My DRAFT 2026 Artist's Statement
How can we share our work if we don't even know what we're trying to do?
“I’m too hungry for nuance.” – Dave Sokolowski (November 2025)
This is the long version of my artist’s statement, which will be refined down to less than 250 words (250!) in the coming weeks. But to follow Austin Kleon’s advice, I am showing my work. Later I’ll refine this down into something more precise, but for now, here is what I’m planning for my fiction career.
Why do I make the art I make?
I have these stories in my mind that won’t go away.
My ADHD brain is always going a million miles an hour and throws off a zillion ideas a day. But occasionally it sheds a really good idea that falls to the factory floor and I go and put it in a special box marked
“Crazy Enough it just Might Work.”
I want to turn those ideas into long-form stories that I can share.
I also love stories – they form the backbone of my relationship with the world. Whether seeing Star Wars for the first time in the theater in 1977 (yes, I’m old) or discovering Dungeons & Dragons in 1979 or seeing John Carpenter’s The Thing on TV in 1982 or self-publishing my first horror scenario in 2014 – sharing stories has always been part of me.
Subjects and Themes I Explore
I always thought I was really into horror stories, and while I do like a good scare (Weapons from 2025 is an aMAZing movie), I now see mystery, corruption, and weirdness are really what I like to explore.
Sadly, people are the worst monsters, and I am drawn toward exploring the subconscious and its corruption that leads us away from compassion and love and tempts us to do terrible things. But I also like weird things from outer space and other dimensions, unexplained things that take us by surprise and jolt us from our daily grind (have I recommended the movie Weapons? It’s really quite good and I’m going to rewatch today).
As I’ve been rebuilding my relationship with fiction after leaving it for 20 years, I reviewed my earlier unpublished works and (surprisingly) found many similar themes for the new work that I’m prepping: Noir mysteries with no clear good or bad characters, people pulled between loyalty to the system or their family versus intrinsic values and morality, bright, shocking violence that means something.
These are the subjects and themes that interest me.
Why do people make the choices they make, even when it clearly doesn’t serve them? Why do we kill each other for such trivial stakes? How do we act when we’re really pushed into a corner and forced to make hard decisions? These are questions I like to explore.
How I work
Most days I get up, make coffee, and start writing first thing, looking to write at least one hour every morning. There are exceptions but that’s how most days go.
I had an explicit conversation with my wife and asked,
“I want to write every day for the rest of my life – will you support me in making that a priority?”
And she said yes because she knows and loves me and is amazing. But getting her support that way was a clear commitment to both me and my art:
this is something I’m prioritizing and I need her help making it happen.
I don’t worry about word count – it’s about time at the keyboard. Once I know what I’m writing I can write 500-700 words an hour which is a great clip. But if I don’t know what I’m doing it can end up being 100 words in a whole morning and that also has to be okay. The commitment is to sit down and bang away every day for at least an hour.
I generally listen to ambient music – either cool spacey stuff (like Caught in Joy or Martin Stürtzer) or non-dramatic baroque classical (like amazing Nao Sogabe who I just discovered). I’m trying to get off Spotify this year, but also the ads of YouTube disrupt my flow, so I’m still trying to find the perfect music, which I need to drown out my ever-talking head-voice.
My goal for 2026 is to figure out how to write two hours a day, and so my next objective on that path is 90 minutes. Right now I’m not getting up early enough in the morning to support both that and working out and getting to my job on time. So I’m sticking with one hour and I’ll let you know how it goes.
What Makes my Work Distinct
This is a really hard question to answer, which makes it all the more important to work through.
As stated, my main interests in storytelling are Noir mysteries flavored with absurdism and thrillers layered with deep existential questions. I see these stories in my mind and have written a couple as incomplete drafts, but I have never finished one that shows exactly what I’m trying to say.
Also, as so much of my writing voice was honed writing news and editorial pieces through my brief career as a journalist in the 1990s, I have a strong “essayist voice” (which you’re reading right now) that people regularly respond positively to. Occasionally, I say something in an essay that really strikes home for people (like when I gave people Permission to Disengage), and it’s always great to hear that I’ve said something meaningful.
No one has ever said that about my fiction.
(Actually that’s not true now that I’m editing this: 25 years ago I submitted my short story Sludge to a contest and I got a personalized note from an editor saying that while most of the judges did not think my piece was good enough to compete, one judge fought hard for me because they saw that I was trying to do something different, so that was a nice confirmation to receive. You can read Sludge here and decide for yourself.)
Granted, there’s not a lot of my fiction out there. But remember that my fiction class hated me and thought me a fraud. So THAT was a formative experience in my fiction writing that I’m trying to make into lemonade.
Am I terrified about my fiction just sucking and no one caring? Absolutely.
That’s why I have to keep going.
What I’m trying to do is merge these two worlds: take this authorial essayist voice that people respond positively to (and is really my authentic voice) and merge it with the world of fiction.
And then use that to write mysteries. But then also not just regular mysteries. Because I’m not a regular guy. I’m not necessarily special but I am different.
I’m weird.
No apologies. It’s who I am.
When I read a “normal” murder mystery, as I’m doing right now, I find it a little boring. I need friction – something to butt my imagination up against that doesn’t just represent the same story that’s been told a zillion times. I think that’s why I didn’t really click with Agatha Christie and PD James.
So you’ll have to just trust me and see how this next novel (Project F to you) turns out.
How I Use and Don’t Use AI
Finally, I think this is an important thing for artists to speak openly about on a consistent basis, so here I am again.
I don’t use generative AI in any of my work, ever.
I’m going to start talking more about how we can create safe spaces for people to lead by example and demonstrate how and why a creative life without generative AI is the right and best path. The Status Quo has us fighting each other; they shamelessly and illegally steal from us; and they will blow up the economy without a second thought.
So we should take care of ourselves and each other, and know that we’ve got a hard road ahead of us. But that if we stay true to our values and lead with compassion and imagination, then we’ve done all we can do.
On Essays and an Artist’s Life
One last thing.
I really, really, really want to write novels, and if I could I would just hole up and do that for the rest of my life. But authors now need a platform and a brand and and and… Which is fine because I also like writing essays and sharing my thoughts on creativity.
I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say we as 21st century artists are in war against a Status Quo that hopes to destroy us, systematically smoothing out all the rough edges and turning our world into an AI-driven dystopia of slop and mediocrity, all while ignoring massive environmental and social catastrophes that are already on their way.
Our main job as artists is to
reflect the world we live in so we may help instruct on a better path forward.
There are many ways to do this, including writing fiction and essays. So that is the tool I will use. (And if you haven’t experienced Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, here’s why I think it could change your life.)
But I also want to use my voice to connect people to each other, and help build infrastructure that we can use to create better art and thereby create better artists. We have a whole generation of children growing up without strong artistic and spiritual leaders, and we need to begin training and arming them NOW if they’re going to save the world –
Which they really need to do.
So.
My essays are changing a bit and I’m going to get out of my own way and start to build some scaffolding and infrastructure that we can share with each other to get ready for the next battle, which is sadly already here and we’re already losing.
Let’s stick together, lean in, and be true and honest to our art. That is the best path forward.
This year I’m pivoting my work here to spend more time discussing how we lead the fight against the Status Quo by creating art and letting everything else slide away.
Also, I’m working on a new mystery novel and will be sharing some of my own process as I figure out how to research it and write it and market it and sell it and all the other stuff that goes on behind the scenes. It’s a crazy process and I’m absolutely terrified.
But I really want to help people find their souls through art, and I can help with developing some practical and necessary skills.
More artists need to declare our intentions around generative AI, just so we can say our piece and move on. Then we need to go and create and share and support each other, build communities and stick together.
If people don’t want to come along then that’s on them.
So that’s what’s coming next from me.
Be well — more soon…
"Am I terrified about my fiction just sucking and no one caring?" The fear is real so I don't want to minimize that but I do think we have to remember that "no one caring" does not necessarily mean our writing sucks. You've written here yourself about how difficult it is nowadays both to *give* and to *get* attention. Perhaps what should terrify us more than the above possibility is the very real prospect that your writing could be amazing and no one might care because of the landscape we're in. Which then speaks to the need for an artists' statement: don't do it for the audience, do it for whatever you put in your statement.
I love the idea of a personal artist statement. I need to make one for myself. Thanks for sharing all these insights into your process and your experiences. I'm writing a weird crime story right now, too - can't wait to see how yours turns out!