The Adventures in Secrecy with T Van Santana Year in Review—2023 Edish
So that’s it for 2023. Goodbye, boo. I hardly knew ya. Sarah wrote about this over at. Give her a paid sub, won’t you.
I have often felt a year rush by, but never quite like this. It’s really quite remarkable. Anyhow, imma run you through what we were up to here at Adventures in Secrecy and a lot of that leads into what I was up to personally. Let’s get to it, the postmortem for 2023!
Publication output
This year, I put out 114 installments through this publication (including this issue, short stories, novel chapters, and numbered issues of the talkie newsletter)—which ain’t nothing.
I’m of two minds about this …
The first mind is filled with gratitude for anyone—past, present, or future—who read(s) a lick of it. Thank you, truly, from the bottom of my heart.
The second is … why do I keep doing this? It’s a complex question with many, many answers, but. Anyway. It’s what I got.
Death of My Father
Dad died on January 13th, 2023, in a rehab facility following many hospital stays. He was within walking distance of my house and his. We thought he would return home in a couple days, and instead he died. I cannot say I was totally surprised. I was not. But I was a little, and it was sad. Even though he had the working memory of a housecat or worse, I was still looking forward to spending more time with him. I thought we had maybe a few months. He was in a lot of pain, though, and woefully unprepared to cope with it, so I am glad he didn’t suffer any longer than he did.
I may write about it in a straightforward way at some point, but at the time leading up to his death, during it, and after, I wrote about it in my metafictional novel, Teresa’s Backbone, using many of the emotions, some of the details from our lives and places we were as set pieces to tell the death of my Thirty-Second Century counterpart’s father, Wil Anderson. You can start that story path with the chapter called “Nice Folks.” I have only published nine chapters in that path, but there are twenty-five planned chapters. I am longwinded and always write more than I plan, so it will probably be closer to thirty or forty by the time I get through it.
I have a separate speculative metafiction project called Bruno, that you probably haven’t heard of unless you are from Ello. Most of what I’ve shared about it has been told in image captions, and most of those were lost when Ello went down for good. But here is the one I did for Dad:
Funeral
The funeral went better than I expected. I wrote the obit, which was both daunting and satisfying as a writer and the child of the man who was my father. I think he would have been happy with it, even though privately he would have wished I had played up a few things more. This was how it was with him. My sister made a very sweet slideshow that had a lots of pics throughout his life, and man, a few of them were really cool. He had some style as a younger person, and I never noticed it. It left him at some point, as it does most of us. Perhaps that’s proper, perhaps not. But it was neat to see it, even if he was already gone.
Appleton
Last spring, I started a D&D campaign, sort of in the West Marches/open table style. It was neat because I played with my childhood best friend and one of my new best friends and my kids. We played a mix of in person and online, and it was a neat learning experience for all of us. I’ll share more game specific details some other time, but that was how I spent much of the spring and summer of 2023. If you’ve never run a game, you might not know: it’s a lot of work. Especially how I do it, since it seems to use a lot of the same mental muscle groups as fiction writing. So I put most of my creative energy into that project and that’s why you weren’t really hearing much from me in that time.
LA
I resumed my annual trips to da City of Angels. ‘Twas a good time, but … I’m definitely getting older. Not to say I was out there partying hard before or anything. No, it’s a subtler change. It’s like I am never anywhere but inside myself. The outside world matters, yes, but less so than even a few years ago.
Covid
That dread disease finally caught me. I was lucky, and it wasn’t that bad. I tested posi for fourteen days and was weak the whole summer, but I didn’t have to go to the hospital or anything. So, all things considered, pretty lucky. It killed my uncle, and a couple of family friends. It will kill more of us. I don’t know why people can’t see that. Then again, people didn’t (and don’t) really think about the death toll of the flu and pneumonia and stuff like that. It’s like our populace can’t really ‘get’ public health or disease as a concept. Oh well. So it goes. Wear a mask, please, when you can. It’s just polite if you’re sick or exposed.
Busch Gardens
We were gonna do this family vacay, then saw the price tag and got sticker shock. So we went to da Gardenz instead! We’ve been a few times this year, which isn’t great value for what we paid, but. No regrets. The kids love it, and it is weirdly nostalgic for me—even though I only went once as a kid myself. But it’s kina neat.
By the by, you get very different social experiences on different days. Sometimes it is, like, aggressively heteronormative. Other times, rainbow folks are everywhere, and it’s happy and beautiful. So. Depends on the day. Wish there were a calendar or something so I’d know which days to go.
The Demise of Ello
Which you can read all about here:
It’s a bummer, man. It’s a bummer. Despite being a cesspool of wretched villainy, it also was home to some really good folks. It had a very unique aesthetic, as well, one that I fear we won’t see again for some time. I spent eight years over there building a lot of connections and posting a lot. If you know me from there, my apologies, again, for subjecting you to so many posts. I’m still bummed it’s gone. It was a slow death and the site was brain dead for the last few years and probably a terrible security hazard, but. It was home away from home, a cool respite on the bizarre cyberscape that was the Internet from 2014-2023. RIP Ello. You were weird but good.
Oldest Started Middle School
That one explains itself.
NaNoWriMo
I wrote about NaNo while it was happening. And it was, in terms of the work, an extension of last year’s event, so here is the soup to nuts listing for those pieces:
2022: 1 > 2 > 3 > 4 > 5; 2023: 6 > 7 > 8 > 9 > 10
I’m glad i did it. It was exciting to see some first time WriMos out there getting it done. But like I’ve said before, I’m not sure the event really suits my needs very well anymore. I’m very, very grateful that it exists. I owe, in part, my life as a novelist to it. I may well have written a novel at some point without it, but I would certainly have been much older, and I doubt I would have had the kind of output I’ve had. So no shade, only gratitude. But it might be my last one for awhile.
“Same Walk, Different Shoes” Collaboration
My contrib to this came out, like everyone else’s, the day before yesterday. In case you missed it, here it is again:
Ben has organized a complete list of all the stories, which is here:
The timing was a bit unfortunate, as the whole “No, we’re serious” thing broke on Substack Notes in the middle of this, ending my participation in Notes and solidifying my decision to change providers. (See below.)
But I’m glad I did it, and I hope my story adds something to the collection. Forty-plus stories is a lot, so I won’t take it personally if you don’t read mine, but have a look at a few, won’t you! Folks put some thought and heart into these. And thank you to Ben, specifically, for inviting me.
Migrating away from Substack
Many of you know I’ve been considering this for a long time. I’ve known that Substack has no problem promoting bad ideologies since my arrival. I knew there were literal Nazis around—and even more transphobes, antivaxers, election deniers, and just every sort of confused lunatic the current cultural milieu has to offer. That’s da ‘Net, baby! And I watched the Substack C-suite shrug with indifference as trans/nonbinary writers were bullied out, and again when folks asked them to do something about it. I’ve watched other publishers say things akin to “may the best man win,” and I’m done with it. There’s no point in arguing because it isn’t an actual discussion. It’s a business model, and these are corporate decisions to make profit. I get it. It is, in my view, dishonorable and mean, but I understand the logic of it and the “it’s just business” mentality.
So in the spirit of that, I’m taking my business elsewhere! You know, such as it is. This will in no way be a financial blow to Substack, nor will they even notice I’m gone, and that’s fine. I’m not trying to flounce or fingersnap my way out the door. I’m making a business decision in the best way I know how by switching to a business partner who does not, insofar as I know, actively protect actual Nazis and other proper villains and their quisling apologist agitators.
So if you are, yourself, eager to be rid of Substack, please be patient with me and know that I’m working on it. I’ve been here for a couple years now, and so I’m fairly deeply dug in. It’s going to take a sec. But that’s not to say I’m delaying. I’m not. I’m working on it as quickly as I reasonably can.
If you are yourself a Substacker, hold the we’ll miss yous, please … I’m not going anywhere! It’s a newsletter, remember? I’ll still keep flooding your inbox like I’ve been doing. The service provider will change, but Adventures in Secrecy shall continue. The goal is no service disruption. So if that goes well, you won’t even notice the change.
Having said that, if you want to leave—meaning, unsubscribe—out of some loyalty to Substack or for any reason, please, by all means, do so without hesitation or apology or explanation. We all have precious little time on this glorious water covered rock with a molten nickel core, and we ought to spend it wisely. No hard feelings, seriously.
If you aren’t on Substack and never were, please accept my deepest apologies that you ever had to read the name. If you can wipe it from memory, that’s the way. And thank you for reading anyway, despite whatever online social platform drama made its way into these missives. You’re the best!
I have turned off paid subscriptions. If you would like to give money in response to my work, please make a donation to one of these charities:
National Center for Transgender Equality | World Food Program | Sravasti Abbey
If you’d prefer I get the money, I have a Patreon here:
Once I switch providers, I’ll let you all know if there is a new way to pay me. But those avenues should work fine for the foreseeable.
Until then, read for free and spread the love to groups who are trying to do some good in this world—not to craven startups who shrug about Nazis and have no plan to help.
But T … what about my Stack?
Don’t worry, bae. If I’m subbed to your Stack, I’m not breaking up. And if I’ve pledged to pay you, I’ll make good on that—even if they get a cut. My pledge to you takes priority to their boneheaded business decisions and rancid political cash grabs. If that changes, like if things escalate, I will message you personally, and we’ll figure it out. You can count on me. So don’t sweat it.
But T … what about your other Stack?
Stacks, plural, that is. But yes, I indeed have two other Substack accounts:
Secret Dungeons is a free publication with very limited readership thus far (even by my standards), so I am not prioritizing migrating it. I imagine I will eventually, but I really need to focus on da flagship first. I hope you understand.
As for Strange Wor/ds, sadly this means yet another delay. I really can’t in good conscience allow Substack to profit from my creative work, much less bring new people into this, so I will decidedly not be publishing that zine through them. If you want to collaborate or submit something, please do! Let me know. It will happen, and I’m sorry I haven’t been able to bring it to fruition sooner. But we’ll find the right home and outlet for it, and then it will have been worth the wait. I feel pretty confident about that. So thanks again for your patience, particularly if you’re a contributor—specifically, thank you to Rachel, Ryan, Vivian. Y’all are the best!
But T … what about dat archive?
Frankly no one seems to use it? But, as I implied earlier, it will remain on Substack until I can find a better home for it. That’s the current plan. If things escalate, I may have to take it down. But as of today, it’ll remain up for the foreseeable. I might turn comments off at some point; we’ll see.
Oh, and speaking of comments and other social features on Substack …
I will continue to respond to comments on existing newsletters if I see them, but I will not longer be checking my notifications regularly, so. The best way would be to send me a note by email. The new service provider will likely have a way to contact me, too. I’ll let you know. But until then, email.
I have unlisted my Stacks from the Substack directory. After the migration is done, I will likely make the archive private, so only y’all will be able to access it.
What’s in store for 2024, T?
Oh jeezuz, I don’t know. There is … the unpleasantness in November and the rolling shitstorm hurricane that is sure to precede and follow. There is Teresa’s Backbone, which is nowhere near finished. There’s Azza-Jono—particularly the novel Outbreak!—that still needs finishing. I’ve got to set up the digital to print pipeline, which has been stalled out for years now. So, there’s a lot to do. I have a plan for the writing and publishing stuff. I’ll tell you more about that soon. But as for the rest of it? Who knows. I hope we survive. But that’s every year, honestly, so.
That wraps up the year in review ish! Hope you enjoyed it! Thanks so much for reading and being a part of my adventures! See you next time! Oh, and Happy New Year!
Xoxo,
T
