Greetings from the 12th Floor

Will Remains Writing for January 2025

Author

Will Remains
February 02, 2025

2025 is going to be my year!

Writing against the backdrop of the Baltimore skyline. From my apartment, I have a good view of the Belvedere Hotel, which fellow fans of Unsolved Mysteries may recall as the site of the mysterious death of Rey Rivera, whose body was found in an unused conference room, beneath an opening in the roof that was presumably his entrance. Investigators declared it a suicide, despite there being no feasible way Rivera could have leapt from a higher landing and struck that particular part of the building. It’s far more likely he’d have landed on the sidewalk. My theory is that he was thrown from a helicopter, but no one’s asked.

I bring up the Belvedere apropos of nothing, other than my fondness for true crime. I sometimes mention Rey Rivera as an icebreaker or, alternatively, as pest repellant. It’s a good way to tease out fellow aficionados of unsolved murders. Involving everyone in a juicy true crime story also helps me seem sociable without having to talk about myself.

If you believe Baltimore is a good place for true crime, you are correct. My neighborhood, fortunately, is not in the combat zone. I can think of no more than three or four murders that have occurred within a few block radius in the past 7 - 8 years, only one of which struck a bit close to home, geographically and demographically. That one, sadly, is also unsolved, and if you know anything about Baltimore, that is also unsurprising. BDPD doesn’t have the most stellar reputation.

But I digress.

Welcome to Will Remains Writing. I’ve been blogging about writing and general creativity fairly regularly over the past 2 years. I posted daily in 2023, simply to see if I could, and a lot less in 2024, for good and various reasons. Over time, I’ve stumbled into a groove - I have my pet topics; rhythm and tone; confidence that I have something interesting to share; and I’m not stressed about the size of my audience or whether random people like me. Cancer killed my last f*ck.

No offense. I appreciate you. When I say IDGAF, I mean that in the good way.

“I no longer have patience for certain things, not because I’ve become arrogant, but simply because I reached a point in my life where I do not want to waste more time with what displeases me or hurts me. I have no patience for cynicism, excessive criticism, and demands of any nature. I lost the will to please those who do not like me, to love those who do not love me, and to smile at those who do not want to smile at me…I do not get along with those who do not know how to give a compliment or a word of encouragement.”

José Micard Teixeira, Author

You’ve probably read that quote on Facebook, attributed to Meryl Streep. You can’t believe everything you read.

The newsletter is an experiment, another way to meet other creative people where they are. I read a lot of blogs, but for some topics I prefer newsletters. The monthly news will include my posts from the last month, some book and research discussion, updates on my current projects, a lovely song or even two, and an occasional monologue on a non-writing topic, such as cold case crime or something else on my mind. I’ll try not to frighten you off with my politics. When the mood is right, I’ll share writing prompts and hype-bomb cool stuff or people you should know. If you subscribe, I’ll come for you monthly for now, and never more than weekly.

Unlike social media, I won’t lie to you. I may ramble, I may speculate, but I promise not to bullshit you. I’ll talk about what interests me and if that interests you, that’s great. Mostly, I talk about writing. I share what I’m obsessed with and will pass along anything I’ve learned. I’m no expert, but do consider me a fellow traveler, pointing out the shiny things off the side of the road.

Also in this letter:

  • Posts from January 2025

  • What I’m Reading

  • WIP News

  • A Parting Song

January Posts
ICYMI - Last month, I welcomed in the New Year with a quote from Aquarian iconoclast Virginia Woolf and a few wishes for 2025. I questioned the sanity of anyone attempting to write a book in three days and discussed ways food can reveal character and shape plot. And finally, I took a look at two articles with different approaches for how to view your novel’s central conflict.

What I’m Reading
Slim list this month. I usually get a lot more reading done in January, but this year I’m both too cold and too mentally restless to sit for it. I’m aiming for 100-120 books again this year, which is a nice goal, even if I don’t always reach it (I’m 3 for 6 since 2019).

If you’re hoping I’ll recommend a book written in the last five or even ten years, you may be waiting a long time. It’s not that kind of book club. My TBR is up to about 800 books. That sounds insane, and it is, but it includes a lot of pocket-sized paperbacks purchased on a whim, books I’ve bought for story research and never read all the way through, and anthologies I’ve only partly finished. I buy so many more books a year than I read.

So far in 2025, however, I’ve added only 2 books to the shelves and I ordered them in 2024, so they don’t even count towards this year’s book allowance. Despite temptation, I’ve gone a month without buying any books, which is an astounding bit of discipline on my part. Frankly, I don’t like it.

That said, I have some cool and/or obscure books awaiting. I’ll talk about those more than the books you’ve certainly heard of, but this month, you get what you get.

A signed version reads better.

I’m late to this one, clearly. I hadn’t heard much about the books before the show launched and didn’t catch up there until Season 3. I bought this at Balticon 50 when GRRM was the Guest of Honor and got it signed and everything.

I started reading it while the show was still running, but couldn’t get the cast visuals and voices out of my head. The foreshadowing was also way too distracting, so I let it sit for a couple of years. Even so, I still got all clenched up watching Ned’s honor lead him to ruin. It’s hard to say if that denouement would have been easier or harder to take if I hadn’t seen the show. I don’t think I’d have expected it, certainly. But the character in the novel is easier to dislike than Sean Bean. In fact, that’s what I notice about most of the characters. The nobles are, on the whole, rather unpleasant. They lack the warmth the actors brought to them. But still a fun read.

Yes, by Jack Kirby. Period.

I’ve read much of Jack Kirby’s run of Fantastic Four, but probably no more than half, and definitely not consecutively. The four giant omnibus editions are a treasure.

For the first few years of the comic, Kirby was often saddled with less-than-flattering inkers, but every issue was packed with new characters and the cosmic themes he’d become known for. Even if he hadn’t had a hand in creating nearly every foundational Marvel character in the 60s, Kirby originated enough new super-powered heroes and villains in FF alone to populate an entire line of comics. In the span of one of the years included in this edition, he introduces the Inhumans, the Silver Surfer, Galactus, and the Black Panther, along with other minor characters and villains. Simply an astounding talent, who is still missed.

I’m excited to share this one for the cover alone. The skewed, exaggerated perspective and harsh, expressionistic rendering of Raskolnikov are striking. Combined with the overwhelming green, the illustration evokes a sense of unease and even dizziness, mirroring Raskolnikov’s disorientation and illness as he descends into moral decay. The scratchy lettering of the title stands out like a hand-scrawled warning on the wall behind him.

The book is pretty good too. Over-written by modern standards, with long, circular, and often repetitive segments devoted to the protagonist’s thoughts, but still a fascinating exploration of a complex, morally demented protagonist.

Another classic that I finally got around to reading. Like Crime and Punishment, the overwrought prose can sound dated to modern ears, but it’s easy to see why Stoker’s gothic narrative captured the attention of Victorian readers. I'm having fun imagining their reaction to Renfield’s diet of spiders and live birds. I admit, I shuddered more than once. Not even children and dogs are safe.

If you want to treat yourself, find the audio book as read by Mark Gatiss (Sherlock, a million other things). I don’t usually enjoy narrators who attempt accents, but Gatiss seamlessly flows between English, Dutch, Russian, and Transylvanian. You can find it on Spotify.

WIP News
Work continues on the short novel that was supposed to give me a breather from my other novel in progress, but has since taken over the front burner. Starting life as a long short story, the Project evolved into a novella and eventually into a short novel. I thought I might squeak up to the 50,000 word mark, at which I could claim novel status with only a slight lack of candor, but now it looks like I’ll skate past that by a bit.

This is a flea market novel, assembled from three writing prompts, some real-life nature facts, a lot a bit of sexual depravity, fantasy elements, wanton violence, and an experiment in seeing how far I can push a protagonist into morally dank territory while still having him be someone the reader can root for. I like him and that’s really all that matters.

I hoard prompts, more than I could possibly use in my writing between now and death. I’ll be happy to have three of them on paper once this is done. Conjoining them tickled me no end. I liked each of them enough individually, but when I viewed them in tandem, possibilities started clicking into place. I won’t say the novel wrote itself, but having a set of distinct characters with strong personalities, who by happy coincidence fit into the same story world, made it go a lot quicker.

I’ll share more when I have it.

A Parting Song
I leave you with a rollicking ode to the cruddiest month of the year, courtesy the Rumjacks and blog favorite Dropkick Murphys. If this doesn’t warm your bollocks, what can? Watch the video below or listen on Spotify.

Writing is better with a community. Let’s do it together.
You can find me on Facebook and WillRemains.com.
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