Rebel Without a Feed
Why AroundSciFi is becoming Small Circles
Writing, in the end, is an act of stubbornness. You build this space, this place that only exists in your head, inside you somehow. Writing it down makes it real. And maybe that’s the whole reason most of the time. But why the hell would anyone else read it? Because writing alone is only half of what it is. You build a world, but it doesn’t fully complete itself until someone else steps into it. Until someone reads it and says: I’m here. I see what you made. I’m inside it too.
Writing is that strange thing where two people who were never supposed to meet somehow meet anyway.
Do you write with music on?
Kurt Vonnegut once said that every writer worth anything could also be a musician. Music gives us pleasure, it resonates, and it sparks creativity. A friend once told me that, for him, music is proof that God exists. I think writers are proof that God exists too. Yeah, I know, you’re laughing, but I’m not going to explain it. Not this one. Just sit with it for a while, and if you’re still here after that, maybe you’re my kind of people. And I’m yours.
Anyone who has finished writing a book, a story, something that can actually be called literature, is a writer, whether they’ve been published or not. I’m talking about the good stuff, the kind of writing that lights something up inside you, that messes with your head, your heart, your life. Today, people look at results. We almost never do things just because they feel right anymore, or because we love doing them.
Do you write out of need or out of love?
For me, it all comes down to love. And love needs time to grow and bear fruit. What you read today might not mean anything right away. You might not understand why it moved you, or why it disappointed you. Or maybe you don’t understand it until years later. That sentence you read as a kid. The one that comes back to you while you’re walking with your son through the countryside. He looks at you, smiles the way only a child can, and suddenly it hits you… fuck. You understand it now. You finally get what that story about a father and a son, the one you read twenty years ago, meant. And in that moment, the person you were and the person you are finally meet. Only writing can do that.
I’d like to reach more readers, I know that. It feels good to see the numbers move, likes, sales, people talking about what you wrote. I’m not going to pretend I don’t care, of course it matters. But then again… You sit down, drink a beer, watch people pass by, and imagine their lives. That’s what writing is about, not whether it sells or not. Writing is just arranging strange combinations of symbols, ten numbers, and a few punctuation marks. That’s it. And somehow, we still try to build entire worlds out of it. We have to be patient with ourselves. We’re constantly pushed to analyze what we do, but being a real writer isn’t just performance, or output, or praise. It’s staying human long enough to notice other people, and caring enough to take care of the readers.
And maybe that’s why this place has been changing too. So AroundSciFi is becoming Small Circles. Yeah, I’m changing the name of my publication. AroundSciFi is what I started with, because back then it made sense. I was mostly writing science fiction, technology, strange futures, broken systems, machines, bodies, ghosts in the wires, people losing pieces of themselves without always noticing. But that name now only tells part of the story. There will still be science fiction, and cyberpunk, dystopias, machines, algorithms, crooked worlds. But the focus is clearer now: writing about people. The people I meet, the people I’ve met, the people I imagine, and the ones I still don’t understand.
My site is already moving in that direction, and I’ll be updating my Substack too. I want a clearer path now, one more faithful to what this place has become over time. I’ve grown because I’ve met readers and writers who helped me do that.
I’m not the same as I was three years ago when I started. Certain exchanges, comments, texts, and people have made me more aware of what I’m doing here. Every reader who stayed, every writer I met, every message, every sign that something landed somewhere, it all helped me.
Platform or no platform, all of this stays with me.
Let’s see where it goes.
I do believe that writing can be more. What about you?
Michael
For you, the one who gave me the key to it all.
The surface of your soul rests perfectly against mine.
Just wanted to send a positive signal. I've just bought two of your short story collections on Kindle, after reading your article and checking out your website. Enjoying what I've read so far. I grew up reading Dick, Kafka, Lem, Aldiss, Pohl, etc., so your style very much appeals to me. We may not be slaves of the algorithm, but something truly does work through us in mysterious ways to fulfil its great work (as per Dick's 1977 speech at the Metz conference).
Michael, kudos on evolving as a writer! There’s a verse in the Bhagwad Gita I live by. It’s from Chapter 2, verse 47. You have the right to work only, but never to the fruits of your actions.Let not the fruits of action be your motive, nor let your attachment be to inaction. This verse always helps me get the best out of me as a writer. Yeah, eventually, once the book is out I have to worry about the audience, platforms, readers etc. But write to write. The readers will come. You may have a smaller audience, so be it.