Thesis: 2025

(News & Updates) A new year, a new perspective, and a new set of goals.

Photo by Ian Chen on Unsplash

When I joined Substack in March of last year, I had little idea of what to expect. All I knew was that I wanted to get my writing out of the dark and into the light. Writing has always been very important to me. It’s what I’ve turned to whenever life gets hard. I have drawers upon proverbial drawers full of stories, but kept them hidden, fearful of what others might think and say. In creating Fourth Draft, however, I set out to change that, and I’m so proud to be able to say that I followed through.

I’m especially proud because this last year has been anything but easy.

Two months after Fourth Draft’s inception, I separated from my husband. We were together for ten years, married for two, and although the split was amicable, my life was upended. I lost the family I’d built and invested in for nearly a decade, but more than that I lost my best friend. He was my biggest cheerleader. He believed in my writing, and is, I believe, the sole reason I started sharing it in the first place.

I wish I could say that the challenges stopped there.

About a month after selling our marital home and relocating to the city, I was informed by my employer that I was being laid off. My last day was December 20, days before my first Christmas alone, and all at once my income, not to mention the job to which I’d dedicated my last 3 years, was gone as well.

The refrigerator, dishwasher, and HVAC in my new condo all needed to be replaced, too. Not to be outdone, my car started breaking down recently as well, and is currently in the shop, leaving me to fret and hope against all hope that the repairs will be reasonable. But is car trouble ever really reasonable?

I don’t share all of this in order to garner sympathy. Many of these things are out of my control, and some of them are lessons I’m learning the hard way. The point is: I didn’t stop writing.

Something I’ve learned about myself over the last several years—especially when it comes to my stories—is that I’m my own worst enemy. Crippling perfectionism and self-doubt has held me back for a long time. It’s prevented me from finishing and publishing the first book I ever wrote, back when I was 16, and it’s what’s kept me from pursuing writing outside of the classroom in any meaningful way.

That I was able to continue sending stories out into the world, despite all of the things that were pulling my focus, is something that I’m deeply proud of.

Now that 2024 has come to a close, I’m turning my sights on 2025. As before, I’d like to take this opportunity to look behind, as well as set some new intentions for what’s ahead.

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The Wins (Behind)

Numbers are something my fellow writers here on the Stack like to talk about a lot. I know they're important because they’re measurable (something my career as an IT manager has taught me well). Data, after all, informs us about what’s working and what’s not. In a creative context, I find numbers to be a bit discouraging, but I try to learn their lessons, and focus on the positives.

To that end, at the close of Fourth Draft’s first year, I am celebrating:

• 8 stories

• 21 comments

• 37 likes

• 43 subscribers

• 193 followers

• 1,704 views

Some highlights of the year include:

• My story, Under Hill and Over, was featured in an August issue of

  Top In Fiction

• I successfully published one story a month (I’ll be the first to admit that I missed two out of ten, but I’m calling this a win regardless)

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The Goals (Ahead)

As I did at the beginning of last year, I’m setting new goals.

Continue to publish one story a month

This has been a good incentive to write more, revise less. I want to continue this habit into 2025.

Finish Part 2 of “the Book”

I mentioned briefly in Fourth Draft’s inaugural intention-setting post that I’m working on a fantasy novel. I finished the first draft in November of 2023, and am currently working through revisions. This milestone is what brought me to the Stack, actually. I attended a writing workshop in order to learn how to get it published, and left with a sense that I needed to be doing more to get my name, and my work, out there. After all, it’s much harder to get anything published as a relative unknown, than it would be if I had some previously published pieces to point to.

Pivoting to Fourth Draft and its short stories has inevitably slowed my progress, but I believe I can find balance. Told in four parts, the first part of the book is already complete. In 2025, I intend, at the very least, to finish the second.

Read More

One of my professors once insisted that “a good writer is a good reader.” This stuck with me, if not only because I’m a bit of an enigma. I love writing, but I’m not a bookworm. I set a goal in 2024 to change this, to middling success. This year, especially while I’m unemployed, I’d like to renew this goal.

Engage, engage, engage

Something I’m bad at (but not uniquely so, it would seem) is engaging online, particularly on social media. I recently started trying to engage more on “Bookstagram,” and would like to ramp this up in 2025.

If you'd like to follow along, add me on the ‘gram here.

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The Pipeline (Beyond)

There are many things I want to explore outside of Fourth Draft in 2025. Too much, perhaps. As these ideas continue to cook, and I work through managing what I can realistically achieve without taking precious time away from my other priorities, I feel confident in talking about only two.

My Music

One unintended side effect of the past year’s challenges has been a return to one of my other oldest hobbies: music production. I last created and shared music all the way back in 2012 and 2014—more than ten years ago—but this year I am making and sharing new songs. I in no way purport myself to be anything but an amateur, but this hobby is in many ways an extension of my writing.

You can find my music on Soundcloud, Spotify, and Apple Music. If you feel so inclined, you can also follow my music account on Instagram here.

I have a new single out now, and a few others coming out over the next few months.

Yearbook 2024

When I first launched Fourth Draft, one of the ways I envisioned getting my stories out into the world was to compile a self-published collection of each year’s pieces. I view it as an opportunity for people to support my work in a monetary way, if they so choose, as well as to open up more avenues of consuming my work (some folks just like reading good old-fashioned paper, after all).

I’m calling it The Fourth Drafts (2024): Short Stories, Flash Fiction, and More. It’s proven to be a good and challenging learning opportunity about how self-publishing works. It’s not quite ready (my proof copy is in the mail), but please look out for a separate post announcing its release, and how you can get one, very soon!

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A lot of exciting things are happening in my world! I hope that the start of your new year is just as hopeful, and just as full of good and healthy revision. Whether you’re finding me for the first time, or have been a subscriber from the beginning, I want to extend my sincerest gratitude. The success of this last year quite literally wouldn’t be possible without you. Thank you. Your support means everything!

I can’t wait to see what 2025 has in store for us all.

Onward and upward,

Stephen Alan Adams