JANUARY 2026

January is always a weird month, right?
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Licking financial wounds post-Christmas, shrugging off the perpetual holiday spirit and moving past romantic ideals of the new year and what it promises, embracing that, instead of existing in some sort of post-holiday holding pattern, it is simply…January. A month that can, for many, feel like it lasts a million weeks—before February crashes in and fucks off within the blink of an eye.
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Time is wild, eh?
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This month saw quite a few writerly updates. It’s funny, sometimes it feels like nothing is happening at all until I sit down to write The Recap, and only then do I see all the composite pieces come together to create that broader tapestry.
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But with my Hark! The Fallen Angels Scream journey now done and dusted (and available to you as a Recap exclusive for signing up!), what’s next? There’s been some downtime now—though a lot of it feels like it’s been frittered away on small, inane tastes that somehow took all my time away from the things I wanted to do—and so I inevitably turn to the horizon and what awaits…

All Things Change…
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​With one project done, that surely means another is in the works, right?
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Right.
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I received the edited manuscript for Evolution, the second book in my Ultraverse series, and, following a few exchanges with my editor, have spent January preparing to dive into this edit. We had a few illuminating conversations based on his observations and feedback, and I’m grateful to have an editor who is comfortable and confident enough to be honest about what he liked and, I suppose, more importantly, what he didn’t.
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Can I pretend that if he doesn’t say anything about something, it means he loved it? I’m sure that’s what it equates to…
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There were a few character points he wanted to bring up with a couple of the core cast that I felt were really insightful, with feedback that immediately had me nodding along, understanding where he was coming from. I wasn’t interested in fighting that feeling, hiding behind ego to resist and protect my precious, perfect writing. No, my creative core was telling me he was onto something.
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Thankfully, it didn’t take long to draft up my fixes and send them over. Even better? He liked every suggestion. And the end result? Hopefully, a deeper, more layered and textured story for you to enjoy when it arrives.
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Until then, why not pick up a copy of the first Ultraverse novel, Temporary, and read through Shell (another Recap-exclusive short story alongside H!TFAS) to either refresh your memory or meet these heroes for the first time!
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​What a Con
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​January brought with it a mini brainwave when thinking on future plans (it happens on occasion). I had a thought, and that thought turned to excitement, and that excitement turned to research—research that fell to the wayside somewhat due to a few real-life medical events occurring and the ramping up of Evolution edits. But, that being said, I still want to share this brainwave with you as I think it’s a fun, logical next step for myself and my indie writing efforts: I want to start attending conventions.
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Sales have been slow recently, though KDP is a minor boon, and I’ve been thinking of different ideas of how to garner more sales and/or attention and momentum as an author.
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My answer? Attend (potentially expensive) conventions, book (possibly high-costing) tables, and bring my books directly to the (perhaps disinterested) people!
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Now, I tend to like my space, and my social battery can drain pretty quickly, but I’ve always had a soft spot for conventions. I don’t know why. It’s a weird, contradictory truth about how I am. And, truth be told, attending as a seller has been something that has interested me for a while, primarily because I’m confident that the majority of attendees are directly in the wheelhouse for at least one or all of my books, which is an interesting marketing dimension for a multi-genre author such as myself.
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Superhero fans? No doubt they’ll be at a comic or geek convention.
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Demon and/or fans of the supernatural? All those Buffy and Supernatural fans under one roof? Let’s talk. I’d like you to meet Steen.
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Into The Last of Us and other dystopian fiction like that? Have I got a book for you! (Burden. It’s Burden.)
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It’s an intimidating proposition—from a sales, energy, and financial standpoint—but I think it could, at the very least, be a lot of fun.
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Loose, ethereal plans are in place, but I want to do things as if I were in a small indie band: start small, local, then expand if/when it feels right to do so. Ultimately, I’m hoping it will lead to some cool opportunities to travel to different parts of the country, attend cons, meet readers, and maybe even be on a panel or two!
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I’ve even designed some bookmarks as freebies for anyone buying a book. Having attended enough cons, travelling up and down the Writers Blocks of it all, I know people love free shit—and bookmarks always seem to be a big hit for potential readers. So, bookmarks it is.
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Here is my super professional, not at all printed on a crappy printer and glued together with my son’s Pritt stick, prototype:
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A Winter Burden
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​But marketing isn’t only done in face-to-face exchanges that haven’t happened yet. No, there’s plenty of invisible online advertising to get to grips with, too.
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I've shared my journey in learning Meta ads and running some campaigns for Steen during spooky season, but now we’re past that, I’ve been wondering how to boost sales for Burden—a story I genuinely love and am still immensely proud of, even if sales have been soft since it released last May.
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It's been mentioned before, but the indie model is incredibly ‘pay to play’ regardless of the creative medium, and I have no doubt there are some absolute gems out there that don’t get any attention because the creators don’t have funds to market them…but I’ve saved up a bit, squirrelled away some cash, and am once again going to put my money where my mouth is. I may have missed the cold, desolate weeks of January (a great time for a bleak story such as Burden), but, well, if the original TLoU can come out in June and The Road released in November, I guess there’s not really a specific ‘time period’ for these kinds of darker stories—though January’s cold, cloudless, grey days are surely in the running for it.
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So this became a two-pronged attack: a Meta campaign to try and connect the book with its organic audience (fans of TLoU, The Road, The Walking Dead, Children of Men, etc.) and a For Fans Of video that featured clips of all the aforementioned titles that would be uploaded across my social media accounts (@stevetendo on most, in case you aren’t following me). If you are, chances are you’ve already seen the FFO video.
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But, yeah, with January ending and February in sight, I figured it was time to push Burden a bit and help the story connect with the right people. I hope it does. It deserves better than what it has enjoyed to date. But I, of course, may be biased…

Doing My Head In
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​I recently got a new pair of glasses. Now, my past few pairs were all purchased online, where I’ve never had an issue before. Who knows, maybe I was naive and just gutted out any discomfort until they finally warped around my basketball-like dome (there is a high possibility this is the case, by the way), but I’ve never had issues like with my current frames.
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The frames themselves (plain, black, slightly bigger than my previous pairs) do the trick, but the consistent clamp on the side of my head is anything but fun. Googling the issue brought up a quick resolution: take them to an optometrist for help. Most would be happy to help, Google said, even if the pair wasn’t bought from them. Apparently, the majority of optometrists would adjust them for free or a small fee to make a head stop feeling like it was being squeezed by The Great Khali.
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But, lo, in my experience trying to get help…Google lies.
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Everywhere I went (bar one, in fairness), people weren’t interested in helping at all, and those that did only did so begrudgingly and with unprofessional, unnecessary comment. I understood the potential break risk. It didn’t phase me. What bothered me was the persistent pinch, the headaches, and the nausea. Again, not so much with the fun.
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But the reality of it was snooty, arrogant, begrudging assistance, waving the frames for a few seconds under a heat source and barely doing anything before handing them back to me and asking if it had helped, before promptly telling me they wouldn’t try anymore for fear of breaking them.
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And I was thanking them for it, knowing full well they’d probably done little to nothing with them.
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FWIW, I ended up doing the DIY thing, keeping it punk rock as fuck. Worked out great despite all the warnings and scaremongering from Big Glasses and their propaganda bullshit.
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​Packing Up, Packing Down
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​I wrote last month about my parents moving away from the place they’ve called home for 26 years. Still a weird experience to have that fundamental, rooted anchor now in the process of such upheaval—and with that upheaval comes a perfect opportunity for them to expunge Young Steve/Teen Steve from under their roof once and for all!
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You see, in their attempts to downsize, sorting out all of the things they’ve accumulated over a lifetime in SE London, they are jettisoning my old belongings, gleefully returning them to me and demanding I take boxes and boxes of precious memories lest they end up in the dump somewhere.
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The only problem? We don’t have enough space in our own home for the influx of belongings! And so the Great Sort Out spills over into multiple households, its ripple effects felt by all as boxes are sifted through, memories are brought back to the surface, old scars are picked at, and the decision-making of whether something is worth keeping, discarding, or selling must be made.
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It’s not like I have a book to edit and cons to plan for.
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Honestly.
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It’s an odd feeling to suddenly receive so much stuff from my formative years. Things I haven’t seen in decades are suddenly rediscovered like an archaeological dig finding some cool trinket or document that is intrinsically connected to you, but not the ‘you’ you are now. Too much time has passed for that. It’s to the ‘you’ then. The one you can never be again. It’s like unearthing a time capsule filled with an unexpected collection that, at one point, meant something (if not the world) to ‘you’.
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But I need to be the one thing I tend to struggle with when it comes to sentimental and emotional attachment to objects: mercurial.
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I simply do not have the storage capacity to accommodate the boxes and collections of DVDs and CDs—things that probably hold no resale value and are now easily accessible in easier, more convenient ways. Though, yes, yes, I am aware of the current uptick and popularity in physical media ownership…and the idea of Austin flicking through my old CD collection, deciding to try one album or another, potentially discovering a new favourite band in doing so, is tempting…
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See! I’m already doing it! Dammit.
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But dreams and reality are often at odds with each other, and my current reality is one that cannot facilitate keeping everything.
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And so the Great Sort Out of 2026 begins.
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Wish this sympathetic, emotional author luck.

Getting Lost
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2004, man. A time when TV shows weren’t all wrapped up in 8-10 episodes, and it didn’t take…
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*checks notes*
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…10 years or so to tell a story across five seasons.
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Naming no names, of course. That would be a strange thing to do.
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What we did have, however, were monumental 22-24 episode seasons (with a lot of filler…so much filler…) and the ushering of a new form of epic television and long-form storytelling, starting, arguably, with one of the most important TV shows of the past few decades: Lost.
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Whether you liked, loved, or hated Lost, it’s unlikely that you have no opinion on it if you—like most of the world—tuned in to JJ Abrams ‘Mystery Box’ show.
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I know a lot of people felt let down by the ending, and more tell on themselves and their inability to critically dissect media by arguing “They were dead all along!” I’ve met enough people who try to trivialise Lost because of their disappointment in the ending and their confidently incorrect, false belief in a wrong theory (that has somehow taken deep root to the point most people accept it as default).
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​Getting Lost is a 2024 indie documentary exploring the development, pop cultural impact, and long-lasting legacy of the show, featuring interviews with some of the show’s most important writers, producers, directors, and actors.
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I was a huge fan of the show (still am despite my minor gripes with it) and have fond memories of trying to decipher meaning out of all the hints sprinkled throughout each episode. Lost began airing the September before I started university, studying Film & TV Production, no less, so I’m sure you can imagine just how insanely gripped the entire class was by the show and how its story unfolded. It was also the first show that Thea and I watched from beginning to end early on in our relationship, so Lost holds a lot of sentimental value to me.
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At the time of writing, you can catch this documentary (for free!) on Tubi in the United Kingdom. It’s well worth checking out and, frankly…going back to the Island one last time to wallow in its mysteries and reflect on its storytelling, success, and controversies, all whilst learning about the production process from those who were instrumental in shaping the show into the worldwide phenomenon it became.
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If you’re enjoying my books or The Recap, I’d love it if you'd recommend them to friends and family who might enjoy them too. Don't forget you can follow along on my socials for updates, and if you’d like to, you can even treat me to a cup of coffee on Ko-Fi.
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Take care, and all the best!