welcome to might makes write

What Are We Doing Here?

Reading the novels I’ve written a chapter at a time, ideally. The dream is that, by ensuring that there is a group of people who know I’m writing stuff and that I will absolutely run out of chapters to send them if I don’t finish my current project, I will finish my current project and get it polished and ready to share. I have a habit of drafting almost the entirety of something in a burst of creative energy and then letting it sit around forever, never editing it even if it sucks, never finishing it even if it’s great. Hopefully this will prevent that from occurring.

If you’re subscribed to this newsletter it’s almost certainly because you saw it on my Instagram, so you know all this already, but there’s no harm in repeating it just in case you’ve been through some sort of amnesia event recently. No judgment.

What Are Your Novels About?

The first one is about a friend group falling apart at a college in the woods over the course of a summer. It is called Peyton Butler Kissed Me, I wrote it when I was eighteen, and it is fairly terrible, so I’ll only resort to sending that one out if there’s some kind of emergency, like I get distracted by other projects and fail to complete the current one in a timely manner. Let us pray that doesn’t happen.
Peyton Butler Kissed Me is rated PG-13 for nudity and mild profanity.

The second one is about being an alternate on a game show that is, for legal reasons, definitely not Jeopardy! and doing sabotage to the real competitors in order to get a shot at being on television. It is creatively titled Alternates, and it was, again for legal reasons, definitely not directly inspired by my own brief stint on Jeopardy! After all, as far as you know, I was never an alternate. You’ll be reading that one first, largely because it is the shorter of the two competent novels.
Alternates is rated PG-13 for profanity and depictions of sexuality.

The third one is about an ex-classicist burnout discovering that magic is real, but specifically weird esoteric Ancient Greek magic, which means it’s being hoarded by the kinds of people who speak Ancient Greek. It is called Greek Revival, and I really hoped it would land an agent during the wave of BookTok darling dark academia, but alas I think an entire novel spent geeking out about first-century Hermetic papyri is a hard sell even for the TikTok teens. You’ll be reading that one second.
Greek Revival is rated R for drug use and some graphic violence.

Why Do A Newsletter For Novels? Aren’t You A Playwright?

Well, yes, but it’s hard to get a Dracula Daily type of thing going with a series of largely unconnected ten-minute plays. Also I have technically seen my scripts produced before (more than once, even!), so my need for attention on that front has been sated marginally more than it has on the novel-writing front.

Isn’t This All A Bit Egotistical And Self-Serving? I Mean, Even If You Frame It As An Exercise To Encourage You To Write And Edit Consistently, You’re Still Trying To Surround Yourself With People Who Will Consume And Discuss Your Work Even If It’s Not Worth Consuming Or Discussing, Aren’t You? And By Calling Ironic Attention To It, Aren’t You Just Kind Of Making It More Obvious That You’re Doing It, Thereby Making It Even Worse?

Yes.

When Does The First Chapter Come Out?

Next Wednesday, the 5th of February. And it’s actually going to be two chapters, technically, since Alternates has a brief prologue. See you next week!

xoxo,
Gus

Might Makes Write and all the writing shared herein are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.