I recently self-published my debut novel on October 24, 2020, called “Hope Runners of Gridlock”. It’s about finding hope in a cyberpunk city with radical markets. Thought I’d share learnings and statistics, one month since launch. I am busy writing a separate article entirely on the writing process (that’s part of the original companion guide). This is about publishing.

Like many, I also go through life like a mollusc picking up new ideological shells to see if they fit against the mental attacks of life and the modern era: the existential dread of death, heat death of the universe, and other seemingly inevitable problems like climate change. There’s many maps that help us navigate these territories. Two such maps (that are related) that I wanted to explore from the get-go in Hope Runners of Gridlock was Optimistic Nihilism & Metamodernism. It’s a feeling of acceptance, and the pursuit of meaningful action in the face of seeming meaningless. The addition of sci-fi or fantasy can help elucidate these mental maps by creating novel fictional constraints or extremes that does not exist as apparently in the complex, messy life of the real world.

Cities tell stories. They are the emergent outcome of all the people that lived in it: a map etched by millions of individual lives, making their mark in passing. It not only provides historical insight into a society, but it also provides for novel exploration of how an individual might be affected by their surroundings. A love story would be told differently in Hong Kong, Mexico City, Cape Town, and Los Angeles. To me, a great city in a story can be like a character: a backstory, motivation, and an arc in and of itself.

Without a doubt, writing an interesting city was at the top of my desires in writing this novel, and it all started with one small seed.