Sean E. Britten

It feels kind of strange reflecting on 2025 to be honest. Because while it has been an eventful year for me personally, I almost feel like it’s all been happening in some kind of bubble away from everything else going on in the world. Honestly, in a way it’s almost like the stories I’ve posted here every couple of weeks are me touching base with the outside world before jetting back off in the bubble again!

The biggest event for me in 2025 was, of course, the birth of my first child, Zoe. Reflecting on her is difficult to do because she changes so much literally every day! She’s been an incredible baby, we’ve been so lucky with her, but it’s also difficult to predict from day to day how much she’ll sleep or how much she’ll eat and when, and what kind of things might engage her today. I will say that the first two months have been much, much less stressful than I was anticipating and a lot more enjoyable. We were really bracing ourselves for the worst of those kinds of horror stories you hear about newborns but, again, we got so lucky. She sleeps really well, she only really screams when she wants food so it’s not hard to make that stop, and my wife and I have always made a really great team so that hasn’t changed.

And love goes a long way. You know, I don’t think I felt that kind of ‘bolt from the blue’ love that some people say hits them the second they see their new baby. I don’t think there was one moment that changed me irrecoverably the moment she came into the world. But instead there’s this deep, constantly growing and evolving love I feel as she herself evolves and grows that’s unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced. It’s hard to believe she’s only been in the world for two months when I feel like I can’t remember what life was like before her.

In saying all that, the pregnancy was hard and a big part of why I say it feels like we’ve been floating apart from the world for a long time. There was a lot to do and a lot to deal with but my wife, Tess, really did an incredible job dealing with everything that came with it and, you know, for my part in it I will say again that the two of us make a great team. Then the first two months for any new parents I’m going to guess feels like you’re in a bubble with just you and them.

The saddest part of the past year was of course the passing of my friend and longtime collaborator Ed Blakely. Ed and I had been talking about US politics and global news since 2014 and while you can’t say we got every prediction right he was very possibly the smartest man I’ve ever known. He’d had a long life and a wealth of experience as well as being tremendously intelligent but always maintained an optimistic attitude and had a lot of time for other people.

Towards the end of the year I went to a memorial for Ed and saw again just how many people he’d left an impression on. It was my privilege to get to speak to him week in and week out for so long, both on mic and off, and I miss both the work we did, humble as it was, and that version of myself who was better for knowing him. I was one of the few people outside of his family and doctor who knew about his diagnosis well before his passing but we still believed we would have more time than he ultimately did. I guess that’s true of all of us, that we all think we’ll have more time. Thankfully, he had very much made his peace and that helped to ensure I was at peace with it as well when things reached their conclusion.

When it comes to writing, I’m not sure what to reflect on to be perfectly honest. When I started releasing a short story every week in 2022 I really wanted to improve my short story writing and, by extension, my writing in general. With no false modesty I strongly feel like I’ve done that. I don’t think I was a bad writer before but I’ve certainly learned a lot by doing. At the same time, I’ve still not come across the magic formula to go, okay, this idea plus this formula, head, body, tail, pledge, turn, prestige, and bam, there’s a short story. The thing I struggled with most this year was trying to keep the short stories short! I really wanted to turn out some tighter stories instead of being indulgent with long, meandering tales, but as life took priority I don’t think I ever nailed it.

As I’ve mentioned repeatedly over the course of the year, I was collecting all of the songs that inspired the stories into a single mixtape playlist on Spotify. Obviously I’ve listened to many of the songs on the playlist individually many times, a lot of them are already in my ‘Liked Songs’ playlist or from some of my favourite artists, but I hadn’t listened to the actual Mixtape from beginning to end until this morning!

I’ve got to say, it starts strong. Like not only really good songs but its got that flow of different vibes I think you want to nail in a good mixtape. Middle section maybe has some transitions that don’t work as well but it’s still pretty solid I think. Doesn’t really have the wheels come of until you get toward the end with The Chicken Dance, at which point my wife finally looked up and asked what the hell I was listening to.

I thought about just continuing to add on to the Mixtape playlist as it currently stands but no, that’s not how a mixtape works. This whole idea sprung from those burnt CDs my mates and I used to make back in high school and, you know, sometimes it would come down to a real crunch as to what songs to include in the 80 minutes runtime and what songs you were going to have to leave out. So in the spirit of that, I’ve started again with a SECOND Mixtape playlist and added to it a whole chunk of songs so you can get some idea of what’s coming up! I’d love to know what people actually imagine the stories are going to be about when they see the songs. My priorities in life might have shifted around but, having settled into routine a bit, I had a massive jolt of inspiration toward the end of last year. All of those songs are stories with first drafts already written, hopefully I won’t have to move their order around too much, we’ll see. And I miss doing stuff for All There in the (Monster) Manual, so maybe I’ll try to slot a few more of those in as 2026 happens.

We’ll see, watch this space! For more from me, you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, Reddit, and Instagram.