・01・ What's Now and What's Next

This fiction writing and publishing journey I'm on is different from how most make a go of things.

It's not so much taking the road less traveled, as it is imagining a new one. And I always start things by asking the question, 'What don't I want?'

Traveling to known places via known paths...kinda boring.

Finding my way forward by exploring negative space though? That's more interesting.

Having mapped what I didn't want, trad. pub. timelines, self-pub. invisibility, then yielded a rough path forward. I wanted to create in public view so to speak, and started Daniel Garret Writing to find my audience. The money, if it ever comes, will arrive as a second order effect.

The larger world of Alderland, which is a small province in the kingdom of Dalain, on the planet called Irim, began in 2009 with a terrible NanoWrimo novel. But it was a finished thing. 50,000 words and done. The canvas doesn't actually stretch on forever. It isn't too big. But more growth was required.

Over the years I wrote more, though it was sporadic—a piece about the Watchers and the foundation of the world, several attempts at revising that awful first draft.

Then I returned with a concentrated effort in 2020 from a new angle. A novella length draft of a story about stuffed toy animals and a dark mansion. I called it, 'The land of the blue bear.'

That wasn't good either. But I was finally able to see how much better it was than my 2009 effort. Finally, in 2023, I returned to that land in earnest with the second draft of what is now book 1 of my Alderland series.

My craft was finally starting to catch up to my vision which simultaneously caused my vision to expand, and I folded Alderland into the world I'd unwittingly created in 2009. Not because I wanted to, but because that's where it felt like it belonged.

And now, from late 2025 into early 2026 and with no marketing at all, I've begun publishing. To my surprise, I already have a small audience. (Thank you for subscribing by the way.)

My goals have been met but my process continues, the process of finding Alderland and the raw process of writing.

Vignette 01

As I drove to work on the morning of April 8th, 2025 in the region of Eastern Ohio, I noticed the fields and farmland to my left. The angular rays of Winter's sunlight hadn't quite shifted into Spring's more attentive gaze. But the grass was already rich with chlorophyll, and the sky, still holding onto the dryness of Winter's air, was crisp and clear. The quality given to these rolling hills was of a vibrant waxy green like Crayola. An uncanny valley in living color.

The Cabin in the Tanglewood, Part 1 of ???

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Me. I-I'm here again. ...Ah, that's right—I've been here before, though only briefly, just long enough to sketch the haziest view of what stands before me through these tanglewood thornbushes.

I'm going to take my time now. I'm going to see.

I carefully push through the stickers and step onto the grass. It's shorn—no, not mowed—shorn like it's been grazed by an animal, a goat perhaps. But I don't see a goat.

I don't see any animal, or birds, for that matter. But there is a sound, the breeze through distant hidden trees.

A cabin sits in the middle of the round grassy clearing, hemmed in by these chest high thornbushes which disappear into the damp mist. The wood of the cabin, it's not a log cabin, looks wet. And the sky is a flat matte gray. I look to my right at a string of thorns. The bark is made darker, ruddier, amplified by the moisture in the air.

I shiver and take a step forward away from the tanglewood. I wonder if the cabin—there's a cord of wood under an overhang, the logs already cleanly split and stacked against the...I'm not sure which direction it's facing. The sun's out but it's so diffuse I can't tell where it's at or the time.

I pat my hands against my pockets. No phone, no wallet, no keys. Of course. There's no sense in standing here getting colder and burning whatever's left of the day is there?

The door is red with a crescent moon carved in the upper middle. I laugh, looks kind of like an outhouse door. But the doorknob fans out against the wood in a brass starburst, like something from a nativity scene.

I knock before I try the doorknob, I don't know why.

No answer. Why would there be?

The windows on either side of the door, small rectangular things, quintessential windows in the shape a child might draw, are dark beyond their thin curtains.

I turn the knob and the door opens towards me.

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What's Next?

Alderland Book 1's serialization will wrap up in the Fall of 2026. Then I'll begin drafting Book 2.

In the meantime, I've got lots of ideas ...and maybe I'll actually follow through on one or two of them! In no particular order, I'm thinking of also doing charcoal sketches, creating companion motif music for Alderland, narrating the book and uploading it to youtube, hiring a human editor to help me with extra polish for book 1 and actually self-publishing it on Amazon as long as I can keep the story free to read on my website. The availability of a physical copy might be nice for some folks.

And that wraps up the first issue of the OON.

Thanks for reading!

-Daniel