Hello, dreamers. It’s the second week of February, which means the Olympic Winter Games have begun!

For those new to my website, it should be known that I am deeply passionate about the Olympic Games, particularly the winter games. I often joke that since 1992 I’ve lived my life two years at a time. Now, the moment I’ve waited two long, sad years for has arrived. When the Olympics are on I make them the focus of my life. I plan my day around the events I want to watch. Yesterday I actually moved my desk from my office into my living room, right in front of the television. So I don’t miss a single moment.

In past Olympic years, my writing output has effectively stopped during the Olympic fortnight. The Games become so all-consuming that in 2024 during the Paris games I actually started writing about the Olympics on my blog. It was all I could think about, so it was all I could write about. But this year is different. Since shortly after the 2024 Olympics I have dedicated myself to writing. I haven’t let any other major event stop my work. I’m not about to start now.

So this time around, I’ll be balancing my obsession with the Olympics with continued writing. That said, here’s what I’ll be working on this week:

Querying Seven Days on Samarkand

As I mentioned in yesterday’s “Dear Sir or Madam”, I’ve now received two rejections in this round of queries. That leaves eight still open, and I have high hopes for at least some of them. However, after some news last week, I still have one query to go…

Late last week, out of the blue, Ernie Chiara of Fuse Literary announced that he would be opening to queries starting today, for one week only. From the moment I began researching queries for Seven Days on Samarkand, Mr. Chiara was one of my dream agents. He’s always looking for hopeful sci-fi, and is particularly fond of Solarpunk and Cli-fi. I really believe he will love my work.

Unfortunately, because he uses QueryTracker for his query submissions (which, don’t get me wrong, I vastly prefer), I will not be able to see what query materials he’s asking for until he officially opens today. That leaves me very little time to look over my materials before I submit. But I’ve spent part of this weekend sprucing up my manuscript. This will be my shortest-order query prep ever. But if I can get a full request from Mr. Chiara, it’ll be worth it.

What’s Next

As I mentioned last week, I finally found a struggle story…and boy, was it a struggle. “Songlines” ended up being like nothing I’ve ever written before: a rigorously-researched work of speculative historical fiction. It was fun, but exhausting, and though I haven’t written the ending yet, two days ago I made the difficult decision to set it aside.

I’ve wanted to write a true historical fiction piece for a long time. Ultimately I came to realize it’s not something to be taken lightly. I spent days on single scenes, analyzing primary sources from often widely-differing viewpoints. As the process wore on, I was reminded of something one of my college history professors had said: being a historian is like interviewing witnesses at a crime scene. Everyone saw the same thing, but not everyone remembers it the same way. There are implicit biases, especially in an era before photography. So even pictures (where they exist), only tell one person’s version of the story.

Mind you, I do have every intention of eventually revisiting the story of Sydney Parkinson and giving him his due. But for now, the story just lies way too far outside my wheelhouse. As a writer, it’s always good to push your boundaries. To try new things just because you haven’t done them before. It had been years since I’d tried something this far beyond my comfort zone. But to be honest, I like my zone. It’s just so comfortable.

So last night, I went back to my daily sketches. The result was several pages of a new hard sci-fi story that just feels a lot more…well, me. At present, with queries out and the Olympics on, I’m planning to focus on short fiction for the time being. However, I remain committed to finishing the sequel to Seven Days on Samarkand this spring.

Over the past several days, I suddenly realized I haven’t given myself a break from writing in well over a year now. Not one moment. I’ve written on holidays. I wrote throughout the summer. Looking back, I hadn’t realized how much it could help to just give myself a few days off. And when I say off, I don’t mean not writing at all. But just not making every spare moment all about writing. Things are very different now. I have obligations, both to my growing reader base and now to multiple publishers who’ve deigned to put my work to paper. But there’s value in taking a step back, even if it’s not a big one.

Matt Inman, writer of the web comic The Oatmeal, said it best when he compared creativity to breathing. When you create, be it writing, music, or visual art, you’re exhaling: you’re breathing your work out into the world. But if you just keep on exhaling you can’t breathe, and you die. So now and then you need to take your foot off the gas and consume. Read. Watch television and movies. Listen to music. Take in what others are creating. Inhale.

After going non-stop for a good fifteen months now, I think I owe it to myself to take a moment, and inhale.

Upcoming Content

That said, I’m not just going to vanish as I used to, years ago. Last week, I did in fact launch my Substack: Martians and Lasers. My first post was my latest “Sci-Fi Reviewed”, where I took a look at Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. If you haven’t already, head to Substack and subscribe here. It’s free, and you’ll get lots of cool content you won’t find here.

For the time being, at least, I’ve decided to continue giving readers a schedule of my upcoming content here on this site. All upcoming posts will be available here unless otherwise noted. That said, here’s what you can expect from me in the week to come:

Tuesday: “2026 Opening Ceremonies: A Look Back”

Like I said, I love the Olympics. And I’ve seen enough opening ceremonies to know what’s good. Check out my first Olympic post this week to see what I thought of the opening to Milan Cortina 2026.

Friday: “On Writing: Keeping Things Short”

Available on Substack

Before I wrote a single word of a novel, I began writing short fiction. Why? Check out this month’s “On Writing” to find out, and to see why if you’re a beginning writer, you, too, should start with short stories.

Sunday: “Dear Sir or Madam“

On Sunday, watch for my latest update on my querying journey, and learn more about why some authors elect to abandon querying to “Go renegade”.

It’s going to be another big week. So keep reading, and dare to dream. – MK