Seven-Year Stretch

After an arduous seven-year sprint to traditionally publish my kickass novel Leverage, I'm exhausted.

Despite many bumps and bruises along the way, it's been a phenomenally successful journey. I achieved everything I set out to accomplish—except for securing a living wage—and the experience has been humbling, inspiring, rewarding, and surprising.

Nonetheless, as I've always known—and have been brutally reminded of multiple times—writing novels isn't a real job. Writing novels is a crime of passion, and lately I've been running on apathy.

The good news is, after moping around and licking my wounds for the past few months, I'm feeling much more energized. In fact, I've come up with some killer ideas for how to repurpose and resurrect my in-progress novel—however futile and quixotic that endeavor may be.

The better news is, to create the bandwidth required to pursue this preposterous project—and to maintain a modicum of sanity in 2026—I'm further streamlining my online presence.

Here's how:

Email Newsletter

My website and newsletter will remain my online bread and butter, but for the foreseeable future I plan to publish one or two pieces per month (as opposed to the typical two-to-four).

While I love cooking up short-form madness for my dozens of adoring fans, I've come to think of my newsletter as a "value-added" service for existing readers rather than as a vehicle for attracting new eyeballs.

In other words, since I know I can't squeeze one goddamned cent out of you cheapskates discerning consumers, and since I realize I can't use social media to dupe hordes of unsuspecting marks into subscribing for free, I've at last stumbled upon the one true objective of this ridiculous enterprise: fun!

Unfortunately, capitalism doesn't countenance fun, which means I need to be especially judicious about how much wage-free effort I dedicate to this revenue-free endeavor. With all this in mind, you can expect a little bit less of the same great madness from me until my literary career dies from cash-related complications.

Or my government defenestrates me.

Or my wife divorces me.

Social Media

Earlier this fall I nuked my TikTok and Bluesky accounts and throttled down my activity level on ChuckStack Notes and LinkedIn. Not coincidentally, I've been feeling much less distracted, somewhat less pessimistic, and not at all less misanthropic ever since. Better still, I've also spent more quality time with my kids and I've been refilling my creative coffers by devouring classic novels and mainlining unhinged movies.

Without a doubt, my self-imposed social media sabbatical has been sublime. In fact, if I hadn't fucking binge-watched Poldark and lost all remaining faith in humanity, I might've even discovered happiness.

Not for me, Jason.

Regardless, to further increase my manna, I've decided to go fully dark on my final social media frontier: ChuckStack Notes.

Specifically, while I'd previously unfollowed everyone on the platform, last week I cut my profile to the quick by deleting all my "notes" and "restacks" (e.g., tweets and retweets). Going forward, I no longer plan to traffic on the platform's half-assed Twitter knockoff either.

There are many factors behind this long-telegraphed choice, but the arrivals of Michael Burry and The New Yorker proved to be the final catalysts. Warning: If your heart's healthy enough for internet poison, check out the comments section of the legendary magazine's first post by clicking HERE.

In my humble but correct opinion, ChuckStack's been engulfed in a self-inflicted enshittification death spiral for the past two years, which is why I migrated my email newsletter away from the platform in February. Despite this strategic abandonment, I'd accumulated a decent-sized audience on Notes—circa 1.9K followers—and wanted to, erm, leverage those internet eyeballs in advance of Leverage's publication. I therefore continued to post short-form missives on the platform until about two weeks ago.

Alas, ChuckStack's ongoing "pivot to politics" has been as noxious as expected, while the relentless cavalcade of cynical celebrities and off-brand opportunists has accelerated the platform's slow, inexorable descent into madness and irrelevance. Since I specialize in leaving bad parties before things really turn to shit, the time felt right to sever my remaining ties.

As for my existing newsletter subscriptions, I'll continue to receive new posts via "smart delivery" and will periodically log onto the website to read, like, or comment. Longer-term, however, I intend to fully extricate myself from the ChuckStack Cinematic Universe and will opt for classic email delivery. At that point, to keep my inbox volume manageable, I'll cull many of my subscriptions.

Note: If you're a fellow artist in the profitless struggle and I unsubscribe from your newsletter, please don't take offense. I've given up on the internet—and humanity—writ large.

Pro Tip: Given that I advise everyone to practice what I preach, please feel free to deposit my email newsletter in a digital dumpster at your earliest convenience.

All in all, I'm excited about this streamlined direction and I'm hoping to make some significant progress on my next novel in 2026. More details and additional madness to come.

Thanks always for your support—stay frosty out there.

—Amran

P.S. Happy Holidays!