Um, I just launched a new *weekly* fictional series 🤯
The 49 is live and has a companion podcast 🏆
It's 3 weeks into 2025, do you know where your goals are?
Let me guess at some of the goals you set for the new year:
Regular exercise
A strong devotional life
Track macros 💪🏻 (or at least eat healthier)
Travel somewhere new (Tahiti, please 🌴)
Learn the flamenco 💃🏻
Launch a new story series and a podcast
Okay, that last one is mine. And even though I didn't literally write that down as a goal for 2025, that's what I went ahead and did this week.
Soon I may need to add, “Stop talking about The 49 on every post” to the list, but not today. And that's because I had such a wonderful response to my announcement about the plan last week, that I went ahead and hit the big, green ALL SYSTEMS GO button on my writing desk.
A number of people even jumped right into the paid subscriptions (before I dropped any content!), so this week I published the first few instalments, including 3 audio episodes so that readers can check out the series (hopefully get excited) then choose to subscribe.



Stop, Andrew! You're typing too fast and sort of blabbering. What is this series you speak about?
Sorry, I've been breathless all week as I jump, Geronimo style, into this new creative venture.
Here's the summary:
I've been fixated on an idea for some time.
It's a supernatural, political thriller set in the not so distant future.
I'm releasing it in real time, week-over-week.
Readers are basically getting to read a new novel as it's being written (WHAT COULD GO WRONG?)
It's called The 49. To get the content of the series in your inbox moving forward, you need to subscribe to it here.
If you need to rest your eyes (because you get too many emails like the rest of humanity) you can get thrills for the ears through the audio version (now on Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube - yes, I've been busy).
[I'll continue to publish a weekly article and link round up here on Things I Wrote Down. This week was just a beast in which I turned my attention to getting this new thing out into the world.]
I'm excited to take this creative risk this year. I come alive when I write and share words, so while it feels like The 49 is uncharted territory, I'm believing it will be a worthy adventure.
I hope you join me for it and enjoy it.
Below is a sneak peek of what the series is like, with a focus on the character Diez, a priest who provides last rites in a gameshow everyone watches and no one wants to be part of. Before the world changed, before the nuke in Paris, he was an investigative journalist known for the popular Substack Collars & Crimes.
Exhilarated, a bit nervous, and super thankful,
~ AK
An exclusive excerpt from The 49.
Subscribe here to get the story right in your inbox.
Diez tapped the ring on his right index finger against the fob. The flatscreen panel in what looked like a solid metal door appeared and scanned his face. At the prompt he leaned forward for the retinal scan.
By rote, he spread his arms and legs. Like Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, he thought to himself. He couldn’t help but wonder where the famous sketch by the artist ended up, or if it survived. It was traditionally housed in Venice. He knew that. Sometimes borrowed by the Louvre. So much great art lost.
As the pulse of the infrared camera dissipated, Diez returned his arms to his side, pulled from his thoughts when the green light framed the screen, his signal for all clear.
Nothing to hide.
A thought even the precise and invasive lenses and sensors couldn’t detect. If they could, would they believe him? Would he believe himself?
Today’s confession was in LA on the backlot of a once great studio, where the big show was filmed. He preferred the lot in Calgary, which was closer to home. But he was itinerant and the Loop made for a fast trip.
He stepped through the door into the lobby. The entryway, geometric panes of glass restored since the looting and the fires that preceded them had almost put the city out for good, reflected light throughout the room. It reminded him of the great windows of Notre Dame for some reason, though there was no stained glass. The height, perhaps.
He stopped to look up at the light. Couldn’t help himself. He let it seep into the skin. Penetrate the lines of his face. He stood there in a beam of sunshine palms out turned. Didn’t care what the production staff buzzing to and from corridors that led to the sound stages might think.
He took a deep breath, aware he couldn’t prepare for what the next few hours would bring. He would quiet his mind, even here. Especially here. He inhaled deeply, inhaled the earthy, welcome smell of the greenery in the lobby’s atrium. Blossoms of an orange tree. The sharpness of fertilizer. Dirt.
He had stood like this, in Notre Dame. Eyes closed. Transported. The light through the glass of those windows had done it then. Years ago. When it reopened, after the fire that burned through it. Before it was lost, forever, along with everything else in that great city.
“Father Diez, welcome.”
He opened his eyes. He didn’t recognize the voice. The woman with the headset stood at a respectful distance, the impatience of a production manager: the ponytail quickly pulled into place, the half smile that turned down slightly at the corners of her mouth because the muscles were so used to frowning, her one flash of eye contact, then the return of her gaze to her watch.
“Ready for me?” he asked.
“Right this way.” She was already walking. “The people have spoken.”