Fellow angler,

Congratulations on surviving another year. I haven’t written much in the past two months, but I am ready to take 2026 by storm.¹

Since last we met

I started freelance writing after leaving my full-time job in September. I’m looking for a full-time job, but leaning more into contracting than ever before. It’s nice, but it has really zapped my energy for personal writing.

You see, I work in marketing and specifically with online content. The most common form of that work, especially for contractors, is writing articles. I am pretty good at writing, but there’s the lingering issue that I hate it.

As a rule, the companies that are most willing to pay contract writers a fair price for their work are the ones covering some type of technical or boring content. The articles are useful to readers (if you’ve ever searched for answers about how taxes, finances, or the law work, then you’ve seen the type of articles I write) but that doesn’t make them any less draining to write.

I know there are freaks people out there who enjoy the work, but I personally find writing to be very draining. Novel writing isn’t as bad, but it’s still a lot of work—thus the slowness of writing my novel, and no, it’s not finished yet.

The good news is that I’ve worked for years running blogs and doing work beyond just writing, so I’ve been able to negotiate writing out of my work with all the companies where I’m currently contracting. One day I wondered to myself, what if I just don’t do the work I hate? Writing work is usually easier to get as a contractor, so I don’t know how long this new direction will last, but at the moment, I’ve got a lot more freedom in my schedule and at least a little more energy for personal writing.

An aside about my spiritual advisor

One method I used to help me decide how to proceed with my contract writing and full-time job search was…tarot readings.

Beyond whatever inherent magic the cards may hold (and if you grew up watching Yu-Gi-Oh like me, then you know how important it is to believe in the heart of the cards), tarot cards are a fantastic tool to facilitate deeper thought about your life.

I first became interested in tarot in high school after buying a small book. It was one of those little projects-in-boxes that Barnes & Noble sells near the checkout counter. I moved on after my (soon-to-be-ex) girlfriend borrowed the set and never returned it (though I still have her Pokemon Blue AND Red, so the joke is firmly on her). During the pandemic I also invested in a Kickstarter for a specialty deck of tarot cards that features women scientists. I used it a few times but now it’s mostly a way to fill a few lines in a blog post every six years.

Nowadays, it’s Lauren (my wife) who has been discovering the power of tarot. She’s has a greater facility with the cards and a deeper connection to the process than I ever did. So she did some readings to help me think through what needed to be done. 10 out of 10 would recommend tarot. (You can also read more about her tarot journey thus far.)

Look at Your Fish in 2026

There are changes in store for this newsletter. While I have enjoyed the rave reviews from my mother after one year of Fish posts, I do want to try something different. In particular, I want to move more toward old-school blogging versus the modern, Substack-esque newsletter that I’m currently writing.

I’m still finalizing what that means for this newsletter, but it probably means some version of this blog with more frequent, but shorter and less-polished posts. Then I’ll probably still send this every couple of weeks, either as stand-alone posts or as deeper dives into the things I mention in my other posts.

I have some things in progress and will share more in the next post. For now, don’t worry because nothing is changing for you, dear reader.

Until then, read these books

I’ve mentioned The StoryGraph before. It’s the site I use to track my reading (and it’s an independent, non-Amazon-owned alternative to Goodreads). Well StoryGraph has a feature where you can create reading challenges, either with specific books or prompts for books that meet specific criteria. I’ve considered making a challenge for years and now I’ve finally done it.

So here is the inaugural edition of the Silva Reading Challenge. I admit that it’s a lot of books: 26 in honor of 2026. But six of them are bonuses, meaning you only need to finish the core 20 to complete the challenge.

Next year I will 100% include fewer books, but once I got it into my head that “26 for 26” was a catchy slogan (even though the slogan is nowhere in the actual challenge), I had to do it. If it makes things easier for you, I’ll allow using use a book to meet multiple prompts.

You do need a StoryGraph account to track your progress in-app, but you can see the challenge without an account, meaning you can track your books independently if you already have too many accounts or simply hate books.

Even if you don’t follow the challenge, I hope it inspires you to read something outside of your norm in 2026.

Title song

Today’s post, which is about a man who has spent months dodging his (self-imposed) blogging duties, is brought to you by Phil Ochs’ Draft Dodger Rag.

Phil Ochs was a great folk singer in the 60s and 70s, especially known for his protest songs during the Vietnam War. I always liked that he had some more upbeat and fun songs. Draft Dodger Rag is one example. The song is about a guy who claims to be a true-blue American, but once it comes time to be drafted, he’s got a lot of reasons why, actually, he isn’t fit to serve in the army.

I hadn’t thought about this song since maybe college, and this was one of the few songs I knew by Ochs, but last week I was preparing for a soccer game and listening to one of my Sunday radio programs (The Tennessee Border Show), when they announced they’d be playing a Phil Ochs album. I was reminded of this song and decided the sentiment was perfect for this post, which I’d already been planning (and putting off) for weeks by that point.

Until next time,

Happy fishing!