I'll share more about the book soon.

Thank you to everyone who cheered me on. I can't wait to share the finished novel with you!

🐲✍🏻

The current draft of this new manuscript is a hot mess (especially the ending), but that's what first drafts are for, right? Now I'm going to take a little break, celebrate this milestone, and then begin the arduous task of "making it good."

I poured myself into this new world and tried to breathe life into a cast of characters who’ve already conquered my heart. I hope they someday find a place in yours.

This is the most ambitious series I’ve attempted, and I’m thrilled to have reached this milestone.

An image with black text that reads: "The End  Initial draft complete of Book 1 of a new science-fantasy series ~THE HYDRA CHRONICLES~ Word Count: 178,148 words Printed Manuscript Pages: 906 Chapter Count: 62 Manuscript Begun: Jul 13, 2025 Completed: Feb 5, 2026 “Maybe there was a better way. Perhaps it would come from a dream kept alive by a middle aged woman’s conspiracies and rebellion.”

Hand-painted stormy ocean scene with towering cliffs under dark clouds as several cybernetic creatures fly low over crashing waves, blue energy trails streaming behind them.

Today, I finished drafting a new book.

This is the 5th novel I’ve written and the beginning of what I hope will become a sprawling, fulfilling series. It’s a science-fantasy story: a fusion of near-future technology mixed with the wonder and mystery of unknowable magic.

🧵

Me in 2009: "Social media. Neat. Here are all my pics and videos of my pets and kids."

2026: Ugh -- *Yoinks everything private*

A promotional graphic featuring the book cover to the novel "Mystic". Large text proclaims "10th Anniversary." The cover itself features a young woman standing dramatically in a lush, mystical forest while the sun steams through the canopy. Her cape billows dramatically across her body. Two sparkling birds encircle her.

Today's the 10 year anniversary of MYSTIC's publication. 😱 Naturally, I have thoughts.

Also, to celebrate the occasion, @torbooks.bsky.social has put the eBook on sale for $2.99 this week. What better time to check it out if you haven't experienced it yet?

open.substack.com/pub/jasonden...

What I've Been Working On Some updates as we end the year, including news about my latest WIP.

Some updates on my writing as we fall into Autumn. I expect to have TWO novels drafted by early 2026. Details in the link.

I’m (re)reading The Stand by @stephenking.bsky.social and it stresses me out less than real life news. #cozyfantasy

That MR JAKE TONGES PLAYER OF THR GAME, you mean. 🤩

Tonges player of the game. 🤩

Lots of talk about epic fantasy being dead in trad publishing. Trends shift, attention spans shorten. But EF still tackles the grand stories, the big questions, & shows emotional truth on the widest scale. It may ebb, but it is not going anywhere. Keep reading it, keep writing it. I sure will.

The Moral of the Story panel at WorldCon

The Moral of the Story @seattlein2025.org @gwillow.me @shwetaadhyam.bsky.social @marshalljmoore.bsky.social @okosunreads.bsky.social Starting with a discussion of the gateway fantasies that inspired everyone. “I think fantasy is a genre of questions.”—Ehigbor Okosun

Myself and Terry Brooks, who is it elderly gentleman, post for a photo together. Terry is wearing a magenta collared shirt with rolled up sleeves. I am wearing a cyan colored dress shirt with roller sleeves.

I’m at Seattle WorldCon this week. Yesterday I ran into the legendary Terry Brooks.

I just deleted an unnecessary bath scene from a book I'm working on and I feel like the ghost of Robert Jordan is judging me.

#amwriting

Somebody got to go on an adventure today.

The front cover of the new edition of Hyperion by Dan Simmons. Features a mostly black cover with an ominous and foreboding figure looming over the silhouettes of several wanderers trudging over sand.

Inside cover of the special edition featuring a fantastical sailing ship that sails across an ocean of grass.

The edges of the book pages are sprayed black with a stylized design of white light and stellar-like diagrams.

The alternative dust jacket featuring the original book cover. A spiked figure in black armor stands on the hill of an alien world overlooking a sea of grass where a single sailing ship approaches.

Showing off my new edition of Hyperion, a true classic of dark science fiction. This edition is from @thebrokenbinding.bsky.social with art by Raymond Swanland & art direction by @petrikleo.bsky.social. I love the new design, but I also love that it came with a 2nd slip cover w/ the original cover!

This project looks awesome. Backed! Please check it out.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/844...

A celebrity that I admired as a kid died today. But I won't celebrate them cause it turns out they were a horrible person. So instead I'll celebrate deceased artists who were kind and loving & generous: Terry Pratchett. Mr Rodgers, Robin Williams, JRR Tolkien, Chadwick Boseman, Alan Rickman, etc.

Worldcon & Summer Update What I've been up to since February

I’ll be at @seattlein2025.org next month. I’m participating in several panels and doing a reading. Also, my new short story, “The Snake Star,” will be part of the Worldcon Anthology from Grim Oak Press. More info in my newsletter.

Who else will be there?

jasondenzel.substack.com/p/worldcon-a...

I realized it’s been a while since I introduced myself, so 👋🏻 hi! I’m Jason, an epic fantasy author writing stories full of wonder and transformation. Glad you’re here. Sign up for my newsletter for more behind-the-scenes content. jasondenzel.substack.com

Olivie Blake (@olivieblake.bsky.social) author. hi

Just started reading Gifted & Talented by @ olivieblake.bsky.social, the first book of hers that I’ve read and holy shirtballs the writing style / voice is perfection. She makes it seem so effortless and I’m not gunna hide my envy. 👏🏼

A screenshot of a CNN headline declaring that a new pope has been elected. The image shows the purple chimney with white smoke coming out. On top of the chimney sits a seagull.

Pope Seagull I. His first order is that all communion wafers will be full bread chunks.

👏🏼 [The Office] “maintains that human authorship… remain essential…to obtain copyright protection for works involving materials created by [AI].”

“…firmly concludes AI prompts, alone, do not provide sufficient human control to automatically make a human user of an AI system the author of the output”

Would love to get a manuscript in my inbox reminiscent of Frieren, with that perfect mix of love, loss, and a fantasy adventure quest. #mswl

There is an impulse in moments like this to appeal to self-interest. To say: These horrors you are allowing to happen, they will come to your doorstep one day; to repeat the famous phrase about who they came for first and who they'll come for next. But this appeal cannot, in matter of fact, work. If the people well served by a system that condones such butchery ever truly believed the same butchery could one day be inflicted on them, they'd tear the system down tomorrow. And anyway, by the time such a thing happens, the rest of us will already be dead. No, there is no terrible thing coming for you in some distant future, but know that a terrible thing is happening to you now. You are being asked to kill off a part of you that would otherwise scream in opposition to injustice. You are being asked to dismantle the machinery of a functioning conscience. Who cares if diplomatic expediency prefers you shrug away the sight of dismembered children? Who cares if great distance from the bloodstained middle allows obliviousness. Forget pity, forget even the dead if you must, but at least fight against the theft of your soul.

One of many moments in Omar El Akkad’s new book, “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” that will stop you in your tracks.

Richard Chamberlain, Actor in ‘Shogun’ and ‘Dr. Kildare,’ Dies at 90 An overnight star as Dr. Kildare in the 1960s, he achieved new acclaim two decades later as the omnipresent leading man of mini-series.

The OG Blackthorne.
RIP, sir 🙏🏻

www.nytimes.com/2025/03/30/a...

My small dog does the same. She’s blind and deaf (born that way) and will sometimes bolt upright, run around the yard and bark at ghosts. Our house is ghost-free though.

At the FedEx store.

Clerk: “What are you shipping to Canada?”

Me: “Some booklets.”

Clerk: “What’s the content?”

Me: “Well it’s a short story I wrote about … … <pitches story>”

Clerk: …

Me: 👀

Clerk: “I’ll put down ‘fiction’”

Me: “yeah that works”

🫠🫠🫠🫠

Fellow #GenX people.

So are you a keep-your-reading-glasses-on-you-at-all-times person or a buy-lots-of-dollar-store-readers-and-leave-them-everywhere type?