My new notebook with my word counts for the year so far.
So, I got the first full week of 2026 wrapped up. I was really worried I wasn’t keeping up the pace throughout the time, although it turned out I was just being incredibly inconsistent with my productivity. When I finally totaled everything up, it ended up being a pretty good run at the end to get the numbers up to a very respectable level.
With that, I’ll review the numbers.
Writing statistics for the week ending10 January 2026: Words: 5,425 Days writing: 7 of 7. Days revising or planning: 0 of 7 for 0 minutes. Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 4 of 7 days.
I’ve got a soft goal of 230,000 words for this year to write. This week I ended up writing about 1,000 words more than what I needed to write to keep up that pace. It was good to see.
The Land, The River, and The Waste (working title due to me being a superstitious sucker) is still my top project now, an environmental horror tale set in a little river town on the Mississippi River in Iowa. To try and cut down on the amount of recaps I have to do on some of these newsletters and writing journals, I’m still thinking about coming up with a separate post where I could put extended synopses of my projects. Hopefully I can get that sorted out on this site and my Substack page sometime this week.
Have a good week everyone, and all you writers keep writing.
If you don’t have the budget for a paid subscription, feel free to just send me a one-time payment of whatever you have the budget for.
While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.
On these writing journals I often talk about how I’ve been doing on my yearly goals, but I recapped my 2025 writing goals and previewed my 2026 goals here, so go to the link if you are curious (spoiler alert, I had a good year).
We started 2026 in the middle of the week, so I didn’t have too much time to write (three compared to seven days). However, since this covered the end of my vacation time (winter break), I was able to be pretty productive over a short period of time.
With that, I’ll review the numbers.
Writing statistics for the week ending3 January 2026: [NOTE: This week only covers three days due to the end of the year dropping on last Wednesday.] Words: 3,180 Days writing: 3 of 3. Days revising or planning: 0 of 3 for 0 minutes. Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 3 of 3 days.
Considering I will have to write somewhere around 630 words a day to ensure I write somewhere in the neighborhood of 230,000 words in 2026, averaging over 1,000 words a day (never an easy feat for me) is a great jump start on that goal. All I need to do is keep it up, but I know from last December and the latter part of last summer how tough that focus can be. Let’s see how it goes.
I’m working on more than a few projects at the moment (go here to find out what they are – look in the 2026 goals section), but The Land, The River, and The Waste (working title due to me being a superstitious sucker) is still my top project now, an environmental horror tale set in a little river town on the Mississippi River in Iowa. To try and cut down on the amount of recaps I have to do on some of these newsletters and writing journals, I’m thinking about coming up with a separate post where I could put extended synopses of my projects. Something to sort out later.
Have a good week everyone, and all you writers keep writing.
If you don’t have the budget for a paid subscription, feel free to just send me a one-time payment of whatever you have the budget for.
While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.
Hi to both subscribers and anyone new to this page, Liegois Media. On the first weekend of each month, I post this monthly newsletter about a teacher, ex-journalist, and part-time novelist from eastern Iowa (me, Jason Liegois) and what’s been going on with me, especially when it comes to my writing. I have three novels and a small poetry collection to my name after years of thinking about writing but not doing much of it.
I can’t wait to share what I’ve been working on, but for this edition of the newsletter, I want to focus on the personal writing goals I set for myself at the beginning of 2025, how they in some cases changed over the year, and whether or not I achieved them. Then, I’ll discuss what the goals for 2026 will be, which have certainly been shaped by the results of 2025’s goals.
Writing Goals 2025: The results
This is the notebook I’ve been using to keep track of my word counts for my various projects since August 2024. I’ll be retiring it now, but I already have its replacement lined up.
For the past several years since I have been writing this blog (and previous ones), I have made what I pointedly do not call New Year’s resolutions (too much bad juju with the term) but call yearly goals instead. At the end of the year or the start of the new one, I like to look back and see how successful I have been at reaching/achieving those goals. So, I will list them below, and review where I am at with each goal in turn.
At the time I listed these goals in January of last year, I called the first two of these “hard” goals and the second two “soft” goals. And during the course of the year, there were a couple items that popped up as well.
I pledged to write a minimum 200,000 words, with the intention of cracking the 225,000 mark this year if at all possible. And with my results during the past two years, I should be able to make my daily minimum writing goals at least 80 percent of the time. These daily minimum writing goals (or should I say quotas?) are: I require myself to write at least 500 words per day or spend at least 30 minutes a day revising or planning for ongoing or prospective projects. Over the course of the year, I decided to make this 225,000 number a hard goal. I also didn’t put as much emphasis on the daily goals as I did last year, although it didn’t make too much of a difference either way. RESULT: SUCCESS! I managed to limp over the 225,000-word mark late in the evening of 30 December 2025, even though I actually had a decent New Year’s Eve writing session. I’ll list the full totals below. 2025: Words (total): 226,283 Words (monthly average): 18,857 Revising and planning time (total): 9,705 minutes Revising and planning time (monthly average): 809 minutes Daily writing goals met: 85% By any stretch of the imagination, this is a massively successful year for me, even though looking at the half-year totals I wrote 1,000 less words during the second half of the year as opposed to the first half. It is a record word count total for me ever since I started keeping track of word count back in 2018. (The 53,878 words I wrote that year seems so small now.). The yearly total is more than 1,000 words above my 2024 total, and it is the fourth consecutive year I have managed to increase my word count total over the previous year. The 9,705 minutes I spent revising and/or planning were the most I have ever dedicated to the activity, topping the 8,955 minute record I set back in 2018. Meeting my writing goals 85 percent of the time matches the all-time level I set in 2023.
Get the rough draft of [The Yank Striker’s Journey]done by the end of [January], with an eventual release date of late May or early June. It would be a tight turnaround, but I don’t think it would be impossible. RESULT: DIDN’T QUITE GET THINGS DONE ON TIME, BUT STILL A SUCCESS. I did manage to get the rough draft of this book done by the end of January, but I underestimated the leg work I had to undertake regarding revisions, getting my manuscript out to beta readers, working with my publisher, and getting everything ready for the cover art of my book. To make a long story short, I managed to get The Yank Striker’s Journey published during the first part of July. I was still impressed because I managed to get a book written in less than two years which is an absolute record for me. In all, it was a fantastic experience and I’m elated at how the finished edition turned out. Looking forward to getting the next book done, though which book that will be is a question for this year’s goals.
[As of January 2024 – not a typo], I have 24,004 words written on The Untitled Pro Wrestling Project. I would like to make similar progress on this manuscript over the course of this year. It would be fantastic if I had a full rough draft on my hands, but I’m not quite committed to the idea – yet. RESULT: PARTIAL SUCCESS I have since given this series the official title of Kayfabe Stories. This is a story about a family of pro wrestlers from Texas and a member of this family, an aspiring young writer, who is determined to understand what it all means. As I’ll mention below, I don’t talk about my book-sized projects until they are ready to be published, so what I have been working on will be titled Kayfabe Stories 1 until we are ready to go with it. As of now, I have written 50,440 words for Kayfabe Stories 1 at this point, which is a huge level of progress from where I was. What pace I want to get this done is an open question.
As far as my poetry, I would like to continue to add to my collection of original work. Whether I want to put together another chapbook this year might be an open question. I would like to get my poems published in an outside publication, whether it be a poetry periodical or something regional. I have no acquaintance with this whole process, so I am sure this will be a full learning experience. RESULT: MOSTLY A SUCCESS By my count, I wrote twenty-nine poems this calendar year. This is by far the most productive I have ever been on a poetry front. My poem “Peace of Mind” was published in Lyrical Iowa 2025, the annual anthology of the Iowa Poetry Association. It was a great experience for me, and I was happy to be published in an edition dedicated to Rodney Reeves, a poetry acquaintance from Burlington, Iowa, who was an officer with the IPA at the time of his passing last year.
New Year, New Goals for 2026
…a mixed bag. The first of these goals will be word count/quota oriented, while the remainder will be centered on the projects I have in development at the moment1.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: All project titles of works currently in development are working titles unless otherwise noted. I often have solid titles in mind for these projects, but I’m a bit superstitious about revealing them until they are close to publication. The names of the series I mention in this newsletter, however, are the true names.
Since I made it to 225,000 words last year, I think I would like to try and make it to at least that number in 2026. If I push myself, I think I could even make it to 230,000 words. That sounds like a nice, round number, doesn’t it2? I’m not going to worry about reaching what I call my daily writing goal (or maybe quota would be a better term for it) more than I did last year. I keep my goal for this at 80 percent completion of those daily goals. Timetable: End of year.
The book I want to complete the soonest is a project I currently call The Land, the River, and the Waste (LRW). It is a sci-fi/horror novel set in Iowa, leaning on the environmental damage being done to my home state. Think of Night of the Living Dead, The Purge, The Crazies, Fast Food Nation, Dear Marty, We Crapped in Our Nest, and The Swine Republic poured into the creative stew of my head, along with some hometown and later memories. I’m now more than 23,000 words into the rough draft of the book. Timetable: Rough draft completed by the first half of 2026, publication (in one form or another) by the holiday season of 2026 (hope, hope?).
The Fool Series. The Fool 2 is the sequel to my debut novel, The Holy Fool,whichwas a story about Iowa native Samuel “Sonny” Turner, a newspaper columnist for the Chicago Journal. Set in the fall of 2008, Sonny’s mentor and editor Gus tasks him with investigating the paper’s unscrupulous owner and his plans to sell the paper to a rival. In part, it is my own autopsy of the state of American journalism and what might take its place. The Fool 2 revisits Sonny in 2024. He’s left Chicago and founded his own news site, The Fool. In addition to the US’s chaotic political situation, he’s dealing with life as an emigrant in Switzerland and raising his family and children there. I’m past 11,000 words on this rough draft. Of the sequels to my works, this is the one I want to get wrapped up first because I want to turn it into a small series, at least. I want to see how the events of 2026 shake out in this country and around the world before I decide on how to wrap it up. The fact that much of the action has occurred in Chicago will be useful for my purposes. However, I want to finish LRW first. Timetable: Rough draft by the end of 2026, publication ASAP afterwards.
The Yank Striker 3 (YS3). The Yank Striker series follows the exploits of DJ Ryan, a fledgling American soccer player who leaves his family behind to try his fortune with an English Premier League team in the East End of London. This has more information about the first book in the series, and thislink will brief you in about Book 2, The Yank Striker’s Journey. YS3 continues DJ’s growth as a footballer as he faces both setbacks and opportunities. Despite the fact I’m over 20,000 words of a rough draft into this project, I think I might keep this on a back burner for a while. While I love the story and its continuation from The Yank Striker’s Journey, I don’t think I can justify going three books into a series when I want to diversify the things I’m writing about (see LRW). Timetable: As of right now, I do not have a timetable for when I want to have a rough draft or publication, but it will be after LRW and The Fool 2.
Kayfabe Stories: The first book (Kayfabe Stories 1) will not be a priority until I at least get a rough draft done for LRW. Timetable: ??? for a rough draft and publication, but I’m too far ahead to stop now.
For now, this will be the extent of my writing goals for the year. Hopefully, I’ll be as successful with my goals for 2026 as I was for 2025.
Personal News
Fort Madison, Iowa riverfront, 29 December 2025.
It’s been a bit of strangeness as 2025 has ticked over into 2026, but there have been far better journalists who have commented on these issues, so I will leave it to them to do so.
The biggest situation was the death of my mother in law.
Marlene passed away on the last weekend of December. She was in her late 80’s and frankly had been in poor health ever since she’d broken her leg on Christmas Day two years previously. However, that doesn’t make it any easier for either my wife, her three sisters, and my kids and nieces and nephews.
She ran a tavern in Muscatine for more than 30 years and did much to look after her family, customers, and community, and she’s the main reason my wife was the amazing person she became. She’ll be missed by all of us.
Writing Quote(s) of the Month:
This is a good idea to keep in mind especially when you start revising your own work.
When all the details fit in perfectly, something is probably wrong with the story.
― Charles Baxter, Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction
It’s fascinating when you think of an issue (in this case, how writers portray characters of different genders) as being contemporary, only to find out people were talking about this issue centuries previously.
I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are or should be written for both men and women to read, and I am at a loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man.
― Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
When I Post
Check out this post for when and what I post on a regular basis.
How to support me😊.
As always, go to the links on the side if you are reading this on a desktop/laptop or the links on my profile on mobile. If you follow the links, you will be able to buy both the paperback and ebook versions of my books on Amazon. If you just put “Jason Liegois” in Google. you’ll find them on the first page of search results.
I have quite a few places that now carry at least some of my books, some of the many great and fantastic independent bookstores in Iowa and the Midwest. These are the bookstores you’ll find at least some of my work3:
Bent Oak Books, 619 7th St. Fort Madison.
Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St, Burlington.
The Corner and More, 703 Main St., Mediapolis.
Green Point Mercantile, 217 E. 2nd St., Muscatine.
The Brewed Book, 1524 Harrison St., Davenport.
The Black Rose, 116 W. Main St., West Branch
Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave. # S1, Des Moines.
Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella.
The Atlas Collective, 1801 5th Ave, Moline, Illinois – my first out of Iowa bookstore, very proud of this.
I’m always looking for some new places to place my books, so feel free to hit me up in the comments if you have a suggestion.
For those who are budget conscious among all of you, my books are part of the collections of the Fort Madison, Burlington, and Musser (Muscatine) public libraries.
My poetry book The Flow and the Journey is available at Bent Oak, Green Point, Burlington By the Book, and The Corner and More, but it is also available online but not on Amazon. I’ve set up a new online store for copies of my chapbook on my WordPress site, Liegois Media. If you want to get a physical copy, go ahead and click on the button below.
The Flow and the Journey
The first collection of poetry from author Jason Liegois.
2025 is in the books, and I’m hoping 2026 is as eventful or successful, or more eventful and successful, than the last year. Best wishes to everyone.
All you writers keep writing and everyone take care of themselves.
-30-
While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.
In yet another attempt to try and keep this modest little newsletter from seeming repetitive, I might attempt to write some pocket summaries of the projects I am working on and just hyperlink them to the newsletters. I’ll likely try this next month. ↩︎
I usually make it to 200,000 words by around Thanksgiving of each year for the past couple of years. ↩︎
It wasn’t exactly the amount of writing I wanted to get done this week, but it was a far better sight than what I ended up with last week, so I’ll take it as a draw if not a minor win. Whether it works out in the greater scheme of my yearly goal … I’ll guess we’ll see.
With that, I’ll review the numbers.
Writing statistics for the week ending20 December 2025: Words: 4,122 Days writing: 5 of 7. Days revising or planning: 0 of 7 for 0 minutes. Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 5 of 7 days.
So, not the level I was hoping for, but much better than last week’s total. I’ll call that a win, especially since it’s 1,500 more words than last week. But is it enough?
The overall stats:
Overall Statistics for 2025: Word count goal for 2025: 225,000 words. Word count for 2025 as of 20 December 2025: 219,864 words. Words remaining toward goal: 5,138. Confidence level in meeting my word count: HIGH.
One good writing week. All I need is one good writing week and I’m going to be right at my goal. I can taste it, lads, lasses, and others, I can taste it. I’ll have written more words than I’ve ever written in my life, and all I can think of is producing more, getting more product out the door than the three novels, poetry collection, blog posts, and various unpublished short stories I’ve written.
The Land, The River, and The Waste (working title due to me being a superstitious sucker) is still my top project now, an environmental horror tale set in a little river town on the Mississippi River in Iowa. I’m now up to 22,000 words for the first draft, and to make progress with the story, I took the clever and cunning idea to only write the interesting parts of the story first so I don’t get bored with it. It’s something I came up with a few years back to knock out writer’s block. Turns out writing all of the cool scenes first helps out with this problem (although I always save the final scene for last). It’s also a good way to tighten up your story if that is your thing (it definitely is mine).
In putting this together, I came upon two realizations: first, this post would be running on Christmas Eve (Happy Holidays, by the way), which is no big deal because I always do these writing journals in advance. But the other realization is that if I stick to this schedule, I would make the next writing journal on 31 December 2025. Since I will be working to get my writing total wrapped up and total up all the numbers for the year, I’m going to make the decision to make this the last writing journal of the year and wait until doing the first newsletter of the year (call it 3 January 2026?) to report on whether or not I made all of my writing goals for the year. No big deal to wait for a bit, and I’ll do the first official writing journal for 2026 on 7 January 2026. It’s all good.
Have a good week everyone, and all you writers keep writing.
If you don’t have the budget for a paid subscription, feel free to just send me a one-time payment of whatever you have the budget for.
While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.
Six weeks of good productivity, and the seventh week it goes into the tank. Well, all I need to keep in mind is to keep things trucking for the next two and a half weeks and I’ll be good to go for my writing goals this year.
With that, I’ll review the numbers.
Writing statistics for the week ending13 December 2025: Words: 2,610 Days writing: 3 of 7. Days revising or planning: 2 of 7 for 60 minutes. Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 5 of 7 days.
Unlike last week, I didn’t quite manage to pull it out at the end, but oh, well. I just have to remind myself of all the days, weeks, months, and years where I went without even bothering to write anything. Those days seem to be far away from me nowadays, thankfully.
The overall stats:
Overall Statistics for 2025: Word count goal for 2025: 225,000 words. Word count for 2025 as of 13 December 2025: 215,742 words. Words remaining toward goal: 9,258. Confidence level in meeting my word count: HIGH.
The Land, The River, and The Waste (working title due to me being a superstitious sucker) is my top project now, an environmental horror tales set in a little river town on the Mississippi River in Iowa. As the writing this week slowed down, so did progress on this project as well. I think part of it is the reason that I am wrapping up the first act of the book, and now I’m starting to think of whether any of the new scenes are necessary or not. Or maybe I just need to push forward because it’s just a first draft and I can mold things around if I need to later.
Have a good week everyone, and all you writers keep writing1.
If you don’t have the budget for a paid subscription, feel free to just send me a one-time payment of whatever you have the budget for.
While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.
I was proud of my productivity this week. Not because it was particularly good, but because I was falling behind at one point. However, instead of just accepting it, I started pushing myself harder and had a good last couple of days.
With that, I’ll review the numbers.
Writing statistics for the week ending6 December 2025: Words: 4,228 Days writing: 5 of 7. Days revising or planning: 2 of 7 for 180 minutes. Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 6 of 7 days.
Again, if it wasn’t for the last two days of the week, I would have had something more closer to 3,000 words or less. I’m glad I pushed back against myself on this issue.
The overall stats:
OStatistics for 2025: Word count goal for 2025: 225,000 words. Word count for 2025 as of 6 December 2025: 213,132 words. Words remaining toward goal: 11,868. Confidence level in meeting my word count: HIGH.
Again, The Land, The River, and The Waste (working title due to me being a superstitious sucker) has been my most active project, not including my blogs. It’s an environmental horror tales set in a little river town on the Mississippi River in Iowa, not unlike the ones I’ve lived in for most of my life. I’m now close to 20,000 words into the first draft. I think, from where I feel I’m at in the story, that I’m approaching the end of the first act of the story. I could do with a good 75,000-word novel, I think.
Have a good week everyone, and all you writers keep writing.
If you don’t have the budget for a paid subscription, feel free to just send me a one-time payment of whatever you have the budget for.
While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.
Hi to both subscribers and anyone new to this page, The Writing Life with Jason Liegois. My official Writing Life blog, which I post on the first weekend of each month, is my monthly newsletter discussing my upcoming writing projects, things having to do with writing, and what’s been going on with me in my corner of southeastern Iowa along the Mississippi River. It’s basically my way of keeping in touch with the rest of the world1.
Let’s talk about writing and life, then.
Personal Items…
First tea of the season. And #gohawkeyes.
After a too-short fall (as it often tends to be in Iowa) some heavy snows this past week have heralded the arrival of winter. Again, I’m not sure whether my parents coming from Wisconsin or the mix of Norwegian and German heritage in my background, but I usually don’t get phased by the onset of winter. It’s time for herbal teas at night, huddling beneath fleece blankets to keep the chill away, and moonlit snow and ice.
Of course, there’s the inconvenience of icy sidewalks and roads, but I can manage it (and the decline of sunlight) easier than I can deal with the near tropical heat you can find in Iowa between June and August. I mean, I can always go outside in December as long as I have a sensible parka, gloves and hat, and footwear with sturdy treading. In late June I only head outside if I want to lose a pound or two to the sauna outside, and there’s not too many types of clothing which will help with that type of heat.
I’ve often wondered what would happen if I did get a chance to live in colder climates where winter is a serious thing. I was scrolling around on YouTube the other day and I saw some videos produced by a couple who live in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Svalbard is a group of Norwegian islands north of their mainland and well above the Arctic Circle, and right about now they are seeing sunset at 2 p.m. in the afternoon. Part of me fears if I was dropped into that environment, I’d want to run back to Iowa in a fortnight. Or maybe it would be the opposite and I’d get interested in narwhal hunting out on the open sea. It’s a fun “what if?” scenario, at least. For now, Iowa’s cold enough.
I’ve decided to change things up a little in how I present these projects, so you’ll see that here. Hopefully, it will be easier for anyone to follow along.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: All project titles of works currently in development are working titles unless otherwise noted. I often have solid titles in mind for these projects, but I’m a bit superstitious about revealing them until they are close to publication2. The names of the series I mention in this newsletter, however, are the true names.
The Land, The River, and the Waste
LRW, for short, is a sci-fi/horror novel set in Iowa, leaning on the environmental damage being done to my home state. I decided, “What would it take to really get people’s attention to this issue, enough to do something about it?” In speculating on this question, my mind took some wild twists and turns. I started writing this on Halloween Night of this year, and I do believe I might as well set the climax on a Halloween night. Think of Night of the Living Dead, The Purge, The Crazies, Fast Food Nation, Dear Marty, We Crapped in Our Nest, and The Swine Republic poured into the creative stew of my head, along with some hometown and later memories.
Motivational reading by my desk. If you want to get the books check out Ice Cube Press at https://icecubepress.
I’m now more than 17,000 words into the book and probably around the end of the first act already. Part of me feels like I could use more research into this world, but I have the feeling at least with the rough draft, I need to just to let things rip and get it down on the page.
This is the story that seems to be calling to me now. Every time I return to this setting along the river, to these people, it feels like I’m home. I have no idea how it’s getting published, but it will even if I have to do it myself, I want to get it done.
Timetable: Rough draft completed by the first half of 2026, publication (in one form or another) by the holiday season of 2026 (hope, hope?).
My Ongoing Series (The Yank Striker and The Fool Series)
The Fool 2: This is the sequel to my debut novel, The Holy Fool, which I’ve decided after the fact will be the first book in my The Fool Series.Briefly, The Holy Fool was a story about Iowa native Samuel “Sonny” Turner, a newspaper columnist for the Chicago Journal, a longtime journalistic institution in the city. In the fall of 2008, in the shadows of the 2008 presidential election and the oncoming Great Recession, he’s tasked by his editor and mentor with protecting his newspaper from sale by its unscrupulous owner. In part, it is my own autopsy of the state of American journalism and what might take its place. The Fool 2 revisits Sonny in 2024, sixteen years after he’s left Chicago and founded his own news site, The Fool, with a combination of old Chicago comrades and new recruits. In addition to the US’ chaotic political situation and Sonny’s plan to cover it from a distance with the help of his American colleagues, he’s dealing with life as an emigrant to the unfamiliar land of Switzerland, and raising his family and children there. I’m past 10,000 words on this rough draft. Of the sequels to my works, this is the one I want to get wrapped up first. Partly, this is a mathematical equation, since a series, by definition, needs to have more than one book in it. It’s probably going to take me longer to write this since under the circumstances, I want to see how the events of 2026 shake out in this country and around the world before I decide on how to wrap it up. The fact that much of the action of this year has occurred in Chicago will be useful for my purposes3. Timetable: Rough draft by the end of 2026, publication ASAP afterwards.
Timetable: ??? for a rough draft and publication, but I’m too far ahead to stop now.
Some Acknowledgements
I want to thank the Burlington Public Library for inviting me to be part of their Sterling Lord Author’s Showcase earlier last month. It was a fantastic experience and I definitely would like to return next year. The keynote presentation by Iowa journalist Robert Leonard was an excellent event, as well.
I don’t have any new events scheduled in the near future, but I’ll be back in contact with some of the locations I’ve been at during this year and see what the plans are for next year. I also plan on contacting some of the local independent book stores which are carrying my books and see if I can make some arrangements with them. I’d love to do some holiday-related events if possible.
This is my obligatory announcement that if any podcasters or bloggers are interested in new fiction, if you are interested in stories based in the worlds of journalism and soccer, or if you are interested in featuring writers from Iowa or the Midwest, I would absolutely be open for a feature or interview. Get in touch here or at jasonliegois@liegois.media.
Writing Quote(s) Of the Month (Special Stephen King edition):
Decided to go with two inspirational quotes by one of my literary heroes, Stephen King. The first one touches on why I think writing is special to me, and the other one is about how he sees storytelling.
Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. Drink and be filled up.
― Stephen King
Let’s get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up
― Stephen King, On Writing
When I Post
Check out this post for when and what I post on a regular basis.
How to support me😊.
As always, go to the links on the side if you are reading this on a desktop/laptop or the links on my profile on mobile. If you follow the links, you will be able to buy both the paperback and ebook versions of my books on Amazon. If you just put “Jason Liegois” in Google. you’ll find them on the first page of search results.
I have quite a few places that now carry at least some of my books, some of the many great and fantastic independent bookstores in Iowa and the Midwest. These are the bookstores you’ll find at least some of my work4:
Bent Oak Books, 619 7th St. Fort Madison.
Burlington By The Book, 301 Jefferson St, Burlington.
The Corner and More, 703 Main St., Mediapolis.
Green Point Mercantile, 217 E. 2nd St., Muscatine.
The Brewed Book, 1524 Harrison St., Davenport.
The Black Rose, 116 W. Main St., West Branch
Beaverdale Books, 2629 Beaver Ave. # S1, Des Moines.
Pella Books, 824 Franklin St, Pella.
The Atlas Collective, 1801 5th Ave, Moline, Illinois – my first out of Iowa bookstore, very proud of this.
I’m always looking for some new places to place my books, so feel free to hit me up in the comments if you have a suggestion.
For those who are budget conscious among all of you, my books are part of the collections of the Fort Madison, Burlington, and Musser (Muscatine) public libraries.
My poetry book The Flow and the Journey is available at Bent Oak, Green Point, Burlington By the Book, and The Corner and More, but it is also available online but not on Amazon. I’ve set up a new online store for copies of my chapbook on my WordPress site, Liegois Media. If you want to get a physical copy, go ahead and click on the button below.
The Flow and the Journey
The first collection of poetry from author Jason Liegois.
As usual, all you writers keep writing, and all of you keep safe. See you down the road.
Also, happy holidays.
-30-
While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.
Apologies to regular readers if some of this is repetitive. With these newsletters, I have to balance giving you all good original content and getting all the new viewers of this blog up to speed. There’s a reason I cut down writing the regular newsletter to a monthly post rather than a weekly post. 😄 ↩︎
Feel free to tell me if I’m just being wussy about this. I don’t think I need to truly name a thing in public unless it is closer to becoming a reality. It seems to be bad karma in my mind. ↩︎
And some of the action will take place in Iowa, trust me. ↩︎
Back at the end of August this year, when I was getting ready for the upcoming school year, I was very much nervous about doing what I had to do to make my goal for the year. I was way behind.
Now, however, I’ve had the third-best month of the year so far, and my fifth consecutive week of writing more than 5,000 words. How momentum changes.
Let’s talk about the numbers.
Writing statistics for the week ending29 November 2025: Words: 5,447 Days writing: 7 of 7. Days revising or planning: 1 of 7 for 60 minutes. Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 6 of 7 days.
Writing statistics for November 2025: Words: 23,431. Revising/planning: 120 minutes. DWGM: 97%
Once again, my goal for the calendar year 2025 is to write 225,000 words. (I was also shooting to make my minimum daily quota at least 80 percent of the time, but since I am feeling quite confident of making this goal, my focus for the most part has been on word count.)
The stats for the month ahead are looking good.
Ongoing statistics for 2025: Word count as of 1 December 2025: 208,904. This number is 2,654 words above the “pace” to reach 225,000 words by the end of 31 December 2025.
I now have 16,096 words left to write before reaching my yearly goal. To keep this in perspective, I have exceeded this word count during nine out of the past 11 months of 2025, including the past two months. Confidence level in meeting my word count: HIGH.
It’s been a feverish run since Halloween 2025, when I began writing The Land, The River, and The Waste (working title due to me being a superstitious sucker). It’s an environmental horror tales set in a little river town on the Mississippi River in Iowa, not unlike the ones I’ve lived in for most of my life. I’m now above 17,000 words into the first draft.
I’ve not had a chance to write much on some of my other projects during the past month other than my regular blogging and the odd poem or two, but that’s all right. I think. This is the project that is motivating me and the rest can stay on the back burner for now.
Have a good week everyone, and all you writers keep writing.
If you don’t have the budget for a paid subscription, feel free to just send me a one-time payment of whatever you have the budget for.
While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.
Even though I had a slightly slower week than the past three weeks, this was still the fourth consecutive week I’ve written more than 5,000 words. And from my math, I’m on pace to make my goal … and maybe then some.
Let’s talk about the numbers.
Writing statistics for the week ending22 November 2025: Words: 5,257 Days writing: 7 of 7. Days revising or planning: 1 of 7 for 30 minutes. Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 7 of 7 days.
Once again, my goal for the calendar year 2025 is to write 225,000 words. Since at least August, I’ve felt I was falling behind on my expectations, with just 12,447 in August, 15,559 in September, and barely more than 20,000 in October.
Now, however, I’ve crunched a few numbers and things are looking very much up for me.
Ongoing statistics for 2025: Word count as of 1 November 2025: 185,473. This number was 2,027 words off the “pace” to reach 225,000 words by the end of 31 December 2025.
Word count as of 22 November of 2025: 203,457. By my recollection, this is the earliest I have reached 200,000 words for a calendar year ever.
I now have, as of 22 November 2025, 21,543 words left before reaching my yearly goal.
Also, by my calculations, if I wrote at least 5,000 words this week, I would then be more than 2,000 words ahead of my desired pace.
But I’ve turned things around this month. And there’s a little environmentally-themed sci-fi horror project I have to give plenty of credit to for helping my productivity.
On Halloween 2025, I began writing The Land, The River, and The Waste (working title due to me being a superstitious sucker) Set in a little river town on the Mississippi River in Iowa, and this has been the project that’s grabbed my attention and not let go. I’m already close to 14,000 words into the first draft.
This might be one of the most personal stories I’ve yet written. During a conversation with one of my students last week, I suddenly slipped and referred to my hometown by the fictional name of my town in the book, and not my actual hometown. That gave me pause, but the students I was talking with didn’t notice it.
Have a good week everyone, and all you writers keep writing.
If you don’t have the budget for a paid subscription, feel free to just send me a one-time payment of whatever you have the budget for.
While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.
Three good writing weeks in a row (as the Count from Sesame Street might have said), and this one was the best of the bunch (nearly a 1,000 more words than last week. Might I be on a streak here?
The stats:
Writing statistics for the week ending15 November 2025: Words: 6.847 Days writing: 7 of 7. Days revising or planning: 0 of 7 for 0 minutes. Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 7 of 7 days.
My goal for the year is to write 225,000 words during the 2025 calendar year. As of the beginning of this week (11 days from Thanksgiving) I was just 1,800 words away from the 200,000 mark. I’ve gone from feeling like I was running behind pace for my goal for the past three months to having it well within my grasp.
On Halloween 2025, The Land, The River, and The Waste (working title due to me being a superstitious sucker), the sci-fi horror project in a little river town on the Mississippi River in Iowa, was just some ideas bopping around in my head and decorating my notebooks. Now I have a rough draft manuscript of around 9,000 words and it continues to grow. It feels like I’m writing about home when I’m doing this story. It’s become as personal of a story as I think I’ve written, and I want to see how it plays out.
Have a good week everyone, and all you writers keep writing.
If you don’t have the budget for a paid subscription, feel free to just send me a one-time payment of whatever you have the budget for.
While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.
