March 2025 Wrap-Up

Writing

Word Count: The word count for In Plain Sight, Unseen so far is… 54,449.

I have finished writing all the stories for the collection now! I have a couple more to edit, and a preface to write and it will be ready for publication.

I’ve had so many new ideas lately, and I’ll be exploring the first of them in my first novel this year.

In In Plain Sight, Unseen, you will read short stories that feature a young character, and I have a few books planned for him. However, I need to work out a lot of the moving parts. I don’t want to try something ambitious when I’m not ready to take it on.

Something that you will be aware of if you’ve followed me over the last few months is that I’ve been reading and watching a hell of a lot of Stephen King. Something you may not be aware of is that I have a psychology degree. Until recently, I didn’t realise that King writes a lot of telekinetic and extrasensory perception themed stories.

This is a pleasant surprise and a welcome overlap with my psychology background. The young character I mentioned earlier has an ability like what King writes about, and the recent ideas I’ve been making notes on also have characters with these abilities.

I’m excited to get In Plain Sight, Unseen out there. Then I’ll share more with you about my first novel.

Reading

The extended Reading for The Dark Tower series, and the order I am reading in, is as follows:

• The Little Sisters of Eluria (collected in Everything’s Eventual)

• The Gunslinger (Dark Tower book 1)

• The Drawing of the Three (Dark Tower book 2)

• Night Surf (collected in Night Shift)

• The Stand (currently reading)

• The Eyes of the Dragon

• The Talisman

• Wastelands (Dark Tower book 3)

• Wizard and Glass (Dark Tower book 4)

• Salem’s Lot

• One For the Road (collected in Night Shift)

• Jerusalem’s Lot (collected in Night Shift)

• It

• Insomnia

• Everything’s Eventual (collected in Everythings Eventual)

• Low Men in Yellow Coats (collected in Hearts In Atlantis)

• Black House

• Wolves of the Calla (Dark Tower book 5)

• Song of Susannah (Dark Tower book 6)

• The Dark Tower (Dark Tower book 7)

• At this point, I will read Wind Through the Keyhole if I can be bothered.

The Talisman

We follow 12-year-old Jack Sawyer as he makes his way across America in both our world and ‘The Territories’ in search of a Talisman to save his mother’s life, and the life of her ‘twinner’ in the other dimension.

Having recently read The Eyes of the Dragon, we spent more time in ‘The Territories,’ which is where Roland is from, I think. I’m starting to see the bigger picture of Stephen King’s multiverse.

The Talisman came in at a bloated 766 pages - it could have been done in 450. I have given up with 90 pages left, I can’t take it any longer. It was properly dense at times, and I’m glad I don’t have to read the sequel until later in the Dark Tower extended reading. However, the monster that is The Stand is coming up before I dive into book three.

Night Surf

This seems to be happening when the flu from The Stand has broken out.

It’s nice and short. We’re following a small group of people on the beach as the flu spreads across America.

The Stand

We’re back with Flagg from The Eyes of the Dragon in this one.

At around 1400 pages, my paperback is a big ol’ bitch. I reckon I’ll still be reading it in my April wrap-up.

I tried to listen to this in about 2019 and couldn’t ‘stand’ it, so I abandoned it and got my Audible credit back with about 24 hours left to listen. But the writing is quite accessible in this one, unlike The Talisman. I’m enjoying the writing style and the character work (the character work is why I started reading King to begin with) is great.

Watching

A Thousand Blows

Stephen Graham is great in this, as you would expect. His first scene was a great character introduction as well.

Secret Window

The was a rewatch, but I enjoyed it the second time around as well.

It had Maria Bello, who also starred in a Stephen King adaptation I saw recently called Big Driver.

Firestarter (2022)

This was inferior to the old one. John Carpenter did compose the music, though, and I think he was supposed to direct the original film back in the day.

I didn’t like how Charlie went into the woods and in a quick montage taught herself how to be a pyrokinetic girl boss. In the original Firestarter film, Charlie struggles to control her pyrokinetic ability throughout, but I guess pandering to the ‘modern audience’ is a priority these days.

Nightmares & Dreamscapes

Episode 1: Battleground was based on the short story of the same name, collected in Night Shift.

Reacher

This is a quality series. I can’t help but wonder how Amazon made this successful series (with a traditionally masculine guy beating people up) but also managed to squeeze out the absolute drivel that is The Rings of Power and The Wheel of Time.