Hi all,
It looks like my publishing season is back. In January and February 2025, I released three short stories. Now, after a half-year pause between waves, publishing is happening once more in September 2025.
Stories Done + Stories In Progress
1.
For Her Ears Only, a novel, will be out on September 1st, English paperback first. English ebook, Korean ebook, and English audiobook will follow on September 9th.
All links to the stores (if available) will be updated on the following pages around that time:
For now, the English ebook will be only in Kindle Unlimited.
Here’s the blurb:
When you hear music no one else can hear, are you gifted, cursed, or simply attuned?
Lyra Calloway hears what others can’t, from flowers that play piccolos to skyscrapers that pulse with jazz. This gift/curse was supposed to be her secret—until a chance encounter pushes her into the spotlight.
As the music swells and quiets according to its own unpredictable score, Lyra faces her meteoric rise and catastrophic fall. In the spaces between the notes, will she finally dare to listen to herself?
*A spellbinding exploration of inspiration, connection, and the self, in a reality where sound and silence transcend the boundaries between dimensions.
2.
Channel Locked, a long short story, will be published on September 17th in all the usual places. (Amazon, Apple, Google, libraries, wherever else I can reach.)
All links to the stores (if available) will be updated on the following pages around that time:
Here is the blurb:
Two years stuck on the shopping channel. Sixty years stuck with each other. Tonight, the storm changes everything.
Nancy Howard knows her husband hid that remote control. For two years, they’ve been prisoners of the shopping channel, trapped between miracle mops and revolutionary vacuum cleaners while their real war wages in silence.
Gary denies everything, of course. He’s been denying things for decades.
But when a November storm plunges their neighborhood into darkness and something far more dangerous than stubbornness threatens their lives, Nancy discovers that some truths can only surface when everything else gets swept away…
*A wry, tender portrait of a marriage on the brink of its most unexpected chapter.
3.
With the above two stories about to go out, I am back to finishing up Log Me Tender, a novel.
I would like to publish this early next year. This is not a promise or plan. I simply would like to.
In order to do that, I would like to finish the story by the end of this year. Under the current workflow, that means writing the English version, translating it into Korean, letting that influence the English version a little, and doing the English audio. Then, publishing ENG-text, KOR-text, and ENG-audio simultaneously.
We’ll see if this “would like to” scenario is feasible.
4.
I would also like to release some shorter stories before publishing Log Me Tender.
For one thing, I like the “cadence of speculation,” as I’ve come to call this rhythm: a story set in a “realistic” world, followed by a story with fantasy/science fiction elements, followed by another “realistic” story, followed by another speculative story…
Since Channel Locked is “realistic” and Log Me Tender is “fantastic,” I would like to put a fantastic story and a realistic story between those two.
Another reason I want to release shorter stories between Channel Locked and Log Me Tender is that, when I am working on the translation of a longer work, I really really need to go back to telling fresh stories. And usually, those fresh stories must be short, so that I can finish them up and go back to the longer work.
We have about four months left in the year. We’ll know very soon if my “would like to” scenarios will come to fruition.
The Core
With the publication of For Her Ears Only, I am going to run some Facebook ads for the first time in my life. Compared to what other writers do for their launches, this is nothing, which is why I put “launching” in air quotes in the title.
For years, I really didn’t want to do Facebook ads. But then one day in early-to-mid August, I was sitting there, realizing, “Oh, wow, I… I don’t feel any active aversion against Facebook ads.”
Back when I didn’t want to run Facebook ads, it wasn’t because I was categorically against running ads. It was more like, I knew it wasn’t going to work. Not for anyone else, but for me, I knew it wasn’t going to work, while not consciously being aware of that mind state.
(In general, back in those days, I had a lot of “This is not going to work” disguised as “It has to work” or “I am not interested.” These mind states are remarkably similar, and in no way mutually exclusive—although at the logical level, they’re impossible to coexist.)
Now, I don’t know if this ad campaign is going to work or not, in that I don’t know what the ROI is going to be. But at least I know that it’s not not going to work.
This is a big deal for me. Seemingly small (but practical) stuff like this is how so-called “inner work” manifests outwardly. Before the “results” come in, it’s my actions that change. And before my actions change, there is a simple moment of noticing, where I can tell: I am not who I used to be anymore.
And being able to choose whether or not to run Facebook ads is not unrelated to being able to write what I want to write. See, I can’t say that it’s related, but I can say that it’s not unrelated. Hahaha.
It’s more about removing barriers rather than forcefully laying new paths. The paths show up on their own. I don’t even need to look for paths. But oh, simply noticing barriers usually dissolves them eventually.
Meanwhile, definitely related to all this is my increased tendency to refuse to wait for stuff. “Stuff” can include anything: new features in certain tools, someone’s email response, money. I am more consciously and easily realizing that most of the waiting that I used to do simply wasn’t necessary. It only seemed like I was better off waiting, but now I just do less of that.
This practice of not waiting can sound similar to impatience, at first glance. But when you consider that my “waiting” used to be far from patient, really, the current state has nothing to do with patience or impatience. And because it feels quite comfortable, I think I’ll keep going this route. Not waiting frees up a lot of room in my mind.
I’m not sure how long the next pause between publishing waves is going to be. But, for now, I can tell that the practice of not waiting will help me immensely.
Late summer seems to be getting hotter and hotter in Southern California. More humid than usual too. Wherever you are, I hope you’re finding ways to give yourself freedom in your mind. That’s the most important thing; everything else, including practical results, follows.
Stay hydrated,
Wynn.