In all honesty, I’ve procrastinated about writing this post, or something like it, for the past several weeks. I always sort of understood why some of my students would rather repeat a grade rather than do an assignment they’d prefer not to do, but this past month or so has been an illustration of how it would actually work (lol).
I once had bold, gold aspirations to massive word counts for 2026. I had hoped to make it to 230,000 words this year and make my daily minimum writing quota (see below if you are not familiar with it) at least 85 percent of the time. Based on what I had written over the past couple of years, those goals appeared to be attainable.
Over the past eight weeks, however, my productivity has collapsed.
While I realize pure word count is not indicative, necessarily, of progress in your writing. And this year, I’ve come to the conclusion that completing one work in progress (WIP) has become the massive priority it has. I want to make sure this book gets finished, because in the personal inventory I’ve been doing on myself, I think it’s the key to where my head is at right now.
At this point, I’ve gotten so behind on writing new work it’s not funny. In all honesty, I think instead of putting all of those numbers up here, I will instead list my monthly totals for May and June 2026, as well a full stat recap for the first part of the year. I think these numbers should show the tale:
Writing statistics, May 2026: Words: 11,363 Revising or planning:1,260 minutes. Daily Writing Goals Met: 69 percent.
Writing statistics, June 2026: Words: 2,431 Revising or planning:1,445 minutes. Daily Writing Goals Met: 87 percent.
Writing Statistics, first half of 2026: Words (total): 86,542 Words (avg.): 14,424 Revise/Plan (total): 3,335 min. Revise/Plan (avg.): 556 min. DWGM (avg.): 76%
Yes, absolutely horrific statistics for me considering the past several years of my work. How to explain this?
My main focus right now is a work in progress (WIP) I started on Halloween last year, a sci-fi environmental horror project set in a little Mississippi River town in Iowa, known as Shadows on the Mississippi. In the process of writing the book, I came to the realization that I have devoted far too much time to worldbuilding and minutiae and not enough on a propulsive story that might attract people. For the past several weeks, I have been performing major surgery on SOTM. I cut the first 57 pages down to a lean and mean 50-page, three-chapter opener I’m feeling much better about before. And I am now in the process of finishing up two things I think the rough draft (or SOTM 1.5, perhaps) require – a plausible threat that I won’t have to get into a massive amount of sci-fi research to pull off, and then taking a close look at the pacing of the book. If I want this to be a good horror, it needs to have good tension and pace.
World Cup 2026. Obviously, this has distracted me. I have to watch from home because I’m not going to take out a loan to get one World Cup ticket and have to travel all the way over to the West Coast to watch the US Men’s National Team play (I don’t have too much interest in seeing the other teams live). I’ve been privileged to already watch the USMNT play in person before, so that’s already off my bucket list. I’m definitely distracted, especially with the US about to play Belgium this coming Monday.
Some personal realizations about my writing in general are leading me to question not only how I put together my work, but how I deal with people generally. I should keep vague on this until I have some clarity on this, but rest assured I am not in danger or in any particular harm. In some ways, I have to learn how to write again, or concentrate on what I need to concentrate on.
Well, that’s about all I want to get into for now. This is the closest I’ve come to writing an Iowan Stephen King story. If I give it the attention it deserves, I won’t. I can’t wait to share it with you.
Have a good week everyone, and all you writers keep writing. Hopefully I show up next week as I normally schedule.
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.
Told you last week I was nervous about not making my writing goal this year of 230,000 words in 2026.
This week … I’m not so nervous.
That’s because there’s times when pure word count is not indicative, necessarily, of progress in your writing. And there’s one thing now I want to do that goes beyond just writing random words – it’s finishing a certain book I’ve had nagging at me for a while. And I want to make sure this book gets finished, because I think it’s the key to where my head is at right now and, in more than a little way, where my home is at, as well.
So, the (pathetic, I know) numbers for last week:
Writing statistics for the week ending 23 May 2026: Words: 715 Days writing: 2 of 7. Days revising or planning: 7 of 7 for 480 minutes. Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 7 of 7 days.
So, a little more than a tenth of an expected 5,000 words a week is not good, data-wise. But, I have bigger fish than simply just writing.
My main focus right now is a work in progress (WIP) I started on Halloween last year, a sci-fi environmental horror project set in a little Mississippi River town in Iowa, known as Shadows on the Mississippi.
I’ve been shaving that manuscript down, keeping it lean and mean, keeping the story humming along. I’m … not fully satisfied with my first 50 pages, but it feels tight enough to get attention from first-time readers … and that’s what I want. I want it to move and groove, and I think … it might be on it’s way. Not perfect, but closer to the honed and polished product.
The reason is, I’ve been thinking long and hard about worldbuilding and not getting into the action enough. And I had a bad feeling the action was dragging too much. I wanted the first 50 pages of my book to be moving and grooving. Have I gotten it there? Well, I think I got a lot closer to it, and I managed to fit the first three chapters into 50 pages rather than 57 pages, which I think is a massive improvement.
I want SOTM to grab the attention of readers, a real rush of a story that screws up some minds. I think my wavelength is on the right path. This is the closest I’ve come to writing an Iowan Stephen King story. I’f I give it the attention it deserves, I won’t. I’m having so much fun with this story, family. I can’t wait to share it with you.
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.
For the first time this year, I’m facing the possibility that I might not make my writing goal this year.
And right now … I’m at peace with it. Not because I’m accepting failure, but I think it’s because my priorities have changed halfway through the year.
So, the numbers for last week:
Writing statistics for the week ending 16 May 2026: Words: 2,887 Days writing: 7 of 7. Days revising or planning: 5 of 7 for 450 minutes. Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 7 of 7 days.
Again, for someone who was hoping to get up to 5,000 words a week, that’s … weak. But I think I know why it’s been slow. It’s because I’ve been busy with revisions.
Those are related to my main work in progress (WIP) I started on Halloween last year, the sci-fi environmental horror project set in a little Mississippi River town in Iowa, known as Shadows on the Mississippi.
When I started last week, I was over 50,000 words on the rough draft of the project. As I now write this, I’m back to 47,618 words, and I couldn’t be happier.
The reason is, I’ve been thinking long and hard about worldbuilding and not getting into the action enough. And I had a bad feeling the action was dragging too much. I wanted the first 50 pages of my book to be moving and grooving. Have I gotten it there? Well, I think I got a lot closer to it, and I managed to fit the first three chapters into 50 pages rather than 57 pages, which I think is a massive improvement.
I want SOTM to be something that’s going to grab the attention of readers, a real rush of a story. This is the closest I’ve come to writing an Iowan Stephen King story. I don’t want to screw it up. If I give it the attention it deserves, I won’t.
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.
Well, it wasn’t the worst week I ever had, but considering the pace I’m trying to set, it was nowhere near what I wanted it to be.
I’m getting into the strange section of my new work in progress (WIP), where I might need to start trimming words from it to speed up the action. Which might mean I have to get going on other projects as well to keep up my full productivity.
The numbers for last week:
Writing statistics for the week ending 9 May 2026: Words: 3,846 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): 5 of 7 days.
I thought I did a lot better until I totaled up the numbers, but to be fair there was a mini-slump during the first two days of last week that explains it. If I did just as well with the first two days as I did the last five, I might have been pushing 5,000 words for the week.
As I mentioned in my May newsletter here, I’ve now given the WIP I started on Halloween last year, the sci-fi environmental horror project set in a little Mississippi River town in Iowa, the official title of Shadows on the Mississippi.
Now that I’m over 50,000 words on the project, it has too much momentum to stop.
Since I was worried I spent so much time thinking about the setting and worldbuilding in the first run, I’m adding a new opening that I think moves the plot and characterization along at a bit brisker pace. I need to make the first 50 pages something that hooks in readers.
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.
Well, I had a decent week and a great month – actually, the most productive month I’ve had this year. So, why am I still feeling uneasy?
I’m getting the feeling it goes beyond numbers and stats. But that might be a whole different discussion or post.
The numbers for last week and last month:
Writing statistics for the week ending 6 May 2026: Words: 4,472 Days writing: 6 of 7. Days revising or planning: 1 of 7 for 120 minutes. Daily Writing Goals Met (500+ words or 30 minutes of planning/revisions): 6 of 7 days.
Writing statistics for April 2026: Words: 22,539 Revising/planning: 180 minutes. DWGM: 89%
The week’s production was so-so, this month was fantastic.
I’m in a slight bit of a funk regarding my writing, for reasons that are perhaps best stated in another post. Let’s just say I have been truly giving my writing a critical eye, both past and present work, and I haven’t always liked what I see. In short, I’ve given a bit more focus on things that perhaps were not important, but it’s something I think I can fix.
I’ve yet to release my May newsletter here, but I’ve now given the work in progress I started on Halloween last year, the sci-fi environmental horror project set in a little Mississippi River town in Iowa with the working title of The Land, The River, and The Waste, a brand new title. It will be known as Shadows on the Mississippi.
I’m now past the 46,000-word mark now. I think one of the issues I’ve had with this project is I spent so much time thinking about the setting and worldbuilding that I neglected characterization and plot. Well, it’s back to the drawing board for this. I need to make the first 50 pages something that hooks in readers.
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.
Bad news, I had another sub-par productive week last week. Good news is, I wrapped this journal up to get it done on time like I should have been doing for the past couple weeks.
The numbers:
Writing statistics for the week ending 25 April 2026: Words: 3,523 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): 5 of 7 days.
Underwhelming since I’m hoping for a minimum of 4,500 words per week and really should try to hit a 5,000 word pace at the moment since I’m trying to catch up to my eventual goal of 225,000-230,000 words for all of 2026.
I’m feeling slightly better about my efforts to complete a rough draft of a sci-fi environmental horror project with the working title of The Land, The River, and The Waste, set in a little Mississippi River town in Iowa. I’m now past the 45,000-word mark now. It would be great if I could finish it by Halloween of this year, which would be exactly a year after I started writing it. Then, the plan’s to publish it sometime in the first part of 2027 (even if that’s more May than January 😂. I’m looking forward to sharing it with everyone.
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.
Again, I’m apologizing for putting this out late Wednesday rather than earlier in the day. It’s getting harder to stick to a schedule for publication around here.
And I know I haven’t been publishing as much for you here in recent weeks, that’s for sure. But I’ll get into that below.
My total for last week:
Writing statistics for the week ending 18 April 2026: Words: 5.040 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): 6 of 7 days.
Anytime I’m at 5,000 words is a good thing for my eventual goal of 225,000-230,000 words for all of 2026. However, for the first time in a while, I might be thinking of a different goal as my priority, even if the word count goal might at least help me get to the next one.
I’m trying to get a rough draft done of this sci-fi environmental horror project with the working title of The Land, The River, and The Waste, set in a little Mississippi River town in Iowa. I’m past the 40,000-word mark now. I want to have the rough draft done by Halloween of this year, or at the very latest by Christmas. I want this book to be published by the first part of 2027, whatever that takes. I think it’s too interesting of a story to keep to myself.
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.
If anyone was waiting for this, sorry but I flaked out because I essentially had some community meetings and a writing group I attended the other night so this is a bit late.
My modest total for last week:
Writing statistics for the week ending 11 April 2026: Words: 4,113 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): 7 of 7 days.
I don’t like that I didn’t get up to about 5,000 words, which is the pace I really need to hit if I want to make up the pace I needed to get to 230,000 by the end of 2026, or even match last year’s total of 225,000 (either fiction or nonfiction). As of the end of March, I was at least 6-7,000 words behind where I needed to be to be at that pace.
This past week, I put out the second part of a short story turned novella: what if the plot to kill Lincoln not only failed worse than it actually did, but if the United States discovered the Confederacy had provided more direct assistance than was thought to be the case in real life? I’ll hold off working on it more because I have some blog posts to get done, but the next two parts will be up in a while.
I’ve also made more progress, finally, on my sci-fi environmental horror project with the working title of The Land, The River, and The Waste, (I am so superstitious about revealing a real title until I am closer to publishing), set in a little Mississippi River town in Iowa. I’m deep into the third reveal in the book which will raise the personal stakes for my characters after it hits them on a personal level. It’s a big mess in the best way.
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.
I was stuck hard on what I wanted to write about tonight. It’s been a while since I did a new fiction piece here. I’ve been focused on my longer work for a while, and I would say short fiction is firmly #3 on my priority list (with #1 being novel-length fiction and #2 being poetry1.
However, a friend of mine I know of from Archive of Our Own, one of the bigger fan fiction sites out there, wrote a bit of alternative history fiction for the site. I’ve liked the alternative history genre, so I decided to use one of the biggest events of American history as the inspiration for this piece.
I hope you enjoy it. And as the title suggests, this is only the first part of the story.
From Abraham Lincoln: Second Father of His Country (Andrew R. Roberts, 1982).
Abraham Lincoln sits astride the history of the 19th century as, if not its most significant figure, certainly its most significant political figure. While his two terms in office did not see Lincoln make a significant direct impact on foreign affairs, he was the essential figure in not only preserving the only eight decades-old American democratic experiment, but in refining and strengthening that experiment for a century and more to come.
While F. Scott Fitzgerald said there were no second acts in American lives, he inexplicably must not have considered the life of Lincoln before committing the thought to paper. For Lincoln had a second act nearly as comparable to the first after he left the White House in the winter of 1869 (or perhaps a third act, if one was to consider his time spent as a successful Illinois traveling lawyer and a less successful time spent as a politician).
However, it’s almost staggering to consider this second act, and a good portion of the first act, almost was lost from history due to a twist of fate. While the attempted assassinations of four key figures of the United States government had a profound influence on subsequent events in post-Civil War America, one can only consider the resulting chaos if the Confederate conspirators had succeeded with their plans of 14 April 1865.
This sense of disconcertion increases, of course, when considering the only difference between a fresh start for the United States of America and chaos were a few liters of hard liquor.
13 April 1865, Washington, DC
It was around noon that day when John Wilkes Booth had tumbled out of his bed in the boarding room he called his living space and headed over to Ford’s Theater. He’d worked so often at the venue that he even had his mail delivered there.
Much was on Booth’s mind on the thirteenth of April, the culmination of a conspiracy at that point nearly two years in the making. However, a series of recent events had dramatically altered the nature of the plans against the American president from mere kidnapping to assassination.
Just two days previously, Booth, alongside his confidant and former Confederate soldier Lewis Powell, had attended a speech given by the president in Washington. It was on this occasion Lincoln had spoken of the need to give slaves now emancipated by either the Emancipation Proclamation or the Thirteenth Amendment to the First Constitution the right to vote.
Enraged, Booth turned to Powell and hissed, “That means n****r citizenship … That is the last speech he will ever give.”
He then urged Powell to immediately shoot Lincoln. It is unknown exactly why he did not simply make the attempt himself, whether it had to do with him not being armed at that time or that he considered Powell to be a better marksman than himself. However, Powell, too, begged off the attempt, worried about escaping from the crowd after the attack.
The next day, word of the surrender of Gen. Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia three days hit the city. With Lee’s surrender, the capture of the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, and the flight of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his government from Richmond and toward exile, most observers considered the matter of the Southern rebellion all but closed.
For Booth, however, he felt there was one last hand to be played. General Joseph E. Johnson and his men were still at large somewhere between northern Virginia and the Carolinas, and other forces still not surrendered. And at Ford’s Theater on that day, the card dealer of the universe dealt Booth three aces.
It was at the theater that Booth overheard preparations being made for Lincoln, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, overall commander of United States’ ground forces, and their wives to attend the next evening’s performance of Our American Cousin. It was a perfect opportunity for him to make his move.
That evening, Booth gathered his conspirators at the boarding house of Mary Surratt, their regular gathering place. As well as Booth, the crew included Lewis Powell, Powell’s fellow Confederate veteran Samuel Arnold, Surratt’s son John, a Confederate spy, David Herold, and George Atzerodt. All has been willing to undertake the kidnapping scheme, and now, with their beloved Confederacy on the brink of collapse, were now willing to undertake assassination.
And not merely a single assassination, either. It was clear to Booth the entire Union political and military leadership needed to be attacked if there was any hope of turning the inevitable tide.
With this in mind, Booth gave himself the task of entering the theater and then assassinating first Lincoln and then Grant as they watched the play. With his status as an actor who’d performed at Ford’s previously, he would have the least difficulty of gaining entrance to the theater and getting close to Lincoln and his party. Arnold would accompany him, wait outside, and then serve as a backup in case either Lincoln or Grant were able to escape the theater unharmed.
Meanwhile, Powell, accompanied by Herold, would go to the home of Secretary of State William Seward, the most prominent member of Lincoln’s cabinet, to assassinate him. Finally, Atzerodt would go to the Washington residence of Vice President Andrew Johnson and end his life.
John Surratt would be responsible for arranging funds and papers for the conspirators after the assassinations, to avoid the inevitable hunt by Federal authorities. Surratt and Powell’s connections to the Confederate Secret Service extended all the way to one man: Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg, the former commander of the Army of the Tennessee and former chief military adviser to Jefferson Davis himself. Long disgraced in field command for his failures at Perryville, Stones River, and Chattanooga, his close friend Davis had given him the face-saving position of military adviser, but he’d been eased out of even this position with the naming of Robert E. Lee as the overall Confederate commander and the installation of one of Bragg’s multiple enemies, John C. Breckinridge, as Secretary of War.
Eager to prove his worth to his friend Davis, he began to involve himself in the plots to kidnap Lincoln, even going so far as to siphon funds away from the defense of Richmond to help pay the expenses of the conspirators.
Both Davis and Lee were aware of Bragg’s machinations. Davis was in favor of anything that would preserve the Confederacy, so he gave his unqualified assent to Bragg’s efforts. Lee was not as accepting of Bragg’s efforts as Davis, and informed the president of his misgivings, but in the end he did nothing to stop or hinder the efforts of the conspirators. Having limited dealings with subterfuge, Lee deferred whatever misgivings he had to his president’s judgement, right or wrong.
It would prove to be a fateful decision among all three men.
14 April 1865, Washington, DC
John Wilkes Booth
He was alone in the tavern at noon except for a few derelicts, the barkeep, and a glass with a whiskey bottle in front of him.
Anything to chase away the blues.
Over the past three days, his mood had veered from manic excitement to deep depression, from a knife-point focus to a scattered hopelessness. There were times when he vibrated with energy and purpose, certain that he and his co-conspirators were the only defense against losing the Southern way of life. But there were other times, more frequently now, where he sensed everything was lost.
He refilled his glass and took another shot. Regardless of whether he could save the Confederacy or it was beyond help, he felt in some ways he’d reached the end of his road at just twenty-seven years old. He’d been part of a storied acting family and had found both fame and fortune on the stage. However, he hadn’t stepped on a stage for a month and had no desire to. He’d joked to one of the borders at the Surratt house who’d asked about his absence that the only play he wished to star in was Venice Preserv’d. The man missed his attempt at humor – the play was about an assassination plot.
There was a letter in his coat pocket addressed to Lucy Hale, daughter of a US Senator from New Hampshire. They’d been secretly engaged two months previously. She had little knowledge of his support of the Confederacy and none of the depths of his hatred toward Lincoln.
He’d last seen her at Lincoln’s second inauguration last month. The last letter he’d sent her was at the end of the previous month. He was already mourning the loss of his love, just as he mourned the estrangement from his brother and fellow actor Edwin.
Even if he and his collaborators fully succeeded in their plans, at the very least they would all be on the run, If they were lucky they might be able to make it to overseas, maybe Mexico, the Caribbean, or Brazil. They even still had slavery in the last country. If not, perhaps Britain would give them asylum, or at worst look the other way. The worse scenario, of course, was him getting shot right after he shot the president and Grant. In any case, the well-crafted life and career he’d built over the past decade would be blown to pieces, at the very least.
He’d been preparing himself for the event for some time. He already had the derringer and dagger he planned to use on the president and Grant. But now, just hours before Our American Cousin was to start, he found preparing himself mentally for the task was, to use an analogy, a long leap.
He started at the bottle. He’d not slept, by his own reckoning, for a day and a half. With a deep sigh, he fumbled for some coins and bought a second whiskey bottle to take with him along with the half-filled first one. His intention was to go back to his room, get a drink, lay down for a few hours and wake up refreshed for the task ahead.
He managed to consume two-thirds of one bottle before passing out.
Arnold
He was in a bar he frequented many times in recent months, not to drink but to listen. It was a haunt of many of General Grant’s junior staff officers, and Arnold made a point of trying to unobtrusively listen in to the Union men’s conversations. He’d hoped to get a meal and perhaps some new information to pass along to his Confederate handlers, assuming they were still able to receive information while on the run from Union soldiers.
“…damndest thing, having to make plans for the old man to travel at the last minute,” he heard one young lieutenant say.
“Wasn’t he going to the theater tonight with the President?” a fellow lieutenant said.
“They said they had to visit some of Mrs. Grant’s relations, but in all frankness, I don’t know if the wives get on.”
“The number of people on friendly terms with the First Lady might be counted in two hands,” the second lieutenant said.
“Anyway, they’re on the train to New Jersey tonight. Place will be quiet the next couple of days.”
It took every amount of restraint for Arnold to finish his meal and his pint of beer and not immediately take his leave. His mind was racing, however.
Booth planned to kill both Lincoln and Grant but now it will be just Lincoln. I could either go wait for Booth as planned. But wouldn’t it make sense for me to try and see if I can get the drop on Grant? By himself, Grant might be enough to hold things together. And Booth should be able to get into Ford’s unaided, which is more than I could do.
In fifteen minutes, by the time he finally took his leave, Arnold had made his decision. Fingering the loaded pepperbox revolver he had in his coat pocket, he started to walk over to the New Jersey Avenue station to see when the next train to Jersey left.
#
Just before 10 p.m. that evening outside William Seward’s Lafayette Square home, Lewis Powell entered the home, attempting to claim he was delivering medicine to the Secretary of State, recovering from a fall from a carriage. Herold waited outside.
At the same moment, George Atzerodt went to the Kirkwood House, where Vice President Andrew Johnson was staying. Atzerodt stopped at the downstairs bar and had the first of several glasses of gin.
#
Arnold had found out the train to New Jersey was leaving at 10:15 p.m. The station was close to empty except for a few travelers, more than a couple of whom were soldiers apparently headed off on leave. He hid in the shadows behind a brick column on the train platform, his Colt Walker pistol drawn but hidden behind his back.
He saw a man and woman headed for the platform, the man in an officer’s overcoat and hat, and a dark-haired woman in a gray dressed who, to his surprise, appeared to be cross-eyed.
The lit end of a cigar illuminated the man’s face as they walked past him. Grant.
He waited until they walked past him, then eased behind the man, as soft-footed as possible. Arnold brought the revolver up to the back of Grant’s head. The first click of the gun cocking echoed across the platform.
Suddenly, the shorter man whirled to the right and Arnold could hear the scrape of steel. The general’s dress saber flashed through the air and struck his forearm, but the blade was at an uneven angle and did not cut deep. Regardless, it spoiled Arnold’s shot.
The ball whizzed between Grant and the woman’s heads, splintering the side of a nearby train car. Despite the ache in his arm, he tried to cock the revolver again for another shot.
With a lunge, Grant drove the point of his saber in the center of his gut. Gasping for breath, Arnold was driven to the ground by the older man.
Leaping up, Grant sprinted to the woman. “Julia! Julia! Are you all right?” He wrapped his arms around her shoulder as she knelt on the ground.
“I’m all right, Ulysses,” she whispered, choking back a sob. “I’m fine.”
It started getting darker for Arnold. Grant then knelt over him. “Who are you?” he shouted. “Who sent you? Who sent you?”
He couldn’t catch his breath. With a gasp, Arnold said, “You’re too late. The Illinois ape’s dead.”
His consciousness faded to black.
#
The screams from Seward’s house frightened Herold from tarrying around outside. A bloodied and manic Powell fled outside through the front door and exited into the night.
Atzerodt left the Kirkwood House without seeking out Johnson at all.
Booth still slept.
15 April 1865
Booth
It was morning. Oh my God, it’s morning.
Booth had fallen asleep on top of his bed. It’s morning? What happened? Damn me, I know what happened.
He ran out of the room and the house after gathering what money he had and a suitcase with some random clothing. Booth started to make his way to the train station.
At the first streetcorner, he saw a paperboy hawking the morning papers. He gave the boy a penny, walked down the streets, and gawked at the headlines:
ASSASSINS IN WASHINGTON
GRANT, SEWARD ESCAPE DEATH; SEWARD, SONS WOUNDED
PRESIDENT LINCOLN SUSPECTED TARGET
As he walked rapidly to the station, one thought came to mind: All is lost.
The White House
A young man approached one of the sentries on duty at the north side of the residence. “Excuse me, sergeant?”
“What’s your business?”
“My name’s John Surratt,” the man said. “I have information regarding the attacks on Gen. Grant and Sec. Seward.”
July 1865
Old Capitol Prison, Washington, DC
He walked through the gates with barely a word. He let Col. Rawlins and the three stars on each of his shoulders do the talking.
The orderlies led him to the door of the cell and unlocked it for him.
Lt. Gen. James Longstreet sat in a wooden chair at a dining table, staring through the barred window to the outside. There was a writing desk in one corner, a washbasin in another corner, and a modest cot on the other side of the room.
Dressed in a clean Confederate officer’s uniform, Grant’s former West Point classmate appeared paler than he recalled, but the bigger man’s hair and bushy beard reaching to his chest appeared well-groomed. He saw him pick up his right arm by the wrist and lay it down on the table with his left, and Grant remembered the wound from Petersburg.
“Afternoon, Sam,” Longstreet said. “Here to visit?”
“Actually, I am, Pete. I am,” Grant said.
Pete waved to a wooden chair on the other side of the table. “Make yourself comfortable.”
Grant nodded and sat down. “How have things been with you?”
Longstreet crossed his legs at the ankles as he leaned back and sighed. “In all truth, I would prefer to be back with my wife and children, but I cannot complain about the circumstances of my captivity. I doubt our troops in Camp Douglas had access to coffee,” he concluded, nodding at the tin mug of now-cold coffee on the table. He referred to an infamous camp for Confederate prisoners.
“Glad to hear it, Pete.”
“I’m assuming you had news for me, Sam? You didn’t want to share this with my counselor?”
“This news, I reckon, needed to be given in person.”
Longstreet fixed Grant with a dark stare. “Who’s getting hung, Sam?”
“Davis, Lee, and Bragg. Bragg for arranging it, Davis and Lee for agreeing to it.”
“Gen. Lee never agreed to anyone being assassinated, Sam.”
“He never objected, either, and he had the ability to stop it.” Grant’s expression twisted as if he was in pain. “All the living conspirators captured, of course: Booth, Powell, Herold, Atzerodt.”
“Not the Surratts, according to what I read in the papers?”
“Young Mr. Surratt gave us Davis, Lee, and Bragg in exchange for not charging his mother and leniency for himself – five years imprisonment.”
“Anyone else facing the noose?”
“Some for charges not related to the conspiracy. Gen. Forrest and some of his men have been charged in connection with the murder of Negro prisoners after Fort Pillow. The Swiss colonel in charge of Andersonville in Georgia and his men, too.”
“Maybe you should bring up the commandant of Camp Douglas up on charges, as well.”
“Turns out that possibility is being considered.”
There was a small quiver in Longstreet’s voice. “Am I under consideration?”
“No hanging. There’s a … consensus that those academy graduates who left the US forces to join the Confederacy deserve prison time.”
“Hell of a thing to be going back on your word you gave at Appomattox.”
“I didn’t know there were people hunting for me and my president when I gave that word. It would have been neighborly for Gen. Lee to have given me fair warning about it at the time.”
“I knew nothing about it.”
“And that’s why you’re not getting hung,” Grant shot back. “Those bastards came within an inch of murdering my wife! Every other night I have visions of her getting shot in the chest and having to explain to my children why their mother can’t be with them. Pete, nothing ever shook me like this, not Mexico, not Tennessee, Mississippi, or Virginia. Nothing.”
There was a long silence between them. “How long for me?”
“No more than five years, though even now the president is looking to reduce sentences and I’m putting in a word for you. Voting rights restored after your release, but you’ll be prevented from holding elected office. The enlisted men, the non-commissioned officers, they’ll be left alone. But there has to be a price paid for going against your oath.”
Longstreet gazed out through the window, a blank expression on his face. “Any other surprises?
“The old man’s pushing through a land reform act, breaking up the big plantations, trying to get some of the land to the former slaves.”
“How in the hell is he going to get support for that?” Longstreet scoffed.
“He’s planning on including the white sharecroppers in on the deal, at least a good portion of them,” Grant responded.
Longstreet had a good laugh at that. “Probably a good thing I never got into the plantation business, then.”
“You want to see if I can get you and myself some fresh coffee, Pete?”
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’m a bit embarrassed to admit I totally forgot to put out a writing journal for last week (or much of anything else) this past couple of weeks. Call it flaking out over the Easter weekend, call it procrastination with wanting to repost here from my other sites, but it meant there wasn’t a lot on here for what appears to be two weeks. As you might suspect, my writing stats for the past few months has not been the best, but they have been pretty good for the last two weeks.
So, let’s talk about the numbers for the past two weeks and for March overall, :
Writing statistics for the week ending 28 March 2026: Words: 5.042 Days writing: 6 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.
Writing statistics for the week ending 4 April 2026: Words: 5,391 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.
Writing statistics for March 2026: Words: 16,915 Revise/Plan: 90 minutes DWGM: 75%
So, looking good for the past two weeks, and as for the month … better than February, but that’s not saying much in all honesty.
The Year so Far
In fact, if I’m really being honest … the numbers … aren’t really the best at the moment.
Since I had reached 225,000 words written last year (both fiction and nonfiction), I decided I would try to at least equal that total and perhaps even bump it up to 230,000. If I was on track to write 225,000 or 230,000 words, I’d have written between 56,000 or 57,000 words in the first three months of 2026.
My current total for 2026 so far, as of the end of March? 50,209 words.
While that is not nothing by any means, it is nowhere near where I want to be at this point. I had one incredible month of writing (January), one horrific month (February) and one month I missed my target by about 2,000 words (March).
Why, then, have I gotten to this point?
In the end, I think it’s pretty simple. I’ve spent too much time staring at screens other than the ones I’m using to write my stories. I’ve allowed myself to get distracted. No, scratch that – I’ve distracted myself with almost anything other than writing. Also, I’m trying to jump start my main long fiction project I’m hoping I will have a completed rough draft by the end of the year.
The only thing I can do right now is start kicking things into high gear. I’m a long ways away from giving up on my goal, both regarding wordcount and also getting my projects completed. If I manage to get moving this month, I’ll let you know what turned it around for me.
This past couple of weeks, I’ve gotten obsessed with a short story turned novella that is an alternative history story: what if the plot to kill Lincoln not only failed worse than it actually did, but if the United States discovered the Confederacy had provided more direct assistance than was thought to be the case in real life.
I was inspired to write the story after a friend of mine who is on Archive of Our Own, one of the biggest fan fiction sites online, who is writing an intriguing alt history piece involving the Byzantine Empire and Persia, among other locations. I wasn’t even aware you could do alt history pieces there. (I have written fan fiction there myself before). So, my thoughts turned to Lincoln, at least slightly inspired by recent questions of constitutional practices.
It will be a four-part series of four short stories, set between 1865 and 1884. The first part of the story will post here this Friday. The other three will be coming in the next couple months as well.
I also want to get back on track with my sci-fi environmental horror project with the working title of The Land, The River, and The Waste, (I am so superstitious about revealing a real title until I am closer to publishing), set in a little Mississippi River town in Iowa. I’m in the process of writing the second of three big reveals intended to ratchet up the tension in the story. I’ve got an idea for the third reveal that has Stephen King’s fingerprints all over it. I’m looking forward to kicking that into high gear.
Have a good week everyone, and all you writers keep writing.
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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.
