State of the Union, Southwick Edition, Q3 2026
Santa Maria trip. Texian Armada full reviews. Angels Strike editing. Year-to-date State of the Union in Southwick Land.
I'm heading to Santa Maria with my youngest kid this week to visit my mom. It's been a while, and we're looking forward to catching up. Travel has otherwise been blissfully light lately, allowing me to focus on work, personal tasks, and time with family.
I finally wrote full reviews for the Texian Armada books by Brandon Phillips mentioned in "Currently Reading" last time, which you can find here:
Ryan Southwick
Ryan Southwick
I also mentioned last month that the first draft of Angels Adrift (The Z-Tech Chronicles Book 5) has been submitted to the publisher (yay!). No publish date on that yet, but editing it inspired me to move on to Book 6 for continuity, if nothing else, and I've already made good progress. It needs almost as much work as Book 5 did, and I've already spotted several story inconsistencies carried over from previous drafts. If all goes well, I'll finish it this week so it's ready to submit, then I can shift back to Peleos (Timeless Keeper Saga Book 3), which is perilously close to being done.
And that ties into this month's feature: a mid-year State of the Union to reflect on a busy year and the planned future for book releases.
In this newsletter
- State of the Union Q3 2026
- Book Sales and Events
- Currently Reading
- Other Authors You Might Like
State of the Union Q3 2026
This year has been packed full of life-changing events, fortunately not for the worse. I've slowly moved from being semi-retired at ~0.25 jobs to full time+ at ~2.5 jobs across 2 companies, and that doesn't include science fiction writing or the very interesting programming side-projects I've picked up (Skyrim mod, Sigen home Pi server).
My coveted writing time has dwindled further than I'd like, but I've been compensating by carving time each morning for writing-related tasks, just like I used to. It worked well then, so I'm optimistic for the future.
This means my year-to-date writing accomplishments are, in a word, abysmal. I've kept up on newsletters (yay!) but I no longer have the time or energy for coaching, and I haven't even tried to keep up on blog posting, and I've all but given up on social media (Mastodon, Bluesky) because it's frankly draining. Progress on Peleos has slowed to a crawl (but not stopped!). My biggest writing accomplishment, really, was submitting Angels Adrift to the publisher.
So where does that leave the rest of the year?
My goals, in order:
- Get Angels Adrift in readers' hands
- Ready the first draft of Angels Strike for whenever the publisher asks
- Finish the first draft of Peleos
Even at my current pace, that feels doable. I've been holding the awesome cover art for Angels Strike for almost four years now, which is criminal because I really can't wait to share it with everyone. With luck, that will also happen this year, but I don't want to get too far ahead without at least some idea from Water Dragon Publishing about when the book might see daylight.
So there it is. I'm chomping at the bit to start the new standalone sci fi book I plotted a while back, but focus is the key to getting stuff done, so I'm going to stick to my priorities. Wish me luck!
Book Sales and Events
- August 27–31 — WorldCon. World's biggest science fiction convention, this year in the Anaheim Convention Center. Sadly, I can't squeeze this into my schedule this year. If you end up going, I'd love to hear how it went.
- October 22–25 — World Fantasy Convention. Another Oakland event. Lots of them there this year, it seems.
Currently Reading
Mostly DoD cybersecurity compliance documentation, which I'll only summarize as "dry as the Sahara in June." I'll hopefully have something more fun to share next month.
My Books
Follow me on:
