One Year of Grit: Forging the Path Ahead

Almost a year ago, I launched this store. But let’s be honest with ourselves: this was never just about moving products. It was a deliberate, forced march back to the things I once loved. It was a return to art and writing.

I had allowed these passions to slip through the cracks, casualties of the mundane. But merely kicking a dormant thing and hoping it wakes up will never do. I needed friction. I needed a mechanism to force my hand through obligation and discipline—something to demand my presence at the workbench and the blank page.

And so, Bones & the Bull took breath.

It has been an incredible, fiercely intentional twelve months. The act of returning to the work in tandem with my role at McLaren and my commitments to the Scouts has left its mark, conditioning both body and mind in ways I hadn't fully anticipated. But I have found that when you stop making excuses and start laying down the bricks, strength is not depleted; it is unlocked.

Looking to the year ahead, the horizon is wide open. The writing hasn't just returned; it has awakened. Crossing the finish line on the Bones on a Wheel manuscript was a hard-won victory. But momentum is not meant to be admired. Left on a shelf, it diminishes. So, I took that energy straight into a heavy, full-scale edit of the two Discord of Lupinda books that have been gathering dust since 2016. I am now driving hard, wrapping up the multitude of storylines created in those first two books toward the completion of the trilogy.

This hasn’t been easy. Writing for me has always been about more than words on a page. I have always used it to safely explore the darkest wells of my own soul. That descent inevitably led to characters with more life in the pages than some of the people I interact with in the flesh. Now, with a strike of the keys and a calloused heart, I must wind their lives toward a conclusion.

I can safely confess that the work has outgrown its current container. Because of that, next year marks a massive evolution for this platform: I will be launching the Bones & the Bull publishing house. It will come with a myriad of systems designed to subvert the clunky, daunting, and often dismissive path of traditional publishing. I am building this first for myself—that is my honest confession—but when established, it will be a vessel sturdy enough to carry a multitude of fellow scribes of grit. For now, I am taking the raw material, cutting out the middleman, and building the house from the ground up.

To everyone who has been reading this blog, holding me accountable, and walking this path with me: thank you. The foundation is laid.

Join me for this ride into the future; it’s going to be a formidable one.

Remember, some may tell you to be moderate, but the truth is, lukewarm will never do.