Josh Jackson Author

In my estimation, the secret to living a long enjoyable life is to simply never stop.

And that’s my life plan. While so many look forward to retirement so they can sink into the armchair and call it a life, I plan to stay on my feet and moving right to the end. While they declare their lives over, I’ll only say “finished” when they’re shoveling dirt on my box.

In the words of Al Yankovic, “I’ll be mellow when I’m dead!”

So in the inexorable River of Forward, I swim with the current. My writing keeps on keeping on.

I’m very happy and grateful toward my readers, who’ve only given me kudos and compliments on my first three books. All of us writers have deep-seated and often unspoken insecurity about our craft and its product. It’s quite a relief to hear folks say they liked what we wrote!

So while the low sales volumes aren’t a reflection of the quality of the product, neither is my delay in getting going on my next project a reflection of my insecurity. Thanks to the wonderful words readers have offered about my books, I’m confident now that my new project will turn out nicely as well.

So far, if you’ve followed my work, my longest story has been the most recent one, the novella Too Many Bigfoots. It clocks in at about 40,000 words. My previous works were short story/essay collections.

Now I embark on my first-ever novel!

I’ve completed the first draft, reaching almost exactly 80,000 words. It was completed in late spring 2025, but if you read my blog here, you’ll understand why I didn’t jump right into the editing process.

A very unstable living situation since June 2025 kept me from being able to get back into the right headspace to focus properly on writing. I have been too focused on day-to-day survival to be concerned about a book.

But now the universe has given in, and let me have a break. I’ll be spending at least the next three months housed and among healthy friends with a buoyant environment of supporters.

So the novel is firmly in the crosshairs, and that I’ve only got the editing process to complete is exciting. I have so very many ideas and little touches, various flourishes and polishing to apply, and I can’t wait to get started.

So stay tuned, I’ll of course be updating here as new things develop. On other fronts, I have some new videos to edit and publish on my YouTube channel, Always Ants, so subscribe if you’d like to see them in the coming weeks and months.

Thank you again, everyone, without you this wouldn’t exist. You’re the best!