Happy New Writing Year

Will Remains Writing for January 2026

Author

Will Remains
February 01, 2026

Greetings from the 12th Floor. I hope everyone in the eastern US fared well during the January snow, which is being referred to as Winter Storm Fern, because apparently even snowstorms now require adequate branding.

Despite the below freezing temps, my year is off to a great start. First - and probably most important - I am cancer free. I had surgery for colon cancer in late 2024 and while it wasn’t likely that it would have popped up in another place after only a year, the original discovery of cancer came as a surprise for everyone involved. Specifically, three biopsies of a small tumor and an MRI detected no cancer, but a few days after my surgery, my doctor called to inform me Surprise! It’s Cancer! Or was, as the case is. To say I was a bit tightly wound the last few weeks of the year before my first follow-up is putting it mildly. But all is well.

You can see below for news about my writing month. My reading year also started off well, especially after last year’s faltering January and February.

Last year, I made the mistake of starting the year with a few classics - Dracula and Crime and Punishment - and while both are worth reading, neither is exactly light reading. These are books that require commitment. It didn’t help that I followed those with three rather disappointing reads: Jo Nesbo’s Knife, John Irving’s The Last Chairlift, and Joe Hill’s Strange Weather. I quite like all three of those writers and some of their earlier books are among my favorites, but these were a real slog. The combination of bad choices and bad luck put me off reading and I ended March with barely a dozen books finished, which is well off my usual pace.

This year I made better selections. I finally finished an anthology of plays that had been sitting on my shelf for 30 years half-read, read three of Raymond Carver’s short story collections, re-read three of Ethan Mordden’s Buddies series and read for the first time the final two books in the series, which I didn’t even know existed until recently. I read Robert McKee’s Dialogue: the Art of Verbal Action for Page, Stage, and Screen, and re-read Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird for the umpteenth time.

I also read two middling motivational books that are likely destined for a future go-away pile, and finally, Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves.

I’m not sure how I feel about House of Leaves. It’s a brilliant book, but I can’t say I enjoyed reading it. I admire the thought that went into it and am glad it exists, even if I’m not sure why it exists. As an object, it’s not unlike New York’s Museum of Modern Art. You’re glad someone is doing it, even if very little of it is for you.

The novel’s central premise is simple: a family buys a haunted house and living in it slowly drives them and their friends mad. So far, so good.

Like the haunted house - which contains rooms within rooms that go on forever - the book itself is a book within a book within a book. The main thread is a “found novel” - think The Blair Witch Project in prose - which is written as a non-fiction book about the experience of the fictional family in their haunted house - think The Amityville Horror. This portion references events that occur after the family (most of them) escapes the house, including critical dissections of the family’s home movies, and books and articles written about the family and the house, most of which have footnotes. In addition, in more footnotes to the text, there unfolds the second thread, the story of the person who found the book and brought it to the publisher, but not before slowly going mad from the experience of reading the found book. There’s more but that’s the gist.

As characters in thread one explore the house and the narrator in thread two explores the book he’s found, everyone starts to go a bid mad, and the book design represents both their physical and mental descents. Sections of prose are typeset to force the reader to turn the book sideways and then upside down in order to continue reading, similar to the experience of the characters exploring the house. In other places, the text is set in backwards type, presumably asking the reader to hold the book up to a mirror to continue reading.

The phrase “life is too short…” sprang to mind often during this reading.

And yet, I admire the thought that went into it and the author’s commitment. This is some batshit-level creating. And I sincerely admire that. He had a vision and he held to it. I have no doubt this book turned out exactly how he wanted. It’s crazy, but it’s his. Most writers are afraid to break a single dogeared piece of writing advice and here is Mark Danielewski violating what most of us would consider to be the first rule for writing a novel, which is that the reader should be able to read it.

So, I have confused feelings about House of Leaves, which in retrospect, I suppose was the point. If the success of a novel is that the reader leaves the book with the feeling the author intended, than this novel was a great success, because I felt disturbed and a bit nauseous and very glad to escape. If you’re looking for a novel that recreates the sensation of entering the uncanny valley and stirs a feeling of primal revulsion, you could do worse.

Also in this letter:

  • Posts from January 2025

  • Work in Progress

  • Writing Advice

  • A Parting Song

Monthly Posts
I began 2026 with my traditional wishes for the new year. These aren’t fantastical requests, but aspirations within my ability to fulfill. I have similar wishes for life, which aren’t relevant here. Attaining these goals would allow me to look back at my 2026 writing year and say it was a complete success. To that end, I also posted my goals, for both accountability and humility. And I wrote twice about showing up - for your work, your creative friends, and for yourself.

Work in Progress
I’ve quite pleased with January. This was the best start to a writing year in recent memory.

I’m excited about the results thus far on the repair work on my novel is progress. I spent most of November and December dissecting, cutting, and rearranging my last draft to excise a muddled middle section and to create stronger narrative peaks and plateaus. Fewer characters, more on-page time for the secondary cast, clearer goal posts, and I hope more dramatic tension. In January, I finished five chapters, the new chapters 1 - 5. By the end of February, I should have the rest of the new writing finished, which will bring me into the parts of the last draft that were salvageable. Lots of rewriting and editing ahead, but I have a good 60,000-70,000 words to work with. The short version is that the original kick-off scene is now a midpoint dilemma, with stronger introductory scenes leading to that moment. We’ll see if that stands, but I re-read that first 15,000 words or so and It’s holding up for now.

I’ve also mapped out about 1/3 of my blog posts for the year. I’m not a spontaneous person, so deciding on topics in advance makes my Monday deadlines more achievable. I’m pretty well set through the end of April and if something different leaps out at me, I can always push a scheduled post out a few weeks. This buffer also gives me 8-10 weeks to focus almost entirely on the novel without distraction.

I also journaled about 20,000 words, mostly memory exercises covering my college years, and my time bumping around time in California, Oregon, Salt Lake City, Massachusetts, Florida, and finally back home to Maryland. There are some tales in there. I might do something with them later, but that is a story for another day.

In all, I jammed about 50,000 words into January, or a whole National Novel Writing Month. Not bad.

Writing Advice
I follow about 30 blogs sharing writing advice and bookmark the good stuff. Here are the best posts from January:

A Parting Song
Unless you are an aficionado of bluegrass, you probably haven’t heard of the Steep Canyon Rangers. They are best known for collaborating with Steve Martin, a fine banjo player in addition to being a comic legend. They also serve as the supporting act on tour with Steve Martin and Martin Short, which is where I first experienced them. I’ve had this song on rotation for a good six months, but it’s as good a way as any to start a fresh year.

For my next act I’m not acting for anyone
For my next act I’m gonna have me a little fun

Watch below or listen on Spotify.

Writing is better with a community. Let’s do it together.
You can find me on Facebook, Blue Sky, Substack, and Willremains.com. Previous editions of the newsletter are available at Beehiiv.
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