(This is a now page, and if you have your own site, you should make one, too.)
*Shout out to Derek Sivers for creating and curating this amazing concept.
Updated April 19th, 2026, from my home in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A.
I did it. I published another post-apoc novel after I said I was done writing novels. This time was different though. For real. I'm back to writing for fun and that's made all the difference.
For years I was a heavy plotter (Three Story Method, anyone?). Everything had to be mapped out ahead of time. This time I did the opposite. I wrote the first draft by hand with a stylus on an Android tablet, without an outline. I just let the story reveal itself one chapter at a time. I had no idea exactly where it was going when I started. That was something I never would have allowed myself to do when writing felt like a job. But when I removed that pressure, something interesting happened. Writing became fun again.
DUSTRISE takes place hundreds of years after the events of the original DUSTFALL books. The great clan conflicts are long gone. Much of the world’s history has faded into myth. At the center of the story is a solitary historian named Vire who discovers something buried beneath the dust that might reconnect humanity to its lost past.
The whole project slowly turned into something larger than just writing a novel. For the first time I narrated the audiobook myself. I’m definitely not a professional voice actor, but there was something deeply satisfying about carrying the story all the way from the first sentence to the final line with my own voice. I also dusted off my guitar and recorded an ambient music album inspired by the world. No samples and no AI-generated sounds. Everything you hear started on the fret board of my SG. Even my website became part of the experiment. I rebuilt it from simple code so it would feel like it belonged inside the world rather than outside it. There are even some fun old school emulators tucked away, if you can spot them... In a strange way the entire project became a creative playground. And honestly, that was the most fun I’ve had writing in years.
You can learn more here: https://jthorn.net/dustrise/
I definitely don't want to get back into the business of entertainment recs, but if you're middle-aged you need to see "DTF St. Louis" on H.B.O. Max (or whatever it is they're calling it these days). It stars Jason Batemen and is a dark comedy about all the stuff we're dealing with post-50. The ending hurts. You've been warned. If you sub to the Max, "Rooster" with Steve Carrell is a nice palate cleanser, and also aimed at us mid-life geezers.