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Hey everyone! Andrew here.

Great news to start with. I’ve done more writing, which I am very pleased about. I also have to say that I am feeling very pleased that so many of you wrote in to say you wanted to read more of Card (short post-apocalyptic sci-fi story I’ve been working on). Is it pressure? You betcha. Do I appreciate you for it? Yes. Yes I do! Especially when my mind keeps wanting to go do something else. The pressure will keep me on target. So thank you!

I wrote most of Card on an airplane recently, surviving some turbulence and spilled tea in the process, and it is going well. It won’t be a novel or a novella. Just a short story. I haven’t written a short for a while and I am pleased with how it is turning out. I do keep telling myself that it is a short story, as if repeating that will stop it growing. Short story. Short. Think short things.

The craft problem I have been thinking about (so I can finish Card) is endings. I really love starting stories. The beginning is full of possibilities, and behind each there is another possibility, another character, another terrible decision waiting to happen. It is all potential, which is a dangerous thing to give my feeble brain because it immediately wants to keep every option open forever. And you can’t finish anything that way. *cough*

Closing a story feels like shutting those doors and reducing the possibilities, even when that is precisely what has to be done so that we can get to the end. I think part of the problem is that I can always imagine one more version of what might happen. I really don’t like having to choose which roads I am willing to destroy. That sounds overly dramatic, but it is honestly how it feels. I need to get better at it.

Question for you, since I know you love to read. When you reach the end of a story, what makes the ending feel like it was earned rather than like the author has simply closed shop and walked away? I think it has something to do with ensuring that the promises made at the start are resolved in a satisfying way, but that sounds a bit clinical. I suspect I have been treating closure as the enemy when it’s likely the most important part of the job. Anyway, let me know!

Writing update.

Card is the immediate priority. I want to get it finished before I return to The Bone Singer, partly because I can only keep two projects moving at one time and partly because I would like to prove to myself that I can actually close out a short story without building an entire second universe around the ending. Card is staying a short story. It will not become a novella or a novel just because I get nervous near the finish line. I have to keep reminding myself, see?

I am continuing to work on Anthropoid as well. I do not have a mountain of progress to report there, but it is still moving. The Bone Singer is paused this week by deliberate choice rather than because it has vanished into the swamp; once Card is done, I will go back to it. I can only keep two projects in my head at once. Technically I can probably put more in there, but emotionally and spiritually, no.

That’s about it for this one. I am going to finish Card, then return to The Bone Singer, and in the meantime I would very much like to hear your thoughts on what makes endings satisfying. Also, how frequently do you guess what the ending is and you were right?

All the best,

Andrew (ZZ)

Zero-Point Awakening – The Complete Series Books 1-8

Great reading, captivating and will likely find myself searching for more books from this author.

– Amazon 5 Star Review

When the invasion came, it didn’t announce itself. It arrived quietly… through power, persuasion, and control. The personal record of Sophie Dupont, a woman who survived a war that reshaped the world from the shadows.

A fractured interstellar government. A rising war across human space. And a family caught in the center of a conspiracy that could bring everything down.

When loyalty becomes a weapon, survival means choosing the right side—before there is no side left to choose.

Ewan Scott is reborn by an ancient AI to save humanity from extinction—and reunite it with its true origin. As alien civilizations fall, Captain Velal faces rising horrors that now set their sights on Earth.

When Araminta boards a flight to surprise her twin sister, she never expects a zombie outbreak to follow her into the sky. By the time the plane goes down, survival is all that matters. She has one goal: find her sister.

You wake up tomorrow with an IQ of 140. What’s the first thing you do? Build a fortune before lunch Try to solve a scientific mystery Learn five languages and disappear into the world Figure out what everyone else is missing Make coffee and keep my new IQ a secret Other (let us know your view by replying)

Survey Result

And now, let’s take a look at last week’s poll results. We asked, “In a world where all communication has gone dark, what’s the first thing you’d genuinely miss?“
Here are the results:

• My favorite people (family, friends, and that one person who always texts back) –> 27%
• New books magically appearing on my device –> 20%
• The ability to ask questions and get answers instantly –>20%
• Music / entertainment on demand–> 13%
• Honestly? The silence sounds kind of nice –> 13%
• Other –> 4%

Andrew: The leading answer was My favorite people (family, friends, and that one person who always texts back), which is either comforting or slightly alarming depending on how literally we are taking the question. I suppose it is good to know that when we remove the phones, the internet, the news, the endless stream of messages and all the other machinery we have built around ourselves, we still know what actually matters.

Silence. Hmm 13% of us looked at a world where every light had gone out and thought, you know what, that sounds restful. I have no idea whether that is healthy or a cry for help and I am not sure I want to find out. We don’t want to lose the people, but we would quite happily lose some of the noise. I think I’m on board with that.

And then there were the people who ignored the emotional question entirely and started planning for the apocalypse, which is extremely on brand for this group and one of the reasons I keep asking you things. Give us a hypothetical disaster and we will immediately start looking for the technical loopholes. I also suspect it is how most of us would spend the first ten minutes after the lights went out. I’m counting on you!

Your Thoughts

David L. went above and beyond and sent through an entire scenario for how the world might actually arrive at the electronic Stone Age: a polar magnetic reversal, a solar superstorm, EMP weapons, or possibly all three at once. You need to write that, David. He also pointed out that I said “all communication” when what I obviously meant was electronic communication, because pen and paper would carry on working perfectly well thank you very much. Yes David, that is what I meant, and no, I did not think about it for even one second before I typed it. David, thank you for the kind words about “Card”. I will keep going with it.

A Winter picked out a line from the Card excerpt, the one about the bunker walls doing nothing to rein in the echoes of hard carriage returns, and said it made her laugh because she remembers walking into rooms with a hundred typewriters going at once. She also wondered how a Gen Z reader would take it, which had not occurred to me even slightly. I hear you re not wanting to read bleak things right now given the state of the world. Card is set after a collapse. Zero pressure to read it from me. But I do appreciate your perspective re the typewriters and GenZ!

Charles E. settled an argument I have been having with myself in public. Fortnightly has exactly one meaning, every fourteen days, while biweekly is ambiguous because it can just as easily mean twice a week. He’s right. So from here on this is a fortnightly newsletter. It only took two months and a committee… Thanks Charles!

Kris S. said she would miss accurate time, instant replies, and being able to learn things quickly, but would not miss people shouting into speaker phones in public. She also said silence has its upsides. Yeah. I know that’s true and I also know that sometimes while I crave the silence, if I stay there too long its too much. Loneliness is a terrible thing. It’s another reason I appreciate being able to connect to you all here via this fortnightly (see what I did, Charles!) newsletter.

Claudia said she loved that I was writing on a plane with paper and pen and can’t wait for the rest of Card. Thank you Claudia. I actually like writing long-hand but its hard to read my scrawl. I prefer the words that come out when I write like that vs writing on a keyboard. It’s probably mostly in my head to be honest.

Ruth said the first thing she would miss was talking to her daughter and her church community, which these days runs almost entirely online, and then very kindly put authors like me third on the list. Thank you, Ruth! That’s a compliment… I’m not good at accepting those, but I do appreciate you.

I super appreciate everyone who wrote in. I know I did not get to mention everyone, but it’s hard to do it all justice in a single newsletter. Thanks all. See you in a fortnight!

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