Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday break and an excellent new year!

Yes, despite barely scraping enough profit to buy lunch, I am still writing books. It can seem like a waste of time when the books don’t exactly pay the rent. But I never picked up the pen for the money. I write because it provides an outlet for my creativity. My job pays the bills, the writing allows me to explore my dreams.

I also write for the readers who have enjoyed my work. I still remember the first email I received from a fan from Greece which I initially thought was spam. It was one of the sweetest, most thoughtful fan letters. There was also another email from a boy who has grown up into a young man in pursuit of his own writing dreams. I write for the fan who discovered me on Wattpad and purchased Displates for his room. My writer friends from Europe have been with me since the start. They cheer for me, and I cheer for them. They are a small audience, but they’re the best. So, I write for them and myself.

Yes, I know there are also readers out there who wish I could translate the books into other languages and even release an audio book. I want these same things, but it’s a money investment and time investment I can’t commit to yet. When I do something, I want to ensure it’s a quality product.

This year, I want to do something different with my writing. Narco Hotel will be the last time I write in the old style. But before I get into that, let me give you a quick recap on what I accomplished in 2025.

2025 Recap

• The release of the Sanctifiction “Vibes” soundtrack on Youtube music.
• The first official Sanctifiction Displate!
• A new Silver Pencil Books bloody coin logo and Sanctifiction typeface designed by Jackson Alves.
• A Bitter Winter 2nd Edition came out.
• Narco Hotel received new updates (publishing Q1 2026.)
• Progress on a secret project.

Despite having completed all of these projects, I’m still disappointed that I didn’t get Sanctifiction: The Darkness at Home out in October. So, here’s what I want to accomplish in 2026.

2026 Goals

Narco Hotel Revised

The first project scheduled to hit the store shelves is the revised version of Narco Hotel. This is not a major overhaul like A Bitter Winter. In Narco Hotel, I never quite wrote the ending I wanted. So, I made some small changes to create the ending I had originally wanted. At the time, I was burned out on writing Narco Hotel and rushed it off my plate because it was stressing me out. After time away from the project, I realized I couldn’t leave the ending as it was.

Since I wanted to update the ending, I figured I would also reread and see if there were any mistakes that needed to be corrected. Unfortunately, I did find some grammatical errors and typos that slipped through the cracks. Thankfully, it was a small amount, so I didn’t do too bad of a job the first time around. This will be uploaded as an update and not a 2nd edition as I don’t want to use an ISBN for a minor update.

The Darkness at Home Hard Release Date

This is probably the most important goal for me in 2026. I absolutely have to get the first Sanctifiction book out this year. I’ve found a few shops and bookstores I think would host me for a reading of my book. But I can’t approach these places without a book in hand! My goal is to get back out there and do some in-person book readings and signings for the month of October or Q4.

No matter what, The Darkness at Home has to release in 2026. No ifs, ands, or buts. This is happening. I don’t have a firm release date because I’m in the middle of massive rewrites and don’t have a clear idea of when I will be finished. It’s been an extremely difficult project that has not been able to meet my high standards. Hopefully this final rewrite will do the trick.

Death of the old in with the new. (Writing style that is.)

It took me way too long to realize that my writing was missing something… Something important. For the longest time I struggled with writing intimate scenes and conversations without understanding why they were so boring. I consider myself emotionally intelligent and fluent in body language. But whenever I tried to write non-action scenes, it always felt flat.

I always wondered why I could get so many compliments on my action scenes but never for my one-on-one conversations. I was blind to my own flaws and even though my editor was amazing, I don’t think she could put into words what my writing lacked. Or rather, I didn’t understand what she wanted to tell me.

Recently, at the end of 2025. I stumbled onto a Youtube video discussing objective and subjective writing. Objective writing is when you describe what’s happening in a scene through the lens of a camera.

“The rain poured down the window. Neon lights gleamed in the puddles of water.”

Sets the mood but doesn’t give us any insight into who the character is. There’s nothing wrong with the writing and it’s perfectly fine to use, but it is lacking in emotion.

Subjective writing describes the scene through the point of view of the character and not what is literally, physically happening.

“I loved watching the rain pour down the window which made the neon signs glow more vivid. It made me feel like I was living in some dystopian Cyberpunk city where the world was ruled by ads and grime.”

My books didn’t have enough subjective writing.

For The Silver Ninja: A Bitter Winter and Narco Hotel, most of the book is objective writing. I describe the scenes and action through the lens of a camera. In the 2nd Edition of A Bitter Winter and portions of Narco Hotel, I did add some subjective writing, but it was unintentional. I did it because it sounded like it was what I was supposed to do.

Now that I’ve added some subjective writing to Sanctifiction, I’m realizing what a huge difference it makes in helping the reader get connected to the character. To be clear, I do have subjective writing in my books, but because I didn’t have a clear understanding of what it was, I didn’t execute as well as I could have.

I would have liked to include details such as, “She could see the fight leaving from her eyes, the unsteady posture, the vacant look on her face, Cindy knew she had her opponent on the ropes. There’s a moment in a fight where you could see someone literally about to give up, when their posture changes and you can feel the will drain from their body. Cindy hammered her opponent until one well-placed strike brought her opponent crashing down to the mat. She could taste the victory.”

Despite me now understanding what subjective writing is, A Bitter Winter and Narco Hotel will not receive any further rewrites or updates.

For me, leaving the books the way they are show signs of progression. This is where I started, and this is where I currently am. To add more subjective writing to A Bitter Winter or Narco Hotel would be a waste of time and resources. Those books are complete and there’s nothing wrong with having work that doesn’t reflect the skill level of where I am now.

The reason I couldn’t leave A Bitter Winter alone is because I was embarrassed by the cringey dialogue I had in the opening chapter. Cindy talking about poka dotted underwear and Jonas telling her to stop so he wouldn’t go half-mast made my skin crawl. I couldn’t let it go. But now that it’s fixed, and the ending of Narco is fixed, I can leave the past behind and put all my focus on future projects.

Sanctifiction will be the first huge step in a new direction, one that I think will enhance the reading experience for old and new readers. I look forward to frightening everyone with what I’ve learned.

Once again, thank you all for reading and following the blog. I am optimistic for 2026 and I hope I’ll be able to share brand new stories with you soon.