I’m doing away with my usual formatting because I’d rather talk to you outside of sections and formatted updates with specific goals. Rather, I’d like to talk to you conversationally and casually, to let you know how things are going. Or are not going.
As of this writing, we’re on draft 7 of The Nameless Song. Yes, seven. I never completed six, because at some point, it just didn’t feel right. Also as of this writing, I’m staring at chapter three, which I’ve described on Bsky as “a collection of scraps.” I was not exaggerating.
A page of Scrivener featuring three unconnected excerpts plopped into the same document.
I haven’t really made it a secret that I hadn’t gotten my passion back for The Nameless Song in the beginning of 2025, or that a lot of this year has been spent trying my hardest to both finish it and feel something about it. But the more I work on it, the harder it is to feel anything at all. And I worry, also, that the longer I spend on this, the less people are actually interested in seeing it when it’s done. That might not seem like something that should be relevant, but nails in coffins, etc. If you’re struggling to find passion in your work and you don’t really find the support to keep going, then you start asking yourself what’s the point, you know?
So one thing I’ve decided to do is talk about it more on Bsky. There are a lot of tags in the writing community, and I’m making it a goal to spend the first month jumping on as many as possible. Or more specifically:
Bsky post in which I outline the rules of January’s challenge:
1. I see a tag, I participate in it.
2. I will also do my best to go through quote reposts of OP, but I’ll be more focused on replying to folks who reply to mine, just to avoid burnout.
3. At the same time: One line of TNS a day, minimum.
Now, you may be thinking that this is all a distraction from TNS, but two things: 1) I’ve been going hard with TNS for years, which is why I’m in a rut. This will force myself to slow down. 2) I’m hoping that by talking about it more in community spaces, I’ll be able to find the passion for it and therefore the energy to finish it.
That said, I’m only doing a month of this. If, at the end of the month, it feels like neither I nor any of my followers actually wants to talk/see me talk about Mick and Eleanor specifically, TNS will be shelved indefinitely, and I’ll move on to the next project. (We’ll get to what’s up next in a second.)
If I do end up finishing, however, I’ve made a few decisions about the future of its publication:
First, I’m no longer interested in querying for traditional publishing. There’s a laundry list of reasons why that have nothing to do with my interest in the project, but yes, also, the beta run was lowkey a test to see if there was enough interest in this project to do that. Indie publishing is a lot freer in the sense that your biggest risk is a financial one; you can basically do whatever you want, so long as you have the money to do so. With trad publishing, you actually do need to earn the interest of at least one other person—an agent, first and foremost. By tossing TNS to betas, I was seeing if other people’s interest in TNS was strong enough to consider pitching it to someone else, and frankly, it wasn’t.
I do not have the money to self-publish currently, and it’s hard to say when I will.
With both of these things in mind, I plan on doing one more reader run of the draft once completed, but it won’t be a formal beta. Rather, it’ll be a simple run, where the draft is given to a select few people who are actually interested in the general concept to get their overall opinions on the book.
If their overall opinions are that the book is strong enough to stand on its own, then where it goes from there will depend on how the year goes. If I’m in a better place by the time all of this wraps up, I’ll start doing research for self-publication. If I’m not and I can’t wait, then TNS will likely be published for free on either Beehiiv or Neocities.
That’s if TNS survives this month. The other thing is if I decide to shelve TNS after all, then I do have other projects I’ve been considering picking up instead.
Specifically, Beelock Holmes.
Two skeets that started it all.
1: A consulting gentleman detective who solves strange and unusual cases when he’s not collecting nectar and pollen. Mister Bee.
2. . . . I do not need to write Bee Sherlock Holmes right now. I do not need to write Bee Sherlock Holmes right now.
As it turns out, it wasn’t exactly my passion for writing itself that went out the window this year but rather just for TNS. At the end of November, I came up with a(n intentionally) terrible joke that, as is usual for me, sprouted legs and ran off. Wings too. The end result was a joyfully chaotic, true-to-Holmes zizzun detective and a trans, human doctor who’s equal parts loyal to Beelock Holmes and the voice of reason of this duo. And already, they’re fun.
Here are the first few paragraphs of their story, as told by the Watson analog:
I have very limited details about this story—not even an outline—but so far, I know that this is a retelling of “A Scandal in Bohemia” (it’s even called A Scandal in Beehemia, a title I was resisting every urge to use, but here we are, and I refuse to apologize), it’s a standalone novel(la), and it has the option of branching out into more Holmes retellings—or, once I get a little more confident, something a little more original. It’s also set in the same universe as TNS, but if TNS ends up shelved, part of my work on this book will be to strip down a lot of TNS’s worldbuilding to simplify it and make it fit a gaslamp mystery/comedy that focuses heavily on bee people.
“But Jax! If you’re abandoning TNS, what would this mean for this WIP?” That is an excellent question, and it’s something I’m worried about. I really want to believe that every author has a whole list of WIPs they finish but never publish (The Arcadia, Always the Bridesmaid) or just never finish at all/promise to eventually get back to (The Nameless Song) and that this is normal.
I will say this, though: if TNS gets shelved, I know why. I have also learned quite a lot from actually writing it, so I feel like I’m in a better place to tackle other projects if this doesn’t pan out. That said, I’m going to do everything I can to focus on it before Beehemia and get it across some kind of finish line by mid-2026. That’s why I’m doing the whole January challenge. But ultimately, if it doesn’t, then I’ll do everything I can to make the project after it work. One way or another, we’re going to do something, but it’ll take time and work.
Anyway, if you took the time to read all the way through, thanks so much! I wish this was a lot more positive (though I am at least excited to share with you that Beehemia is coming), but I think that’s also the state of New Year’s. You reflect a lot on what you did last year, where you went wrong, what you hope will be better, all the steps you plan on doing to get there. Sometimes, plans work out. Other times, they don’t, and you move on. Still, I hope that this year will be a good one, if not for what’s going on with Mick and Eleanor, for you, the reader.
As always, if you’d like updates between these monster monthly ones, be sure to follow me on Bluesky. Otherwise, here’s to a new year, and see you in February!