Notes From Inside the Haunted House

Dec 31, 2025

It still seems more than a little surprising to me that we are in the final day of 2025. It has been a fast year, but also one that brought about a good deal of personal change for me. Please allow me a moment to talk about that before I get to the fun stuff.

I have, for most of my adult life, dealt with anxiety and depression. I have been mostly able to manage it, but it nearly took me down earlier this year. I came out of the tunnel, properly medicated, and am now in the midst of the most creative period of my life. That is, I hope, good news for all of you who have taken the time to subscribe and support me. I promise I will repay your trust in me with a ton of content in 2026.

Returning to Both Short and Long Form Horror

For a while, it has been either one or the other for me, which is disappointing given that I love both methods of writing. 2026 will be the best of both worlds, as I hope to have 3 novels finished by the end of the year, as well as more drabbles and slices of flash fiction than you can shake a stick at.

How the New Year Will Look for You as a Subscriber

To keep it as simple as possible, I will just say that as a paid subscriber, you will get access to everything I write. I do want to create physical copies of my novels and will offer a solid discount for subscribers who want those books on their shelf. I will also be creating monthly anthologies of all my shorts, which you guys will also get for free. These, though, will be in PDF format only, but you can still load those on your Kindle.

Say Hello to Shattered Skull Press

While this announcement sounds cool, it’s not as fancy as it might seem, When I put together my books and anthologies, I will be self-publishing them, so I thought it might be fun to create a fictional publishing house. With that in mind, you will see a Shattered Skull Press logo on all my stuff.

My Horror Reading and Viewing

There is very little to report here, as my reading has pretty much come to a standstill over the past few months, thanks in large part to my writing so much. I do want to make more time for reading in the New Year. My wife and I are now all caught up on Stranger Things and will watch the series finale tonight. I will probably talk about that next week.

Thank You

I would be remiss if I did not close out the final newsletter of the year without delivering a huge thank you to all of you. The Midnight Monster Club crew, many of whom will probably be reading this, are more than a little responsible for getting me back on my feet and back to writing. The Substack and Buy Me A Coffee people have also played their part. Please just know that I am so very grateful to all of your for being so supportive.

I wish you all the very best for 2026 and beyond.

Happy New Year!!
JW