Dear Reader,
While I am never as productive at the end of the year as I hope to be at the beginning, I’m proud of what I have been able to produce in 2024.
My greatest achievement this past year was finishing 2nd in the Passage Prize fiction contest with a story that I hope to reproduce here later this spring.
However, most of my work has been posted on substack. Here’s a snapshot of what I have published here in the past year:
Stats for 2024
14 poems: 13 of which were original to the substack, and 1 was the 3rd place winner of the second Passage Prize competition
16 mini-episodes of my paid-subscriber-only podcast “Dog Walk with Me” (more on this later)
3 pieces of flash fiction
2 pulp adventure stories: 1 featuring the return of Quintus Paulus and 1 introducing WW2 patrol boat captain Rex
1 essay discussing the termination of the Passage Prize contest
1 Field Report from the Chalk Creek Hieroglyphs outside of Fillmore UT
3 pieces of restaurant-review autofiction under the banner of “State Street Eats”
Additionally, I was able to produce my first poetry ‘zine featuring several of my poems about traveling around the western US. I am particularly proud of this effort and am pleased to have produced something physical for once.
All told, that comes out to over 40 pieces that I have created this year: 1 for every week that the average European works. Truly an aristocratic feat.
The past few months have been rough for me—creatively speaking—so I’m trying to chart a course that will help me focus my efforts and give you something interesting to read.
Looking to 2025
I have half a dozen adventure stories languishing in various stages of completion. I hope to get these completed during the first half of the year. Some may be going out to open calls at other outlets, but anything else will be published here. These stories include familiar characters—Paulus, Rex, Simon and Samantha—as well as some new creations.
The frequency of my poetry writing has dipped, but my goal for this year is to at least beat last year.
I didn’t love the quality of my short podcast dispatches, so that has been on hiatus since July. However, I’d like to get back to it. I may make myself sit still for them; at least until I can stop sounding out of breath as I walk. My goal for that is 2 posts per month.
I will continue my State Street Eats posts. Ideally, 1 per month.
The thing I most want to do is expand the Field Reports posts. I want to get out and see more of Utah and the surrounding West. However, getting out there is tricky, as it requires me to take a day off work and be able to get out and back before family obligations in the evenings. I’ve got a couple family road trips planned that I hope to dovetail into these posts. Paid subscriptions go a long way to covering my gas costs.
It’s all a tad ambitious, but I’m looking forward to another year of adventure.
Best,
Aldo
Thanks, Aldo!
I wish you the best of luck, Aldo. Happy New Year.