The Drownway was the first story I wrote set in the world of Nerona but it wasn’t the first story I conceived of in that setting. That would be Andre Blacklight in the Beacon’s Dark, the first in a trilogy of stories that I imagined intended to explore the idea of anti authoritarianism. It was a big idea and it needed a lot of time to percolate, so my ambitions in that direction wound up on hold.

As is often the case when one of my story ideas needs time to process, I decided to write more stories in the world around the initial concept to try and shake ideas out. The Drownway and the Nerona short stories I’ve published here are all a part of that process. You’re going to see a few more short stories that were also a part of that process soon. It was also my intention to write the sequel to The Drownway this year. However, the more I thought about it the more I concluded that I couldn’t write that sequel until I had set Andre’s first story down in stone. Too many of the decisions in the world needed to have a solid foundation to build on or plot holes could develop.

And the foundation they needed was Andre’s first adventure.

So here we are. Some three years after I had the initial idea I’m setting out to tell Andre’s story, at least in part. I suspect it will be challenging for me, as Andre is a very different man than I am. He is a character with a natural distrust for authority.

I conceived of the character as a critique of anarchy as a philosophy and I thought it would be interesting to cast him as the protagonist of a story because it would force me to be more sympathetic to the character than I am to the philosophy. I knew this would be difficult. I didn’t think it would take me three years to feel confident in how I handled the character. But no small part of the long delay between conceiving of the character and writing him was a result of my wrestling with how to present him fairly.

It’s taken a lot of work, brainstorming, daydreaming and philosophising to arrive at the version of Andre I’m now writing. That may be a testament to my lack of imagination as a writer or my dedication to that craft. I’m not sure which. That said, I have gotten to a state where I think I can handle the character. He’s different from how I originally pictured him and the trajectory of his life has changed radically as well. By the same token, I’m not sure I’d characterize him as an anarchist anymore.

Instead, I hope to study something a little more universal to human nature, which is the better thing to do in story and thus the better choice for Andre. Hopefully the better choice for you, the people as well.

When I was younger it was a common nostrum to be told we should question everything and the common retort was to question the person who told us that. Both the nostrum and the retort were childish, though both sides of the equation no doubt found them profound at the time. The problem with this mindless back and forth is that it lacks depth. It is about as useful as the dew on a blanket, which is to say you can’t use it for anything and it makes the blanket useless, too. Not that the blanket has a direct equivalent in this analogy.

I feel like the usefulness of this line of thought has run out.

My point is that I grew up as one of the first millennials, with a whole generation of very self-satisfied “anti-authoritarian skeptics” (commonly referred to as GenX) constantly proclaiming a philosophy of life that didn’t seem to be making them happy, prosperous or wise. At the same time, I could see there were kernels of truth to their philosophy. However, the successes of GenX’s skepticism had convinced them it was the only tool they needed in their toolbox and they proceeded to slowly drive themselves insane with it. The question I’ve often contemplated while watching it was when the right time for an anti-authoritarian stance is.

I hope to work some of that out with you as we walk through Andre’s story. It’s probably going to take more than two or three individual tales but we’ll tackle them one at a time. For now, we’ll start at the beginning, which is generally the way this is done.

So, the plan for this spring and summer is to publish a few short stories, one detached from the greater Nerona mythos and at least one tied to the history of that storied continent. Perhaps there will be a second Nerona story, perhaps not. I am tinkering with something but I don’t have anything set in stone yet, we’ll know for sure come late May. Following that we’ll plunge into the Beacon’s Dark and learn what it means to shine the darklight.

In the meantime, I will be working on the 2026 Haunted Blog Crawl! I’ll be soliciting submissions starting in a month’s time but I hope my regular readers will consider submitting. My goal this year is to get the submissions up to ten entries! Lots of fun things to look forward to this year.

As I normally do I’ll be taking the next week off before plunging back into the fiction grind May 16th. Stay tuned and we’ll do our best to make it an entertaining time!