MAKING CHANGES TO “THE CHANGE” AS THE END DRAWS NEAR
SOMETIMES MOVING FORWARD INVOLVES A LITTLE DOUBLING BACK
GOOD MORNING! It’s Thursday, the 28th of May, as I commit these words to the public record. The year of our lord is 2026. And note to future historians: it’s fuckin’ NUTS around here!
But this little missive is largely addressed to the following audience:
* People currently following my serialized novel THE CHANGE (the first in a series, just so you know);
* People who are waiting for me to finish it, so that they can start reading, because binging is definitely their preferred series mode;
* People who used to love my work back in the Skipp & Spector days, and wondered if I would ever come back to that kind of epic storytelling. In other words, people who should definitely check out THE CHANGE!
So here is the news that I’m needing to share!
1) I SHOULD BE DONE WRITING THE BOOK NEXT WEEK!
I am on track to write the closing chapter by this time next Thursday. I’m currently 30-35 pages from done, by my best guesstimates. And I don’t plan to leave the goddam house until that happens.
So far, my goal has been to stay 10 chapters ahead of whatever I’m posting. So, for example, I just released Chapter 26, and am currently finishing Chapter 37.
But once I’m done, the impulse to restrain myself will be thoroughly obsolete. At which point, I’ll start uploading a chapter a day, until the whole thing is up and readily available for all paying subscribers!
2) PRE-ORDERS FOR PHYSICAL COPIES WILL BEGIN IMMEDIATELY THEREAFTER!
I would feel like an asshole if I started pre-orders for a book that wasn’t even finished yet! But soon as I’m done – and the last pass of edits are completed – I’ll officially set up the store on Big Cartel. Then I’ll start taking pre-sales, with hardcovers available toward the end of August, and paperbacks in early September.
As with THIS IS SPLATTERPUNK – still available, award-nominated, and awaiting your love if you haven’t already – THE CHANGE will be available in both paperback and signed, numbered limited edition hardcover. With this beautiful cover by Matthew Revert!
I will NOT, however, be issuing an ebook version. If you want to read it online, subscribe! It only costs $5/month. So if you read it in a month, it’s a five dollar book!
3) I AM SETTING UP AN OFFICIAL SUBSTACK PAGE FOR “THE CHANGE”!
Also in a couple of weeks, I will have a redesigned main page here for Yer Pal Skipp. It will be in the “magazine” format, with various sections for a) THE CHANGE, b) THIS IS SPLATTERPUNK, c) THE GREAT DIVIDE (the feature film I wrote and directed in 2024, finally making its streaming debut next month), d) THE ONE LONG CONVERSATION (my podcast), and e) A MUSCLE CALLED SOUL (my philosophical writings, which make up roughly 70% of this Substack), plus special sections for Politics, Other Movies, Music, etc.
But THE CHANGE will be arranged so that you can get all the chapters from one central main page, for e-z continuous reading. Very excited about this!
4) I AM GOING BACK AND MAKING SOME EDITS NOW!
One of the exciting things about writing a serialized novel is the whole walking-the-tightwire factor. It’s an urgent weekly deadline to push the book forward. There’s a performance aspect to it that totally keeps me jazzed and locked-in.
That said, there are things you discover in the writing that you didn’t know were gonna happen when you started. And though I mapped out the architecture like a sonofabitch before I wrote a single new word, there were some things I set up earlier that I’m now modifying, to tighten shit up and make it better.
For instance: the New Age cult leader at the heart of all this is no longer Liam Pathe. He’s now named Liam Dream, and his estate is called Dreamland. Which just makes a ton of sense, and sounds waaaay better out loud. I wish to fuck I’d thought of it earlier. But whaddaya gonna do?
So if you’re reading along, and you suddenly go, “Wait, you said this happened on Wednesday!” just know that I’m retrospectively going back in and fixing the previous chapters as I go along. So that the original email you got may not entirely reflect what’s now on the Substack chapter.
But it’s all “detail” stuff, and doesn’t change the main narrative in the slightest, okay? IT’LL BE FINE!
I think that’s it for now. MORE SOOOOOOON!
But just letting you know what’s up! LOVE YOU!!!
Yer pal in the trenches,
Skipp