Lost in the Warp

I've been gone. A long time.

Well, not really gone. I've actually still been here, quietly dreaming up new ideas, tapping them into notes editors, scrawling them down in my book of ideas. But between writing for myself and other obligations, I've really been slammed to maintain the website

A quick recap of what I've been up to:

• A car accident. At the end of June I got into the dumbest car accident ever. My insurer put me at fault, which I suppose is fair: I hit a giant rock in a parking lot. But I swear, I was the third person to hit it within 30 minutes of its relocation. In fact, folks continue to hit it every week. Dumbest rock ever. (Let me smoke my copium, please.)

• Work and travel for the dayjob. For those who don't know, I "daylight" as a manager at another company to keep the lights on. I've started volunteering for work trips because... well, they're fun. Who doesn't like free travel?

• Illness (A.K.A. "the downside of traveling for work"). I brought my wife and baby on an August trip to New York City, and we all got COVID. It was an unsanctified family experience. Thankfully, this wasn't as bad as the first time the wife and I got it back before the vaccine was out, but it took the wind out of us. And of course, poor little JM (my son) was not pleased to participate in this team-building exercise.

• Family obligations. I know I don't need to explain this, but I do have a wife and kid. Although I do schedule time to work on writerly stuff, once my baby's awake, I'm reporting for duty before he loses his cool (and wakes his mom up from well-deserved sleep).

• Political action. I've undergone a political awakening and have been trying to uphold my citizen's obligations to the USA — primarily through protests, and most recently the No Kings protest on October 18, 2025. America has always been flawed, but I've always been a true believer that we can move toward "a more perfect union." That isn't happening right now. Why? I'll leave it at this: anyone who tells you they're the only one who can solve your problems is trying to use you. And any "American" who says your countrymen are your enemy is no American at all.

Stupid parking lot rock. Even after they painted it yellow and put up caution tape and cones, people still hit it. That's because it's stupid.

This protest picture's probably from June-ish. I entirely agree with Ezra Klein's opinion that Trump is building a mafia state, similar to Putin's Russia.

My son, JM, modeling at a resort during a work trip.

After finding a POP MART in New York City, my wife went on the hunt for Labubu dolls. (I also like tiny plastic figurines, so who would I be to complain?)

With all that, I've still been working on writing and other projects. Here's the lowdown on what else I've been up to.

Finishing One Novel...

I wrapped up a project for Black Library back in June-July — and damn if it didn't suck the wind out of me. This wasn't really an example of Murphy's Law, because not everything went wrong. But there were tons of unfortunate circumstances and coincidences that made revisions for this novel a nightmare.

It's not an exaggeration to say the final version of the novel was almost nothing like the commissioning editor and I had originally envisioned. A key motif was jettisoned (for practical reasons, I recognize). It lost some thematic investments and worldbuilding Noah-isms. But in return the action was clarified and we gained a tighter, streamlined story where the WAR in Warhammer really stands out.

I'm grateful to the editors I worked with on this one, who put in a lot of work helping guide me. The work spent revising this novel was a fever dream, thinking back to those early mornings and long nights before/after work at the dayjob.

How did I do? I'll let the Warhammer readership decide when the novel is released.

... Continuing Some Other Novels...

There's a trunk novel I've been working on since 2020, which I started during the height of the pandemic. To borrow from Save The Cat! terminology, it's an "Institutionalized" story where someone on the inside of the political elite seeks to dismantle the system they're a part of. The setting, as you might expect, is speculative: think Grimdark-adjacent science fantasy.

Over the years, I've come back to this novel to work on it between every Black Library project I've done in the interim. Invariably, the Black Library projects always take precedence when they come, so that means I'm always refreshing myself when I resume this trunk novel. Gaining and keeping momentum has been difficult. Right now I'm trying to finish the core of the story by the end of the year, which will put me in a good place to polish up the story more gradually. Fingers crossed, folks, fingers crossed.

And besides that, I submitted my first-ever full novel for editorial review earlier this year. I plan to self-publish serials with accompanying audio, and I've worked with a freelance illustrator to produce some material for the project's eventual release. My hope is that by doing all of this, I can release something in a format that really resonates with people who like my other stuff.

I'm excited about both of these — but they're marathons, not sprints, and there's still tons left to do.

... Working on a Fanfic...

I haven't forgotten my fanfic serial, The Identity Problem (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). I'm actually finalizing the fourth installment right now.

I admit I've struggled a bit with how to continue. It's not that I don't know what I want to happen. More that I scratched my epistolary itch and feel like experimenting with a slightly different format and style. (This is, after all, just for s***s and g*gg**s.) One thing that's crossed my mind: I've always wanted to experiment with what a drone's point of view might be like...

More on that soon. (Very soon!)

... And Studying Foreign Languages...

So this isn't strictly writing-related. But I do call this blog The Lingual Fantast, so it makes since I'll take about language from time to time.

A while back, I realized I wasn't happy with my Russian proficiency, which had begun to degrade from disuse and which I require for my dayjob. I renewed efforts to keep it up, mainly by practicing speaking more with coworkers and other contacts and by reading Russian books. I finished a Pelevin novel my friend sent me a long time ago, then started and finished Roadside Picnic.

(That second book is a great, by the way. A classic that inspired the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video game franchise — I can't recommend it highly enough.)

Brushing up on my Russian also reignited the old flame, and I've found myself investing more time developing my Vietnamese with my wife, and even trying my hand at Ukrainian with a language partner/tutor. Surprisingly, the Ukrainian has come easier than the Vietnamese. One reason is that it's so similar to Russian, and my Russian is, in my humble opinion, quite strong.

The other reason is an issue of vocabulary, which is what I tend to struggle with most. My difficulties come down to two factors, in my opinion. First, Vietnamese has a divide between the "Vietnamese-Vietnamese" words ("từ thuần Việt") and "Sino-Vietnamese" words ("từ Hán Việt"). This paradigm gives me a bit of trouble when it comes to memorizing vocabulary.

But perhaps more importantly, Vietnamese word formation happens by (among other things) gluing meaningful syllables together. When studying vocabulary, that makes it difficult for me to determine whether I'm encountering one compound word or two separate words with distinct meaning. (A very simple example: "quần" means pants in Vietnamese, and "áo" means shirt. But "quần áo" means clothing more generally.)

Probably more information than you wanted. But a cool little factoid nonetheless.

What's Next?

I'm still working on everything I mentioned above. More than that, I hope to start work on some interviews with a former coworker who recently joined the Ukrainian armed forces. The perspective should be interesting: Ukraine right now has the most battle-hardened soldiers in the Western world, and I'd love to get a sense of how they operate, as well as the slice-of-life perspective. It'll be cool to know just for intellectual purposes, and I'm sure it won't hurt the writing. But on a more personal level, I just want to compare the tactical reality over there with what I experienced as an infantryman in Afghanistan. If anything boils out of this that isn't secret, I'll publish it here.

I'm also reading some non-Black Library fiction to expand my horizon. Right now I'm on Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie (I never finished the series after Ancillary Justice). I've got Leviathan Wakes on my list, too, and a number of Warhammer books — mostly older ones I've already read, to be honest.

And finally, I kid you not, I am jump-roping. Regularly. This is probably one of those trends that I'll realize I was part of in a year or so, but it's so much fun. With the right music, the tempo, tricks, the footwork... I feel like I'm dancing. I've literally never had as much fun exercising as I do while jump-roping. (In related news, my wife asked if I could get her a hoola hoop so she can join in on the schoolyard fun.)

That's all for now. Stay well, everybody. Please feel free to share your thoughts below.