Our next online meet-up is on Saturday 10th January! Sorry it’s last minute - hopefully some of you can make it! Details are at the end of the newsletter.

Twenty-Twenty-Six is here and underway, and it’s not stopping to ask how we feel about that.

A little rude.

But, however you feel, Unreal Writers - also known as The Time-Travelling Goblin Creatives - is here for you!

This year, I hope we can do the following things:

I want to pose a bold idea:

This could be your best year of writing yet.

But seriously, this could be your best year of writing yet.

That might mean writing more words than you normally do or getting something published.

Those are fine goals (fine in the sense of high quality, not just satisfactory).

But your best year of writing could also mean lots of other things.

Like, for example, writing with

more

or maybe

less

I have a hypothesis that one of the best ways to pursue your best writing is alongside a loving, supportive, resourcing community.

It’s this hypothesis that I would like us to both playfully and sincerely explore together.

Writing (of novels and short stories, particularly) requires a lot of alone time, and some level of sacrifice. But the unspoken idea that writers should be cave-dwelling, isolated, perma-depressed artists to be successful is not founded in fact.

It’s founded in fear.

Fear of others critiquing our work.

Of our raw, creative selves being seen.

Of being asked about a messy project that’s limping on, half-dead.

Of comparing ourselves to others and falling (feeling) short.

Normal fears, and ones that I can’t entirely protect you from.

No one can. But I hope that the possibility of positive connection with others overwhelms any anxieties you have about joining a group like this.

Some of the Greats of writing were part of supportive, creative groups, from Tolkien and C.S. Lewis’ Inklings to Bontemps and Walker’s South Side Writers Group.

Maybe we can do something of the same.

We launched with our first (online) meet-up on 13th December 2025. It was lovely to meet a bunch of you there! I asked those of you that came to share a book you would like to read next. Here’s what you said:

I wonder if you’ve had a chance to read any of these yet? I’d love to hear your thoughts if so! Email me at [email protected].

We also did a giveaway of Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert. I wonder if the prize-winner has had a chance to read this yet? I plan on reading my copy soon, to jumpstart my creativity at the start of 2026.

Here’s a quote from the book that I like:

For the horror writers among you, Nightmare Magazine is opening its submission window on 25th January 8AM to 1st February 7AM, for flash fiction, short stories, poetry, and creative non-fiction. You can read more about submission here: https://adamant.moksha.io/publication/nightmare/ and read some of their published fiction here: https://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/.

Submitting to Nightmare will be one of my goals this month!

That’s all for now.

Keep loving, keep writing,

Jonah