People hated 2020 about as much as non-New Englanders hate the Patriots. But hey, at least it’s over.
Now you may have noticed this fancy looking doohickey here. Though it might resemble a futuristic vending machine, it’s not. It’s actually a time machine.
Step inside, reader. I’d love to show you some stuff I worked on in 2020. And I promise we can stay socially distant and wear masks and all that stuff.
Ready? I’ll just close the hatch, press this button here, and…
January
We begin 2020 with an ending: I finished reading the Sandman series. That’s 10 collected volumes, 76 issues, and a heck of a lot of pictures of naked people.
I include this here because Sandman changed the way I think about long-form narrative. It’s impressive how the issue story arcs feed into the volume arcs, and how all 10 volumes combine to cover one gigantic story. Furthermore, the experimentation in form and style is incredible to behold. Can’t wait for the Netflix series.
February
February was a relatively quiet month for writing, mainly because I spent most of it gearing up for the 2020 Special Olympics New York Winter State Games (that’s my day job). About 1,000 athletes, coaches, and volunteers gathered in Rochester for competition in six sports. When we can safely host events of that size again, I highly recommend you join us.
On the writing front, I published a tongue-in-cheek blog post entitled “Podcasts I’ll Never Make.” Everybody seems to have a podcast these days. This post is why I don’t.
March
With Winter Games concluded, I dove headfirst into my next long-form project. It was going to be called And the End is Always Near (a title borrowed from the lyrics of “Roadhouse Blues” by The Doors). Notice the past tense there.
Chiefly inspired by The X-Files and the works of Emily St. John Mandel and David Mitchell, this novel was going to check in with five point-of-view characters over three years: 2000, 2010, and 2020. I read Monsters of the Week: The Complete Critical Companion to The X-Files (among other books) as research. I even quizzed friends and family on their recollections of my three years, hoping to get as many perspectives as possible.
I think you can tell where this story is headed.
Things shut down here in the U.S. in about mid-March. Remote work began, mask-wearing became as ubiquitous as underwear wearing, and 2020 turned into quite the stinker of a year. In a matter of weeks, my enthusiasm for the project dwindled.
It’s not dead. I plan to revisit And the End is Always Near in the future, once this pandemic nonsense is over. I’ve changed the years to 1999, 2012, and 2020. I’ll lose the clean decade spacing, but I like these three years because they’re three points in my life where the end truly seemed near (1999 had Y2K, 2012 had the Mayan calendar thing, and 2020 was 2020).
So, I pivoted on this year’s project. We’ll get to it soon.
April
I’ve done an April Fools blog post the past few years, and 2020 was no exception. I give you the sequel to my first novel:
(Here I tinkered with the brilliant original cover design by my friend Nathan Rumsey.)
I might need to put a disclaimer on these posts in the future, because like 2019’s post, people thought this was real. I felt especially bad about that because some readers were honestly excited. Sorry, everyone.
Lastly, on a non-writing related note, we did as many quarantiners did and got a puppy!
Her name is Osi and she’s an English Springer Spaniel. She is energetic, athletic, and very cuddly, but only when she gets tired (which is rare). We’re still working on her relations with the cats, but things are progressing.
May
The theme of this month was “hair,” as evidenced by my appearance during this live reading of my short story “Large Coffee, Black”…
View this post on Instagram
…And also this newsletter, which bore the strange subject line, “A quick update on the state of my hair.” Lot of unsubscribes on that one. Can you tell I was going a little nuts?
June
Here I regained some semblance of sanity with a new blog entitled, “My 5 Favorite Bad Movies.” Or maybe not, since it’s a post praising the works of Nicolas Cage…
I also finished David Foster Wallace’s A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. In fact, you’ll see it on my favorite books of the year roundup, coming soon.
July
Now here’s where things got spicy.
In terms of distribution, there are two paths an indie author like myself can walk: Exclusivity, or going wide. The former usually means Amazon, specifically opting into KDP Select, which mandates your book be exclusive to Amazon for a period of months. The latter means sharing your book in as many places as possible, thereby piecing together many smaller incomes into a (hopefully) greater whole.
I’m a going wide kind of guy. Therefore, in July, I began selling books directly on my website.
There are many reasons for doing so, though I won’t bore you with the details—unless you feel like being bored, in which case, check out this blog post I wrote on tax nexus. I spent more time than I’d like to admit trying to figure out whether or not I needed to apply sales tax to ebooks in my native New York State (turns out I didn’t, unless the IRS tells me otherwise).
But it was worth all the research, because it led to this…
Big Riches, Fine Wine, and a Pinch of Dragonsbane is a short story available exclusively through my website for $0.99. Look for more short stories like it in the new year!
August
August was a touchy month, in that I wrote about writing about touchy subjects. Specifically religion.
I’d hinted at my new novel a few times prior, but this, I believe, was the first explicit mention of the title, plot, and all that. I also went in-depth on my approach to the subject in a blog post.
Oh yeah, and this happened, too.
View this post on Instagram
September
In September I celebrated a birthday. Not my birthday. Not some other human’s birthday. It was the birthday of my second book, Monsters at Dusk. Is that weird? Probably.
My birthday present to my book was, perhaps cruelly, a frank evaluation. Of the 10 stories in the collection, here are my personal favorites, from most to least.
- “The Megrim” (The one about Wendyll, Lockwood, and the missing kids.)
- “Several Messages from Abby to God (Regarding Her Cat)” (The one featuring letters back and forth between God, Satan, and the little kid.)
- “Large Coffee, Black” (The one where the guy falls in love with the titular beverage.)
- “Virus/Affliction/Condition/Curse” (The one about a near future featuring werewolves.)
- “Unbelievable” (The one about the college student abducted by vampires.)
- “Thespian: A Tale of Tragedy and Redemption in Three Acts” (The one about the actor replaced by CGI.)
- “We Remember” (The one about the guy whose memories are quaffed by a mysterious visitor in his dreams.)
- “A Good Fit in Penbluff City” (The one about the epic fantasy sports team.)
- “Wings” (The one about the character who has wings attached to their body by a demented scientist.)
- “Alice” (The one about the kids in a field who spot a lonely monster.)
October
I’m not a big Halloween guy (unless you count my love of The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror episodes), so I didn’t do any special writing for the holiday. However, I did remind you of the time I tried to convince you to read the aforementioned Sandman series. Remember that? No? Check out the refresher here.
November
I’d been working on Eggs for the Ageless all year, so I decided a fun near-New Year’s treat would be to share some of that work. I did so in this post.
As part of my research for the book, I also concluded The Book of Forgiving by Desmond and Mpho Tutu. As I wrote in my review, it’s not only a good book—it’s an essential one. I highly recommend it.
December
And finally, my writing year came to a squishy end with the appearance of a Book Blob.
What the hell is a Book Blob, you ask? Well, it’s when a blob of goo oozes on over and swallows your books, then refuses to give them back unless readers pay a measly ransom of five bucks (for the record, that’s how much I usually sell one book for). The Blob was supposed to leave by the New Year, but I’m told it’s sticking around one more day. So if you’d like to buy my books from it, you can do so here.
And Now, Back to the Future
Watch your step there. Make sure you wipe the interspatial dust from your eyes. And…we’re back!
Now that we’ve returned to the first day of 2021, some updates on the future: I plan to release Eggs for the Ageless later this year, along with another short story or two directly to this here site. We’ve also got a local short story competition in my neck of the woods, so I’ll be submitting there. And I’ve got another story I’m sitting on that I dig very much.
In short, I’m looking forward to this year, and I hope you are, too. Here’s wishing you happiness, good health, and a speedy return to normalcy. Thanks so much for joining me for the ride!
Kyle A. Massa is a speculative fiction author living somewhere in upstate New York with his wife, their cats, and their dog. He has written two books and numerous short stories, both published and yet-to-be published. He enjoys unusual narrative structures, multiple POVs, and stories that make readers laugh.
