Happy NYE + Budapastiche Primer

I love New Years. I love the lists and years-in-review that come out this time of year. I love the energetic reset of the New Year. I love sitting back, taking stock, gazing out the window, making adjustments, and renewing commitments. I even like a good New Year's resolution or two, their reputation for vacuousness notwithstanding.

So write yourself a note, light a candle, burn the note at midnight, send it into the ether. See what comes back.

2023 will be here shortly, and very soon I’m going to start publishing Budapastiche, week by week.

Someone I love asked me recently: what's with this thing you're doing, the platform and subscription and all of that? And it was a good question because I hadn't voiced aloud what compelled me to move in that direction.

The answer came quickly because, while I hadn't spoken of it, I’d thought a lot about it: it's about committing myself and being accountable. I have to get this novel out, and I love the idea of publishing it in serial form.

I know that Budapastiche is, at the very least, a good novel. Maybe it's more. It comes straight from my heart, from my experiences as a fragile human living in a peculiar world. It goes something like this:

Nick Goodman is engaged in a hermitage on his family farm when he gets a cryptic message from his older sister to come to Budapest. And the message arrives at just the right time. He's wrestling with the decision of whether or not to pour himself back toward an unrequited love on the West Coast, but fate intervenes and launches him in the opposite direction. He lands in the middle of an ensemble of expatriates living in the Hungarian capital, each of whom is struggling with their matters of love, loneliness, and other frailties of the human condition.

Serial publication is a throwback to the way many writers I love published back in the mid-20th Century. I like the idea of taking readers on the journey with me. I've written a bit over half of the novel, and I know the characters like they were old friends. But I don't know how it will turn out for all of them. And that undone part of the storytelling is so compelling. It's what keeps me leaning in, discovering more.

Some of you have been on this list for going on a decade now. You know I tend to go through expressive spells, and then I'll go dark for months or even a year. And this sharing part of me is a weird, sometimes bold, sometimes timid part of me.

Oddly, I've written a dozen films, and these are stories that I've toiled with for a year or more, suffering and learning to enjoy all manner of critical feedback. But it's just in a different format, a screenplay.

Truth be told, prose is the only kind of writing that matters to me. And maybe that's why the novel form intimidates me. I think the degree of vulnerability one feels is proportionate to the depth of their passion. That part of your brain kicks in and tells you: 'if you don't do it, you won't get hurt.'

I could publish it traditionally. But I think the commercialized publishing market is a bit of a shit show, and I'm not trying to sell 50K or 500K or a gazillion copies of a book. I would be so much happier with 500 dedicated readers with whom I have some degree of connection. To me, that's an insane number. Can you imagine?

I don't expect a windfall of paid subscriptions. And I don't have a set goal. I anticipate weekly releases for a year or so. My chapters are short, and I have 44 of them written. By the end of the year, if I have enough to print the book to share with my subscribers, magic.

So after you’ve read a handful of chapters, if you find yourself wanting to see where things go, or you start to develop a feeling for the characters, then something is sinking in. At the point when you might normally be inclined to purchase the book to stick with it, then that's the moment when maybe you'll come on as a subscriber as a means of supporting the art.

But I'm not going to charge anything to read it; subscribing is free. That will get you all the material, but my precious paid subscribers will get the material a bit sooner. I'm still learning about the publication platform, so I'll share more details as we go. And as always, you can email me anytime.

But look here: I'm grateful for everyone who reads even my silly emails, not to mention my fiction. And if I was carting around a box full of printed novels and someone approached me and said, "I love what you write, and although I can't swing the purchase of a book right now, I will read that sucker cover to cover," then it would be my distinct pleasure to share a copy as a gift. I think of this the same way.

So that's it. I want to hold myself accountable and create an experience that readers enjoy. Whatever comes from that will be good. I know that much. Who knows what it'll look like? But I know we'll have a good time along the way.

♥️