Researching the Market (Three Shows Too Late) Good Morning World!!! I am late writing today. I did not wake up with a grand philosophical axe to grind. I read a little. Squiggy woke up. We ended up playing on the floor for hours. I finally snuck into the office for five minutes of peace, and she has already breached the perimeter and filed a formal union grievance for lunch. I have also had the flu. Real flu. Bone-rattling fever, sinus pressure behind my eyeballs, and that lovely state of consciousness where you are too exhausted to sleep but too delirious to be considered awake. Today is day three of keeping solid food down. I am not ready to run a 5K, but I might be ready to tackle the kitchen sink. Let us not get too masochistic on a Sunday. So yes, the essays have been running shorter. I am still here every morning. I have just been pouring the lion's share of my words into my fictional people. I currently have three different audio series live on Pocket FM that exactly zero human beings are listening to. Having published three of them, I have now undertaken the radical, highly sensible step of actually researching the platform. You know. Silly minor details. Who actually listens to this stuff? What genre is lighting the algorithm on fire? What do the hit shows actually sound like? Turns out, writing for the ear is an entirely different sport. I am a reader, not a listener. Sitting still with headphones on requires a level of sensory discipline I do not naturally possess. My attention span has the structural integrity of a wet paper towel. So I did the research. And my unvarnished, objective assessment of my current catalog? Measured against what actually works on the platform, my shows suck. Spectacularly. Not mediocre. Not promising. Spectacularly. I have three beautifully written audio series that nobody wants to listen to because I built them for the wrong medium. So none of the three will likely survive in their current form. I am going to have to tear them down to the studs, rethink the pacing, and rebuild them from scratch with an ear for audio serials. And that is fine. Such is life. We live, we stub our toes, we learn, and we build something better. You know my motto. Make It Ugly. You cannot steer a parked car, and you cannot polish a masterpiece that only exists in your head. My three ugly babies are out in the world with their bad pacing and their reader's voice and their zero listeners. They are not failures. They are drafts. And I would rather have three ugly drafts than three perfect ideas I never had the nerve to publish. I am dropping the links to all three below for anyone curious about what I have been doing with my life instead of fighting strangers on X all day. Go do something you love today. Even if your first draft looks like a crime scene. Have a great day, everybody. And may the truth always be in your favor.