The Literary Street Team
with Drake The Duck Muse
Multi-Genre Author ~ Editor ~ Book Designer ~ Writing Coach
Drake has a fun game for 2026...
Story Hatching!
Every Saturday, Drake will post an Egg of Inspiration. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to Hatch a Story from the prompt!
It can be as long or as short as you like, and it's up to you whether or not you choose to share it in the comments section of our Facebook page.
We hope that this game will add a little encouragement for those days when you find yourself swimming in circles in the Pond of Creativity.
Have fun and Happy Writing!
THE CREATIVE POND UPDATE
A New Year, with New Perspectives,
and an Old Focus...
January 2026
Many humans, of every age, stage, and passion, choose to use the turning of a new page on the calendar as a signal for the declaration of goals, discovering new perspectives in understanding, and attending to their passions with a recharged energy and enthusiasm. Some call these ideas "resolutions" because they resolve to make a change... insisting that indeed, with the New Year, things will be different - all for the better. Sometimes we fail, sometimes we succeed... yet always, our intention is genuine.
This year, Drake and I are re-aligning our efforts not so much on the new, but the old. Lots of fun and excitement came our way during 2025, and we had a great time, but now it's time to slow down a little and refocus on those things we planned but either didn't make time for, or procrastinated to the back burner of "Eventually Land." In 2026, we're narrowing our focus to the things that matter most to us... continuing to serve our clients with the highest level of intengrity and attention, fulfilling the writing promises we've made to ourselves, and spending time with those souls we hold most dear.
What does this mean? Well, it means that the general public will be seeing a bit less of us in the new year. We're pulling back from sales events, and instead, spending more time in the editorial and writing chair. You'll still find us at a few fairs and festivals, but we plan on only a smattering of appearances; not more than six, for the entire year. Although we love seeing everyone and sharing our stories, we need a break from the high octane energy required for in-person events. We traveled to sixteen events last year, even one in South Carolina, and honestly, we're a little exhausted. So, the Event Calendar will be scaled back, dramatically. But to make up for it, we've put all our books on sale for just $10 each (plus a little bit for shipping), if you choose to buy direct from our website. Yes, the books will remain avilable on Amazon in both paperback and e-book... but if you would like signed copies, swim over to our Bookshop, and we'll take care of you.
Reducing our travel activities will give us more time and energy to focus on helping our editorial clients with fine-tuning their books as they prepare for publication. By spending fewer hours on the road, we open our calendar to welcome new-to-us authors as we help them trasfigure their hobby into a professional passion, and publish their books! This is something that really excites Drake and me. We love helping writers cajole and caress their words, paragraphs, and pages through the tremdously invigorating process of solving plot problems, sifting through character cunundroms, avoiding dialoge distractions, crafting scene secrets, and building narration nurances to create the stories, prose, and poetry they've been destined to write. We consider it a great honor that this is our vocational calling, and we are dedicated to helping as many writers as we can reach their dreams of publication. You pull it out of your soul and put it on the page. We're honored that you trust us with your work, and we regard it as sacred.
In the last several years, Drake and I have also facilitated the creation of nine Community Service Anthologies in cooperation with Pages Promotions, to benefit The Haley Sue Foundation and The World Literacy Foundation. The book we're working on now, which will be published in late January or early February of 2026, will be our tenth and last. Although we've loved putting these books together and giving authors a new platform from which to share their work, this part of our writing journey has come to an end. We are working with Pages Promotions and HB Ink to brainstorm new projects to take up in the new year... but we aren't sure what those will be just yet. We'll let you know when we figure it all out.
We published two books in 2025, Henry Hippo's New Home and Her Heartstone. We're thrilled that so many readers discovered these books and enjoyed them! However, by pulling back from traveling, it means we'll have more time and energy to work on publishing more books. Because our biggest priorities are now editing and writing, we anticipate that at least four new books will find their way to the completed catalogue. You'll see them on our website, on Amazon, as we publish them, and on the table at fairs and festivals in 2027 when we return to adventuring into the wilds!
We've been building quite a list of manuscripts over the last few years... each in a different genre. Many are sooo close to done, we just can't allow procrastination to win any longer. So, we're realigning our energy and infusing a new mantra of "Fac si facis." which is Latin for, "Do it if you are going to do it." It conveys resolve, urging decicive action rather than hesitation, half-measures, or empty intention; an encouragement to commit fully once a choice is made. Or in the vernacular of Yoda... "Do or Do Not, There Is No Try." Sure, we can learn a lot from trying... we can learn what skills we have honed to excellence and the areas we need to improve or the things we need to outright learn... but if we never complete the challenges we've set for ourselves, we will never embrace the elation that arrives with "Done." So we're going into a sort of "productivity hibernation" to get the things on that list to Done. Still, if you miss seeing our cute faces, you can find us every Monday night online, writing with the gang at Creative Slingers of Ink! Join us, it's fun!
And so, that's what Drake and I are commiting to in 2026... More Moments of Done!
Although of course, we will take notes when the ideas appear and squirrel them away for another day... you can't stop the Muse from doing what he does, after all. We are committed to focusing our attention the way ducks do... stay smooth on top, paddle like the devil underneath, and don't give up until you're Done. We will be patient, enthusiastic, and attentive; recharging with reading and spending time around the story circle with our closest friends, rather than becoming lost doom scrolling in the tide pools of social media or binging on the kelp of streaming procrastination. Some of our project goals are still lingering from last year, it's true... but with a realocation of time (and a wonderful new safe space from which to dive deep into the waters of creation) we think we'll come up with a more positive retrospective of our creativity come the end of 2026.
So, Let's Dive Into It!
January 2026
Publish Tears Remember: a Michigan Paranormal Novel. We got the notes back from our editor, and we've been focusing on getting it done. The edit pass included a complete redesign of the book's structure, moving chapters to more intelligent places to build a more cohesive storyline, and adding transitions and dialogue to strengthen the unique qualities of the characters and timeline. It's amazing how our editor can see things we can't... which is, of course, why we work with her and never edit our own work. Every book is better for her suggestions. But, since the book is almost a full rewrite at this stage, it's taking longer to finish it. The goal is to release it in time for the Spring boating and lighthouse season, but it might take longer than that. It all depends on how much time we can devote to writing and how cooperative the characters are as we write. We will let you know as time draws near to a press date. We're hoping for a Spring Book Launch at various lighthouses around Michigan... we'll keep you updated as time draws nearer.
Complete and Publish Splash: a Flash Fiction Collection. Drake is insistent about finishing up the collection of Flash Fiction stories he's been working on this year, derived from about 200 prompts he's collected over the last three years. He keeps telling me that Flash is easy because each story is so short. Clearly, he's the idea duck and not the editor! He wants us to release it in February or March... we'll see.
Complete & Publish Splinters: a Western Novel. This book is about 70% complete. There are a few key scenes we need to flesh out, and a bit of dialogue to add... but it's so close, we can almost smell it! The goal is to have it released in early summer, hopefully in time for my birthday in June. But that all depends on how focused we can keep Drake's little flippers. We're planning a Writing Field Trip to Greenfield Village in mid-Spring, and with all that inspiration, we should be able to finish a good chunk of the manuscript and get it ready to send to our editor. We know there is at least one enthusiastic reader out there who has been very patient, waiting almost five years for this one's release, and we're working hard to make this is a priority!
Complete & Publish Anonymous: a Suspense Crime Novella. There are a lot of layers to a story written in second person POV, and this project is taking longer than we ever expected it would. Novellas are supposed to be easier because their shorter, right? But... Drake can't seem to do anything the easy way. Even though it's a novella with only five characters, writing in this style is incredibly complicated and intellectually exhasting. So, even though we're committed to not abandoning the story, it will take a bit longer to complete. At this point, a realistic release date is Autumn 2026. Yes, this is a daunting project... Drake can be a little ambitious sometimes, but I don't mind. Stretching our craft is how we get better. So, check back every once in a while for updates.
Complete The Trial of Snow White: a Fractured Fairy Tale. This one is actually moving along well. We have the foundation finished and several key scenes. Now, it's a matter of knitting it all together and adding a bunch of dialogue. Drake always does dialogue last. I don't know if we'll have time for it this year... It might become the "respite project" for 2027, in between volumes of the series... we're just not sure yet.
Complete The Last Strand: a Science Fiction Novel. This one has been patiently waiting in the wings for a long time. It's about 60% finished, but reconciling all the science and the twisty story has been a bit challenging. With luck, we'll find a way to move this one along and get it released before 2027. If not, the backup release date is Summer 2028.
Depending on how all those projects move forward, the goal for 2027 is to write exclusively on a four-book poltiical thriller titled, American Plague. I wasn't planning on writing a series, in fact, I've been working hard to avoid it. But Drake says the story is bigger that we initially imagined; and my editor tells me there's no way the story he wants to tell will fit in a single volume. So, we're writing a series. Yippi. I'll let you know how it goes.
Horizon Projects
These are all working titles...
subject to change as the feathers fly.
What's on the horizon? Well, there's a long list of new projects we will work on after our priority projects have been completed. But remember, because I'm at the mercy of a headstrong bundle of feathers and flippers... nothing is EVER written in stone until it's published!
~Boys Night Out (genre yet to be determined) It's a strange story about a group of men who meet weekly to play a board game... but everything that happens on the board, also happens in some way, shape, or form, in real life. We've been tossing this idea from one flipper to the other for several years now... and we're not sure where it will end up. We'll let you know more when we know more.
~This Place Is A Zoo (a Middle-Grade Chapter Book) A strange story of a mob of exotic animals who esteem to criminal aspirations and the animals who try to stop them. This one is just a few pages of ideas created out of Writing Field Trips to a few zoos over the last couple of years... We're not sure yet if this is actually going to materialize into a book, or not. We'll keep you in the loop.
~The Crimson Key (a Swashbuckler Fantasy novel) This one has a synopsis, but not much more than that. We need to build out the plot outline and work on character maps before we can even think about the actual writing part. However, the idea of writing about pirates, and adding his own little twist is exciting to Drake. If you're curious... a sneak preview is hidden inside our romance novel,
A Tryst of Fate but keep in mind we don't yet know when that scene will appear in the new work... we're still bantering it about.
~Hot Cocoa (a collection of Anecdotal Essays) It turns out that after writing fiction for so many years, flipping his tail feathers around to write essay is more challenging for Drake than he anticipated. We don't want it to be a dull read, so we're taking our time with this one. We're hoping that it turns out to be on the more humorous side, and that takes a bit of time... unless you're Kristoffer Gair!
~Take The Reins (a Young Adult Mystery novel) This project has been a curiosity for Drake since winter 2023 when a friend posed an interesting question about young people solving mysteries, without the end result sounding too much like an after-school special or an episode of Scooby-Doo (not that there's anything wrong with either of those things). We have a synopsis and a general idea of the track for this story... but it'll need more developmental time, and a really solid outline before we can even consider when it might see publication. And... Drake tells me this one may require travel and research, so there may be a southern horse farm and boarding school in our future.
~The Passionate Plotter Guidebooks (Indie Author guidebook series) We still have four more to write in this series, and most likely, these will be "hiatus" books that we'll write in between the fiction to give our imaginations a break. We've got all the material from over fifteen years of teaching creative writing workshops in schools and community centers... we just need to regurgitate it into a digestible format for writers without the benefit of being in the workshop. Most of these books are complete, we just need to add the final tweaks and a few more worksheets.
~Chloe Chimpanzee's Clutter (a children's picture book; book three in the Smart Ears Safari Club series) Right now, this book doesn't have a target date, but we'll keep you posted. It turns out writing about a chimp with ADHD who is learning about the difference between listening and hearing is a lot of fun to write. However, we're committed to keeping the same artist that we collaborated with on Henry's and Emmett's books, and he's doing other projects right now. This story will come about when the time is right for all of us.
-Sealing Wax: (an Epistolary novel) Drake and I have been playing with this idea for a while, but it's not something that's completely taken shape yet. At this point, it's still just ripples in the pond. In this genre, the story is told by letters written between characters; usually just two people; but you know Drake, he can't make anything simple. We're not sure yet where this is headed... but Drake LOVES the cover art. Sometimes, he can be tremendously inspired by a visual hanging about... you never can tell with ducks.
~The Scribe's Apprentice (an Historical Fiction novel) If any of you have tried writing or reading this genre, you know how complex it can be. So Much Research! We have what we think is a great synopsis for a retelling of the myth behind the lost Library of Alexandria... But, oh my gosh, the amount of work involved is astounding. For those of you who brave writing historical fiction, you have our deepest respect. Don't expect this one out into the wilds anytime soon, but know that it's definitely a thing, and it'll happen... eventually. And not for nothing, but... did you know that it takes twenty-eight days to travel from Alexandria to Petra by camel? Fun fact!
~ The Guidebook To Hell (a Fictious Travelouge) So, when we wrote Free Will, we compiled a bunch of extra material about heaven and hell, to flesh out all the little bits of the novel. Even though most of this sort of background stuff never makes it to the published page, this time, it just might. We're contemplating publishing a hardcover special edition of Free Will sometime in 2028 (or perhaps before), which will include The Guidebook To Hell... mostly because so many of our readers have been asking for it. It will most likely be novella size in length, but it'll be presented as supplemental material, rather than a stand alone book. It's got a lot of super-fun stuff in there, it just needs a bit of polishing before we can share it with everyone. Drake is having a lot of fun with this one.
So yeah, it's a lot, but Drake and I enjoy writing and the wonderment that comes with storytelling. We can't imagine doing anything else with our free time... except perhaps reading, drinking hot cocoa, and sleeping. As hobbies go, sleeping is a big hit with Drake!
Thank You To Our Tribe!
Tremendous gratitude flies out on the wind to Andrew Allen Smith, Jacob and Kristen Bullen , Marianne Wieland, S.W. Raine, Kristoffer Gair, Mandy Jo, Amy Klco, Heather Ashle, Jules Nelson, Donna Nuemann, and Deborah Reed for their continuous kindness and support of our writing journey. ❤️
Drake quacks his special appreciation to Caroline Topperman, one of the few humans in this world who speaks directly WITH him rather than about him. In fact, he loves her so much, he's considering going back to Toronto for his recharge adventure this year, instead of New Zeeland. I know Caroline will welcome him warmly. 🦆
And of course, we couldn't do any of this without our amazing editors, Kalli Connor and Heather Ashle! Both of these astoounding women treat our writing as precious as their own. We will never be able to thank them enough for all they've done for our writing career... so we hope the money we pay them makes up for it in some small way. 😉
If you have the time, please visit these wonderful writers at their websites (the links are underlined). Their creativity is a gift of wonderment, and the kindness of their souls is beyond exceptional.
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Drake and I appreciate all you do to support our writing career. If you would like to review one of our books, please click one of the social links on the left, or drop us a note directly.