Writing in 2023
So many things to report from this year, and where to start? This little post will give you the lowdown, and the links, to all the writing shit I did last year, and my god, was it a lot. I like to keep busy and have many projects going on — I do the same thing at work, so I might have multiple WIPs in my face so I never get bored. And here they are — some completed, some lingering, some waiting, but everything from Jan to Dec of 2023 from the desk of SJ Stone.
I finally broke down and created a real website: SJStoneAuthor.com. This is my home base, but it’s still new and fresh, and I’m trying to figure out how to use it, even though I write almost exclusively on Medium (here; you found me) and Substack — take a look!
I started on Medium in 2022, but if you go to Substack, you can instantly see why I like Substack better. I started up on Substack in the summer, about when I kicked off my main website and the website for my favorite fictional character, Sesame Swallow. Sesame is alive and well here on Medium and Substack, but she also has her own website, which will get a lot more attention, as she will, in 2024. It’s called NoMysteryInc, which is what her fictional private agency company will be called once we get to around book three.
Sesame Swallow, Baltimore’s sexiest sleuth and the purveyor of classic lines like “Damsel in a Great Dress” and “It’s not all booze, clues and great shoes!” will be coming out in 2024 with novels, mini-mysteries, and even some erotic mysteries. And there are examples out already since I kicked this off in 2023.
Sesame Swallow’s Christmas Caper is available on Medium and Substack now, and in six episodes, she and her besties save Christmas for a small city in Maryland. In the first series under the Swallow: After Dark erotic mysteries concept, entitled The Hypnotized Hon, Sesame and friends head to Vegas for girl’s weekend, where Sesame ends up solving a mystery but in the sexiest way possible. These are the first offerings for mini-mysteries and erotic mysteries, but there will be more in 2024.
And last but not least with Sesame, I started another rewrite of her first novel, Sesame Swallow, Private Investigator, and I kicked off writing the fourth book, Sesame Swallow and the Secret of the Missing Fucks. So much more to come next year. Stay tuned!
2023 wouldn’t be complete without 30+ episodes of the noir serial Just Right, in which a murder intertwines four souls and kicks off an epic struggle for survival and dominance. It’s “a tragic tale of lust and betrayal,” and it’s available right here on Medium, or you can start fresh from the beginning on my website.
Picture a dark, dirty New York City alley, a woman lying lifeless in a pool of her own blood, and a brooding detective standing over her, wishing his girlfriend was still alive and wanting to know who killed her, and you have Just Right.
I got back to my science fiction roots in 2023, too, which was a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to more of it in 2024. I posted about ten science fiction stories on Medium and Substack in 2023, including excerpts from a sci-fi thriller I’ve been writing for years, entitled Falling Snow, in which an aging hitman gets one last assignment, a target no one can find.
I also posted a few excerpts from a sci-fi vampire thriller I wrote years ago, called Dying Light, along with a few short stories I wrote that existed in that same fictional future Baltimore.
I miss science fiction in all its forms, and 2024 promises to have a lot more sci-fi for me and my readers because I’m around ten episodes in on two new serials, one of them currently called Space Sluts and the other In Place of Honour. I’ll get them going next year, for sure. The ideas are percolating.
Last but not least, I have to mention that with all that writing going on, I did publish my first little adventure novel, called Crabquake!
It’s available on Amazon, and everywhere that’s not Amazon:
Amazon: https://amzn.to/3PNdxeG
Not Amazon: https://books2read.com/u/3nNVL9
Crabquake! is an absolutely silly but thrilling tale of survival, friendship, and the indomitable spirit of Baltimore. It’s a natural disaster of a novel in which I destroy my old neighborhood and lay waste to some of the places I have haunted for years for drinks and dinner, brunch, and booze. Our two unlikely heroes, Haze and Jesse, get caught up in something crazy — think Sharknado, but with crabs, floods, and earthquakes in Baltimore — and have to risk it all to save themselves and their friends.
The novel has been out since July 2023 and has 5 stars on Amazon as well as three reviews. It’s also the Book of the Month with my wife’s book club next month, and I get to appear as the author to talk about the book with them. It’ll be fun, and appreciate that everyone has enjoyed it.
And that, as they say it that. My next post will include all my writing projects for 2024, and there are going to be a lot, so buckle up! And thanks for reading. It means a lot. I’m just trying to have fun here, and if you want to have some fun along with me, well, here I am, and there are a bunch of links up above to my websites, Pinterest, Substack, etc.
See you next year!
