that pent up inside me, I was torturing myself and making it worse. My art was how I expressed myself, and I needed to get back on the horse.

The other piece of advice I came across was a post about how we, as authors, can use our books to instill our values in society. Our books and stories can influence the way people think. So, especially during times of great distress, it is incredibly important for us to put our work out there. If for nothing else, so our readers will have a distraction from the shitshow that is everyday life. But also to bring them comfort and let them know they are not alone.

These two ideas bounced around my brain until I found the courage to start writing again in late summer or early fall. Along the way, I became very inspired and added an entire second storyline to Terrestrial. And now, in a few short months, you’ll all get to read it. Trust me when I say I can’t wait.

But enough about what was. Let’s talk about what you can expect over the next year. I have a lot of big plans in motion, and I’m very excited you’re all along for the ride. First off, there’s Terrestrial, releasing on March 4, 2026. Terrestrial is a story inspired by Kurt Vonnegut, specifically Cat’s Cradle, which may be my favorite piece of Science Fiction ever released. I sat on the outline for three years. I always meant to start the manuscript, but I kept getting drawn to the next chapter in the Xavier Greene saga. Now I’ve tweaked the storyline and even added an extra part, expanding the story to take place not only on Earth’s surface but also far above it, in the International Space Station. I’m very pleased with the story and can’t wait for you all to read it.

The other major project this year is my collaboration with Stosaic. Stosaic uses Stoic philosophy to help individuals and businesses navigate life’s challenges more effectively. I’ve been friends with them for years and fully support their vision, so we’ve teamed up to create an anthology of short stories paired with lessons and exercises to help you incorporate the lessons from the stories into your everyday life. While I refer to it as nonfiction, this project, titled “The Tao of STO,” is more of a hybrid, combining my stories with their wisdom to provide what I hope will be a valuable resource in this ever-stressful world. We don’t have a release date yet, but I would predict it will come out sometime in Q2 2026.

In addition to those two projects, I’m using the Xavier Greene books to develop an episodic fiction podcast on YouTube, with plans to expand to other podcast networks, if possible. This one is still being developed and is a ways off, but be sure that when I have more concrete news, I’ll pass it along.

And speaking of Xavier Greene, if you’re a fan, you’re in luck. Even though I’ve been busy with Terrestrial and The Tao of STO, I haven’t forgotten about Xavier. The Silent Death was my top-selling book in 2025, so you can be sure I plan to return to that saga soon. In fact, rumor has it that a synopsis is already being drafted as we speak.

So, while I took time away to go on some side quests in 2025, I can assure you I’ve found my way back to my writing, and I’m more enthusiastic about it than I’ve ever been. If you’ve followed me the entire time, thank you! If you’re new, welcome! Either way, it’s an exciting time to be on board, and I look forward to a very exciting 2026!

Happy New Year!

– Ryan