I’ve been trying to define the kind of minds Hush Halo seems to pull in. In doing so, I learned quite a bit about my own writing too.

Who Do I Write For?

Am I a bit late to this question? Who do I actually write for?

Some days it feels like I’m writing for Substack. The system, the algo, whatever keeps things moving. Other days it’s just me, writing to myself. But if I’m honest, I do enjoy having an audience. So again, thank you for reading my stuff.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about this more seriously. Who gravitates toward this kind of work? Who ends up here naturally?

If I look at it honestly, my audience isn’t broad. Dystopian poetry with soundscapes already narrows things down quite a bit. You don’t just stumble in and stay, you must really enjoy my kind of weird.

Brand Archetypes

For several years, in my actual job, I’ve leaned on brand archetypes in my work. They’re a surprisingly simple way to understand who you’re really speaking to, whether the goal is commercial or not.

The system loosely builds on Jungian archetypes, but in practice it’s less about psychology theory and more about recognizing patterns in people, motivations, and emotional pull.

What happens, when you start seeing these patterns? Your audiences, and even characters, stop feeling like faceless demographics and start feeling a lot more human.

TAKE THE POLL BELOW!
Let me know, if you are one of these.
C’mon, let’s have some fun!

Coloring With Steretypes

As an example, I’ll bring up Hush Halo audience stereotypes. I created these archetypes for this piece, but it opened my eyes once again to step up a level in my writing.

#1 The System Watcher

The System Watcher quietly notices how things are built: systems, identities, trends, social rules, even conversations. They keep spotting the seams, cracks, and invisible structures underneath.

They don’t read dystopia as pure fiction, but more like a slightly exaggerated mirror of real life. They’re naturally drawn to layered ideas, uncomfortable questions, and work that leaves space for interpretation. Overexplaining usually pushes them away.

That’s probably why Hush Halo resonates with them. I leave gaps, glitches, and unanswered tension on purpose. The System Watcher enjoys connecting the dots themselves.

#2 The Inner Diver

The Inner Diver is less interested in the world itself and more in what the world reveals internally. Identity, awareness, emotion, that shift from not knowing to knowing. They naturally turn inward, trying to make sense of what’s happening underneath the surface.

They don’t need clear answers or perfectly explained endings. In fact, too much certainty often makes things feel flatter. They prefer work that leaves room to reflect and interpret.

Hush Halo resonates with them because beneath the dystopian layer, the real movement often happens internally. Realizations, emotional glitches, subtle shifts in awareness.

#3 The Aesthetic Listener

The Aesthetic Listener doesn’t necessarily arrive for poetry first, but for the feeling: tone, rhythm, sound, atmosphere. They experience things emotionally first.

They’re highly responsive to mood and aesthetics. A sound, visual, or pacing can pull them in instantly. The soundscapes often reach them before the words, and that’s perfectly fine. For them, the experience matters just as much, if not more, as the meaning.

Hush Halo resonates with them because my poems live beyond the page, leaning strongly on atmosphere too.

#4 The Sci-Fi Romantic

The Sci-Fi Romantic still believes in big ideas, even the darker ones. They’re drawn to alternate realities, strange futures, and symbolic worlds. They don’t read to escape this reality, but to understand it.

They naturally think in “what if” scenarios. What if society keeps going this way? What if identity changes? What if perfection becomes the problem? They don’t mind going a bit deep or weird.

Hush Halo resonates because beneath there’s always something human hiding beneath the dystopian layer. The strange worlds and concepts are really just mirrors pointing back toward us.

#5 The Quiet Outsider

The Quiet Outsider never fully feels at home, just slightly out of sync. They move through the world ordinary enough, yet there’s a feeling of distance underneath.

They don’t usually fight systems loudly. If anything, they prefer staying under the radar, but I see you... They can sense when things are off, even slightly artificial, performative, or emotionally disconnected.

Hush Halo doesn’t feel strange to them, but familiar: the unspoken tension, the emotional distance, the feeling of observing the world while never fully merging with it.

I can only add five options on the pull.
If you’re none of these, I’d love to hear
your take on this in comments.

Leave a comment

So, What Did I Learn?

My readers search for writing that reflects what they already sensed, but didn’t have words for.

• They think in layers.

• They question systems, identities and narratives.

• Their inner world and the outside world mirror each other.

• They are drawn to atmosphere.

• They don’t want everything explained.

• They are not driven by trends or polished perfection.

• Not every question needs an answer.

• Depth matters more than volume.

What About Your Audience?

It’s not only great FUN, it will most likely bring you relief, actually save your time, help you regain focus and spread your word. This kind of audience analysis can truly change how you approach your own writing.

Once you begin recognizing who naturally connects with your work, you stop trying to write for everyone at once. It can help you understand why certain people deeply connect with your work while others simply don’t.

Why Bother?

• You stop over-explaining and start trusting your audience to think alongside you.

• You can focus less on information and more on creating a tone and feeling people actually remember.

• You can allow more personality and imperfection into your work, instead of polishing everything flat.

• You will create work people revisit, save and think about later.

• Communication becomes consistent and your voice comes recognizable.

• You waste less time and energy chasing trends.

• You may learn what your voice truly sounds like.

What if,
defining your audience
will help you define yourself
better as a writer?

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian fantasy poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with its own immersive soundscape. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Subscribe now

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

There’s a very specific kind of frustration I keep running into. Not the kind where I’m stuck or out of ideas. The opposite. I’ve got too many of them.

It looks productive from the outside. It feels like I’m doing a lot. But if I’m honest, not much actually lands. I’ve been circling this for a while, maybe my whole life, and yeah… let’s dive in.

No Villain

There’s no villain here. No algorithm, no lack of time, no external force working against me. This one’s 100% on me. I keep spreading myself too thin, jumping from one idea to the next, scattering my focus all over the place.

The problem isn’t that I have nothing to write or nothing to do. I do. I also have way too many things pulling me in different directions at the same time.

Not That Kind of Problem

I keep hearing about different types of writers. Plotters, pantsers, character-driven, world-builders, people who outline everything, people who just go.

That’s all fine. I get it. I even recognize parts of myself in those.

But that’s not what this is. This isn’t about how I write. This is about how I operate. I have my way of creating, sure, but the real issue is that I’m all over the place.

Not just in my writing, but in life in general.

This article is a perfect example of the problem. Shouldn’t I be writing about my dystopian poetry?

So Many Ideas

I’ve got ideas. Way too many of them. Writing ideas, business ideas, marketing angles, art projects, new apps, new platforms, new ways to do the same thing I was doing yesterday.

I’ll get obsessed with something, go all in, build momentum fast, get a ton done… and then drop it. Not because it’s a bad idea, but because I’ve already burned through the interesting part. The dopamine is gone.

Once I’ve proven to myself that it could work, maybe even that it’s a great idea, that’s it. No fuel left to actually finish the thing.

I don’t run out of ideas. I run out of follow-through.

Starting Is Easy

Starting things is not my problem. I start all the time. I start strong.

I’m like a rocket with all that launch power but rarely do I reach beyond the atmosphere.

I’ll take an idea, run with it for days, sometimes weeks, go deep, build it out, even validate it with numbers just to prove to myself it makes sense. And it often does. That’s the annoying part.

I’m not chasing bad ideas. I’m just not finishing good ones.

And the prioritization? Basically non-existent. It takes me the same mental energy to plan housecleaning as it does to spin up a new, in-depth business concept. Absolutely no difference. Everything feels equally important in the moment.

Same Pattern, Different Scale

When I look back, this isn’t new. There are times I’ve actually done really well in my career. On those occasions, I also wasn’t doing it alone.

I was the one who got things moving, started fast, pushed ideas forward. Then someone else came in for the routines, locked things in, made it sustainable. That combo worked.

Left on my own, I default to the same pattern. Start strong, go deep, lose interest, move on.

In many ways I feel like a big kid sometimes. There, I said it. Not in a bad way, but in a very real way. Curious, fast, easily excited, easily distracted. Great for spreading the Legos, not so great at cleaning them up.

This Is My Wiring

At some point I have to admit this isn’t a phase. This is how I’m wired. I’m never going to suddenly become that calm, focused, one-thing-at-a-time person. That’s not me. And honestly, trying to force that has probably broken me and things around me more than it fixed.

All I can do is be brutally honest about it.

I can’t control the fact that I get pulled into new ideas fast, but I can control how many of those I allow in. I can limit the triggers. I can decide what deserves my attention and what doesn’t.

I can lean in my strengths and keep starting things. I can design my projects so, that I get new stages of novelty in them as I move forward. New challenges.

Focus isn’t something that just happens to me. It’s something I have to design daily. I cannot just think, that I’ll finish this article later since that later never comes. I finish it now or I just simply don’t.

Picking My Fights

The real shift is this. I can’t build everything. I can’t maintain everything. And although I keep pretending I can, I’ll just keep repeating the same loop.

So I need to get real good at picking my fights. And I have become better at this. I’ve improved a tiny bit in figuring out what actually matters.

I try to sleep on an idea before I rush into it to evaluate better what I’m willing to let go, even if it’s a good idea. Especially if it’s a good idea.

I cannot ‘not start things’. I need a simple system in the background that doesn’t eat all my attention. I cannot ‘not think in multiple directions’.

That’s how I tick, how I think so I work around it. I try to figure out how to do less, but real, how to keep the novelty going, how to work in multiple streams without collapsing or collapsing the project.

So less, but real, it is.

I’m Fine

Is this something I need to fix? Maybe I just need to stop pretending I can work like productivity gurus tell me to. Fine, I’m different. I know how I work. I’ve seen the pattern play out and spread all over enough times.

The problem starts when I ignore this. When I ignore myself.

So, while juggling multiple balls in the air, I’ll keep this simple. One lane or stream at a time, one per day. Fewer triggers. Honesty about what I can actually carry.

I’m not broken, not too broken at least. I’m just wired this way. If I work with that instead of against it, things might actually start to click.

We’ll see.

Again.

Ddoes this sound familiar? I’m curious.

• Do you deal with the same thing, or do you actually finish what you start?

• Are you more of a starter or a finisher? Or stuck somewhere in between like me?

• Do you limit your ideas, or just accept the chaos and work around it?

x

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian fantasy poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with its own immersive soundscape. More background: Square One.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Subscribe now

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

x

When I started working on Hush Halo, I felt that my poems worked on the page. Yet I kept thinking about how they would feel if they were heard, not just read. With my dystopian themes, I wanted more color and atmosphere, something that would make you feel the weight of the words differently.

So I started looking for ways to bring sound into my poetry, even though I’m the very last person you’d expect to go there.

Green Grass I Couldn’t Reach

I’m so not musical that it’s not even funny. Not even a little.

It’s one of those quiet limitations that has followed me for years. As a kid, my voice was something I felt weird about. I’ve always felt that this lack made me hold back.

Music wasn’t part of my family either, so I never really stepped into it. It always felt like something other people had access to, some kind of expression I missed along the way. So I stayed with writing and visual arts.

Words and colors felt safe. Sound didn’t.

Stumbling Into Sound

My dystopian themes were heavy, layered, a bit unsettling. I kept thinking they deserved more than just black and white text on a screen.

Around that time, my son was making annoying beats with his friends, keeping me up during the summer nights of 2025. Maybe it was the lack of sleep or just my general angst about my need to beat the AI-related tech fears, who knows. Due to this happenstance, I stumbled into sound tools. Eventually I found Suno, which I’ve been working with ever since.

I had tried audio tools before, mostly for straightforward narration, but this felt different immediately. This wasn’t about reading poems out loud, but building a whole atmosphere around my Hush Halo universe.

Even without any musical background, I could tell what felt right and what didn’t. I may not know how to make music, but I know what I want it to feel like.

Making My Rhymes Pulse

Once I got past the idea that I needed to “know music,” things opened up. I started treating this like any other concept I build.

I have a pretty strong backbone in structuring ideas, testing variations, and pushing toward a specific outcome, and it turns out that translates surprisingly well here.

I’m tweaking, iterating, nudging things forward piece by piece. Sometimes I’m guiding the flow by forcing Suno’s hand just to get the rhythm, tone, and phrasing to land right. And often it still goes sideways.

Simple words can break everything. You try to fix one tiny thing and suddenly it all falls apart. It’s messy.

But that mess is also where it gets interesting. My poetry can hold weird combinations in a way most formats can’t. I can build one piece around something soft and almost cute, like bedroom pop, lean into a western-style whistle in another, and then mash those together and layer in something like mumble punk on top.

Vibe Coding My Way

It feels unfair and like cheating that I don’t need to know how to play an instrument or sing. I’m very much ok with making mistakes and bad quality.

My mind says it shouldn’t work, but it does. Until it doesn’t. As long as the feeling lands, the piece holds.

Mine to Make

At this point, every poem I publish comes with a soundscape. That’s not an extra, but a vital part of every piece.

I try to be open about the process. The sound is AI-generated, yes, but it’s not just pressing a button and calling it done. Getting the words to land right, getting the rhythm to carry the meaning, that takes a lot of trial and error.

Hush Halo has become a niche of its own, immersive dystopian poetry. Even in printed books, you can step into the realm of Hush Halo by scanning the QR code next to each poem.

First Shame, Then Curiosity

At first, using AI felt like cheating. To be honest, it still does, sometimes.

I felt embarrassed to publish these. So much so that I went to the lengths of figuring out how to not call these pieces music or singing or songs.

Now I call them soundscapes instead, or poetry with a pulse, trying to refer more to the experience rather than musicality.

In the beginning, even when I clearly said the voice was AI-assisted, people still commented on “how beautiful my voice was”. That made me want to crawl under the table.

It still happens sometimes, but now I also hear the flip side. I’ve heard people who usually avoid anything AI-related say that in this context, the voice actually feels right.

I’m not some AI believer either, but as a tool, this stuff comes in pretty handy.

If you’ve listened to my poems, I’m curious how it felt to you.

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian fantasy poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with its own immersive soundscape. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Subscribe now

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

📍By the way,
don’t miss the poll
at the end.

Sure, money is an awkward topic.

Let’s be honest for a moment. Most of us didn’t start writing because of money, but very few would complain if money followed.

Somewhere between passion and practicality, there’s a tension that rarely gets addressed openly because it feels slightly off-limits.

Writing should should exist outside of economics, as if talking about money somehow cheapens the work. It doesn’t.

Let’s Say the Quiet Part Out Loud

There’s this weird, unspoken rule that you’re not supposed to care about money as a writer. And if you’re a poet, even more so. The moment you mention or even think about money, it feels like you’ve somehow misunderstood the whole point of writing.

I get it. We write because we want to. Writing matters to us, a lot. But let’s not pretend that’s the whole story.

If I could pay my bills with writing, I would. No hesitation. And I don’t think I’m alone in that. There is not a single sane writer who would choose a 9–5 over full-time writing.

Most of us are tied to other work because we have to be. Saying that out loud doesn’t ruin your art.

Life costs money.

The Reality Behind the Romance

Substack makes this whole thing look way simpler than it actually is. At first glance, it feels like the perfect setup. I write, people subscribe, and somehow it all starts paying for itself. That idea is hard not to like.

But honestly, I don’t even need the exact numbers to know that only a tiny fraction of writers here actually make enough to live on this. And even for them, subscriptions alone rarely carry much weight.

The model sounds great on paper, but it leans heavily on people being willing to pay consistently for writing alone.

People don’t pay for writing as easily as we like to believe.

Especially now, people are careful with their money. I get that. I do the same. So the idea that I can just write and get paid for it starts to feel just a bit… absurd.

The Math That Doesn’t Add Up

If you look at the rough numbers, and they’re not subtle. One book sale gets me maybe five to eight bucks. Same with a Substack subscription. Sounds fine, right?

If I want anything close to a livable income, I’m not selling a few copies here and there. I need hundreds. More realistically, thousands. Every month. Not once.

Every. Month.

The illusion cracks. If you’re writing writing poetry or anything even slightly niche like I am, that’s a steep hill.

Writing feels like the main thing, but money-wise, it rarely is. Even people doing “well” are usually not living off the writing itself. The math just doesn’t hold.

So yeah, writing might be the product, but the money almost always comes from something built around it.

So What Now?

If writing alone rarely pays, then the question isn’t whether that’s fair.

So, what am I (we) supposed to do with this?

I’m already here. I’m already writing. I’ve got people reading, reacting, sticking around. That’s not nothing. That’s attention. That’s trust. That’s something I’ve built over time and hopefully keep on building.

But how do I turn this into something that actually carries financial weight.

It gets very real, very fast.

It’s way easier for me to land one paying client a month for something like graphic design, branding, or a website than it is to make the same money through books or subscriptions.

One client can equal what, 300 book sales? 300 subscribers? One client can easily beat 300 readers when it comes to paying the bills. Same money, completely different game.

I’m not saying I should stop writing or turn everything into a transaction. Though honestly, I would, if I could.

Maybe my point is that we’re blind to the fact that writing on its own is rarely the whole business.

It may be the core, the beating heart. Everything else money-related gets built around it.

The ones who make this work are stacking things on top of their writing. Services, teaching, products, whatever fits.

Monetizing Loop

This is the question I keep coming back to.

If writing alone doesn’t carry the weight, then what can I put around it? Not to replace it, but adding to it. Do I start teaching what I know? Package my skills? Build something that actually translates into money?

And if I go down that road, what happens to my writing? Does that make me a sellout? I’m not trying to turn everything into a product, but I catch myself thinking about this quite a bit.

I’m already here, already putting time into this, and people are clearly connecting with me, my writing and most importantly with each others.

At this point the question
isn’t if we should monetize.
That part feels obvious.

How do we monetize
without messing up
the reason we started
writing in the first place?

My Answer?

Ha! If I had an answer, would I be asking it here?

I don’t think there’s some ready-made, perfect model waiting for me. It’s probably way messier than that, but I’m willing to work through it.

I’m not pretending I have this figured out. I truly don’t. But I do have a couple of interesting ideas on how to monetize poetry and writing in general.

Right now I’m thinking I’ll just try things, see what works, adjust, repeat. Share it openly here, what works and what doesn’t. That feels more honest than pretending I’ve got it figured out.

So consider yourself warned. I might be talking about money and monetization a bit more going forward.

Just for fun, take the poll and see how we are.

If you’re in the same spot, trying to balance writing and making a living, I’m genuinely curious how you’re thinking about it.

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian fantasy poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with its own immersive soundscape. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Subscribe now

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

CHECK OUT MY BOOK

I thought publishing a book would feel like arrival. It did not. It felt more like standing in a dark room, finger on a button, realizing that once I press it, there is no taking it back.

I am a Writer Now?

The book is now live. It has a place in the world. I actually made a dent.

Insecurities kick in immediately. There is no clear category for what I made. Does poetry count the same way a novel does. And dystopian poetry. Who even does that?

Subscribe now

My writing, my genre, my niche does not sit comfortably on a familiar shelf. There is no category for me in Amazon. Since not too many around me is doing this exact thing, it makes harder for me to borrow confidence from comparison. And yet -

I am a writer now. A published author, in fact. I like the sound of that.

The book exists, though. It has a cover, a listing, a price. That fact creates a shift whether I feel ready for it or not.

Coming Out With a Book

Writing was private. Publishing is not.

The hardest part is telling people it exists. Saying it directly. Sharing the link. If I had not made myself accountable to this specific publishing date, I am not sure I would have done it at all.

While I was working on the manuscript, no one really needed to know. It was contained. Safe. The moment I decided to publish, my work and writing became a statement. Not just that I wrote something, but that I dare to believe out loud that it deserves space.

What if no one buys it?
What if someone does?

The Moment of Publish

It was late. The house was quiet. Kids asleep. A dark corner in my living room’s writing space was lit only by a screen. I was wearing a worn out flowery robe, my eyes were heavy and I felt more tired than ceremonial.

My finger stayed on the publish button longer than necessary, but I pressed it.

For a moment I wished there had been someone sitting next to me to share this milestone. Then I realized that I actually do have someone to share this with. Someone I can 100% count on to have my back in this, regardless of the outcome.

Relief Instead of Pride

I assumed the dominant feeling would be pride. A sense of arrival. What I felt instead was relief.

Relief that the files were uploaded. Relief that the decisions were final. Relief that I no longer had to adjust a line, a margin, a word. There is nothing left to optimize. Even the beginner mistakes are now part of the outcome. (More about those later.)

It is done. It is public. I can let go.

CHECK OUT MY BOOK

I hope you feel curious enough to read the book. If it is not for you, sharing this post or the link with your tribe would mean just as much.

Your support matters to me!

Did you miss my previous posts?

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian fantasy poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with its own immersive soundscape. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Subscribe now

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

From layout to images to sound, this poetry book was shaped by a series of decisions that favored control over convenience. Familiar tools, manual workflows, and repeated revisions replaced automation and efficiency.

DIY Book Design
= Owning Your Choices and Mistakes

I made a deliberate decision early on not to invest in traditional writing or layout software for this project. Tools like InDesign and other professional publishing suites were an option, but they would have added both cost and friction. I wanted speed and familiarity.

I chose Canva instead. While it is technically a paid tool, the cost is reasonable, and more importantly, it is an environment I know how to navigate with my eyes closed.

That choice didn’t actually reduce my workload, on the contrary. A large part of the layout became manual by necessity. Every element had to be placed, adjusted, and tested individually.

On Adding Friction by Choice

Because why not..?

You can design a poetry book by word, and be done with it. That is perfectly valid solution. But why would I do that, since I can spend sleepless nights pouring my heart into design details?

Illustrations

The images in the book started as Midjourney generations. Getting AI illustrations to meet both my personal requirements and print quality requirements meant resizing and refining details to work at larger scales.

What looks finished on screen often falls apart under print specifications. Though I have a system in place for this, this stage was slow and occasionally frustrating.

I even considered leaving images out all together, as I wrote in my previous article.

Soundscape System

The same applied to the audio layer. I created Soundscapes using Suno (AI), then edited the tracks to better match the context requirements.

This all adds layers and layers of friction to the process. But in the end, it’s totally worth it, since soundscapes expand the book beyond the page.

Audio sample of Poetry with a Pulse: Is this what we worked for?

After that came the less visible work.

Each poem is paired with a QR code that leads directly to its audio counterpart. Encoding the files, organizing them, and hosting them on a server that allows access without requiring reader registration.

And when it comes to Kindle version, QR codes become obsolete. I figured an other way of adding Soundscapes to each poem. Manually, of course.

Are QR Codes Wort It?

I have embedded QR codes for each poem, allowing readers to listen while reading, and added visual elements to support the atmosphere of the text.

Canva offers a very simple tool to add QR codes, as long as you make sure they are function correctly. You cannot just link to Substack, you actually need these links to be never, ever, ever changing URL:s.

None of this was difficult in isolation. QR codes require an eye for a detail and patience and consistency. And an unhealthy amount of editing rounds and testing, and in the end they will leave doors wide open for human error.

I would say still, so worth it!

Once you get your copy, I’d love to hear your take on this.

Share

About Cover Design

You can dive into this topic as deeply as you wish. It’s truly a bottomless weld.

My cover took longer than I initially expected, because I realized that I needed a concept, not just a cover. The first version worked on a technical level and it was great for both sci-fi genre and poetry. But it didn’t carry enough weight to represent the book as a whole. Once I stopped trying to force a solution, a clearer direction began to surface.

That direction became the alien flower concept. It felt immediately expandable, not just as a single cover image, but as a visual language for the entire Hush Halo poetry line.

The flowers suggest something unfamiliar yet deliberate, organic but not natural in any recognizable way. They tell a story without explanation.

Next Level: Bringing Alien Flowers to Life

In the cover of Paradise Beyond Pulse is a single Silver Lotus Exogenous Morph that also warranted its own nerdy detail, a small botanical note at the end of the book.

GIF’s and MP4’s
Once the visual identity started to feel coherent, it became difficult to see it as something fixed to a single format. Midjourney’s ability to generate short video sequences opened up a door for this alien beauty extend beyond the printed page.

This is next level, but i love it. I’m not there yet, but looking ahead, animated and GIF based covers feel like a natural next step, especially in digital contexts.

Fictional story behind my poetry is not static but in it’s core, already already pointing onward. I feel that movement adds another layer of meaning without requiring additional explanation.

Looking back, I’m not sure all this testing or anything in my approach saved time.

No, actually I am sure: It didn’t.

But all this designing surely made every layer of the book feel earned.

Did you miss my previous posts?

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian fantasy poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with its own immersive soundscape. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Subscribe now

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
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The date is set. The files are uploaded, the cover is locked, and the book exists now in a very real way.

This is a snapshot of where I am mentally and practically now, that I’m standing less than a week away from release. What feels settled and what doesn’t.

Publishing Poetry Book on KDP

The release is scheduled for Thursday, February 12.

Poetry Beyond Pulse will be available as a paperback and Kindle edition through Amazon KDP. I decided against I am also working alongside IngramSpark, but that process is still ongoing and intentionally left outside the scope of this piece.

This volume includes 140 dystopian poems and soundscapes, mostly new material. Some poems have been published prior here in Hush Halo site in 2025.

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Loving the Work Itself

Dystopian poetry works for me because it is abstract enough to allow conceptual thinking, but still grounded enough to demand clarity and internal logic. I don’t write single poems as isolated pieces. I start from a world, a tone, a set of rules, and then write inside that frame until it begins to feel self sustaining. That kind of work matches how my mind operates.

It is also strange enough to keep my attention. If the material becomes too familiar, I lose interest quickly. Dystopian themes force me to question language, power, intimacy, and control in ways that stay mentally engaging.

The challenge is kind of built in and I don’t have to manufacture motivation. The creative momentum comes from curiosity rather than discipline, and the work pulls me forward instead of needing to be pushed.

Hitting Publish and Moving On?

You know what’s funny though? The instant the files were accepted and the project moved out of my hands, my attention shifted forward. My mind began assembling the outline of something new. As if the closing of one system freed up space for another to form.

There is a particular pull in the act of assembling my work and finally passing the finish line. Writing, sequencing, testing connections, and watching elements lock into place creating my flow.

This completion does not feel like an endpoint, I thought it would. It’s more like a release of pressure that makes room for the next build.

As always, I’m happy to hear your thoughts.

ps. Heads Up! In couple of days I will post shortly about my thoughts on cover designing.

Discover my Poetry or read more about my writing process:

Did you miss the previous Writer’s Updates?

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian fantasy poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with its own immersive soundscape. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

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To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

This is not something I usually post, and it may well be both the first and last time. I wanted to share it anyway, since it feels connected to my dystopian poetry writing.

Books and Audiobooks

A large portion of the books are audiobooks. I usually listen while walking, doing chores, or working with my hands. If I’m painting or crafting, I’m almost always listening to something.

Red Rising (books 1–3)
I started these already in December, but they dominated my January. The worldbuilding and character roles are extremely compelling, and the verbal style, especially naming and terminology, is top-tier. This definitely sharpened my sensitivity to invented language.

Atmosphere
A quieter read compared to the sci-fi pile. More about emotional states and relationships than ideas, but useful as a reminder of pacing and restraint.

Project Hail Mary
I technically started this in 2025, but I am counting it here because the upcoming film adaptation makes it feel timely. A very efficient, problem-solving driven narrative. Comforting competence. Cannot wait to see the movie soon!

Toward Eternity
Super interesting and dense. I need to read this again and actually take notes. The cover alone is remarkable and likely influenced my own cover thinking more than I initially realized.

The Murderbot Diaries (book 1)
Light, funny, and slightly childish in tone, but still recommendable. Easy to consume and oddly reassuring. Works well in audio, haven’t seen the movies yet. Have you?

Series and Television

I try to rotate streaming services and keeping only one active at a time. Because I watch an unreasonable amount, especially series, and I am not the only viewer in the household, there are occasional overlaps. To me, it’s all or nothing. If I can survive past 30 mins, I’m most likely hooked for 3-9 seasons.

Altered Carbon (1-2)
I have watched this twice now. The atmosphere still holds up, even if the adaptation choices are debatable. Would have enjoyed these more with less blood.

Travelers
Seen three times. Still one of my favorite time-travel concepts, even with its limitations. One of the greatest sci-fi concepts.

Elementary
Second full watch-through, all seasons. I enjoy the procedural calm and character consistency.

Stranger Things
The final season. I loved the ending more than expected. I might watch again later with my son, though it’s not really my favorite genre.

In From the Cold
A strange Russian agent story. Messy, slightly off, but very much my kind of weird.

Snowpiercer (1-3)
I had postponed watching this for a long time based on the trailers. Once I finally started, it turned out to be a positive surprise. Interesting characters and just the right amount of strange and impossible sci-fi, contained in a tight, train-shaped package.

Movies

The Rip
Did not enjoy this one too much. The plot was fine, but stylistically not for me.

The Accountant and The Accountant 2
I enjoyed both, weird main characters are always cool. Straightforward, controlled, and surprisingly satisfying.

Bourne (films 1–4)
We watched all four together with my child. There was clearly a Matt Damon theme running through January. These still work well as grounded action films. Enough momentum and physicality to keep a younger viewer engaged, but restrained enough for me. At this point, this is exactly the level of action I still enjoy. I have no energy left for Marvel-style escalation.

Currently reading or listening

Woken Furies
I jumped into this because the Netflix adaptation of Altered Carbon only has two seasons. The tonal shift back into the book world feels weir, but necessary.

What Does This Button Do?
Bruce Dickinson is one of the most impressive people I know of, and listening to this audiobook is genuinely motivating. It works as inspiration and entertainment at the same time. An impressive man with an impressive story.

The Murderbot Diaries (book 2)
More of the same rhythm as the first. Works well in audio format.

Iron Gold
Very different from the earlier Red Rising books. The shift to younger narrators in sci-fi takes some adjustment for me.

Die, My Love
Film adaptation coming in 2026. I want to read this before seeing it. The tone already feels uncomfortable in a way I appreciate.

We Are Legion (We Are Bob)
Started strong, but once the AI began mass-cloning itself, I lost interest. Not sure if I will finish this one.

About That Screen Time

Too much? Yes, I can safely say my screen time has been high. Whether that has helped or distracted my writing depends on the day, but immersion in other worlds always leaves some residue.

Discover my Poetry or read more about my writing process:

This is not my regular type of post, probably the first and last time at once. I felt like sharing, because these seem to be related to my dystopian poetry writing.

How many of these have you read or watched?

And what would you recommend for me this spring?

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian fantasy poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with its own immersive soundscape. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

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Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

I was supposed to be working on my book this week. Paradise Beyond Pulse has been on my desk in a near-final state, waiting for me to give it one last, decisive push. Instead, I put the whole project aside for two days.

The reason was a note from Minnesota. I read Teri Leigh’s account of what is happening in her community right now, and it pulled me entirely out of my orbit. It wasn’t the headlines, but the details:

• a donut shop turned into a medic center,

• a bookstore owner walking through tear gas at seventy,

• people cleaning tear gas debris at sunrise so children wouldn’t wake up to it,

• mothers in reflective vests taking night shifts in sub-zero weather to watch over strangers’ kids,

• the National Guard offering donuts and cocoa the morning after a death.

These were not stories of disaster. They were stories of people being stubbornly human, against the odds. It was impossible for me to read without feeling something shift.

Poem Them Down?

Somewhere in the middle of all this, I read Nicoles article The Brown House and jokingly said maybe the best we can do is simply poem those bastards down. Nicole gives us an open mandate, Permission to Weird.

So this is me, doing exactly that.

A Brief Pause from Heart

I stepped away from my manuscript and wrote eight small poems. All of them about community. All of them about ordinary goodness. All of them about the quiet ways people hold each other up when systems fail.

I wrote the poems and, as usual, I created the soundscapes and visuals with AI. I’m releasing these all for free use with no copyright restrictions.

If these pieces help you spark hope, support your community, or simply remind you that kindness still happens in real time, then take them. Share them. Pass them forward. Credit me if you want, but it’s not required.

It’s Not Them, But Us All

I don’t live in Minnesota. Actually, I’m pretty far from it. I don’t pretend to know what you’re going through there. I’m seeing only fragments of it from the safe distance of my screen.

But as a mother of two, reading about families trying to stay safe, neighborhoods improvising survival, and strangers stepping in when parents “disappeared,” hit closer than I expected.

Some situations are local, others belong to all of us. This is the latter.

Thank you for reading and caring.

Minnesota Inspired

I’ll publish the eight poems individually here on Substack and on my website. They’re all available to you at once.

About & Context

These poems, soundscapes, and visuals are unrelated to my main project. These pieces exist purely as support, no commercial intent, no conditions attached. You’re welcome to copy, share, and pass them forward in any way that feels useful.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

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To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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I am currently deciding whether to include images in my poetry book at all.

My core tension is simple: do images confuse the reader and dilute the poems, or do they offer necessary breathing room for the text.

Should a Poetry Book Have Images?

At the moment, the book includes abstract imagery created with AI to support a dystopian fantasy atmosphere.

It is important to me to be explicit that these are AI-generated visuals, not hand-made illustrations. I do my best to make them interesting, yet obvious. They are not meant to be read as traditional illustrations, but as atmospheric companions.

Abandoned Hand-Illustration Path

I have not fully given up on the idea of illustrating my poetry by hand using oil, acrylic, or watercolor. Last autumn I worked on this seriously, but eventually shelved it.

The process slowed the project down significantly. More importantly, it began to pull attention away from the poetry itself, which should remain the primary focus. I do have a conceptual idea for illustrating Hush Halo later, but it still requires substantial development and time.

Cover Versus Interior Logic

The cover will feature an alien flower that appears almost real, but reveals bolts, screws, and wires on closer inspection.

Visually, the cover is intentionally different from the interior imagery. This feels acceptable to me because I want the covers to form a consistent visual family, while allowing the interior aesthetics to shift with each book’s narrative and tone.

Below are some of the imagery I have planned for my dystopian poetry book, Paradise Beyond Pulse.

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Layout and pacing decision

I have currently designed the book so that images appear roughly every 10 to 14 pages. This spacing keeps the focus firmly on the poems and soundscapes.

The images are not there to explain, symbolize, or guide interpretation. Their primary function is to add breathing room. Atmosphere and mood are secondary effects.

Unresolved Decision

The remaining question is whether the book should include images at all. I am still weighing this choice.

The poems stand on their own, but the images may support the reader’s endurance and rhythm without competing for meaning. That said, I am open to reconsidering the entire visual layer if it ultimately serves the poetry better to remove it.

What do you think? Should poetry books have images?

Leave a comment

What are you interested in reading next?

• Dystopian Poetry

• Artist’s Headspace

• Making of Hush Halo

• Square One

• About, My Why and My How

• Leave feedback on Reader’s Corner

What would you like to ask me?

I’d like to write more “Making of” articles. What topics should I cover?

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian fantasy poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with its own immersive soundscape. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Subscribe now

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

I am already deep into writing the book. At this stage the work is technically moving forward, but mentally I am starting to tire and feel the need to get it out of my hands. What began as a relatively contained poetry project has expanded far beyond its original scope.

Just a quick reminder: Most of my writing is published openly and free. Almost all posts are automatically paywalled after 14 days.

To see archived posts and poems, you need to break the paywall.

Making of Paradise Beyond Pulse

Paradise Beyond Pulse started as a roughly 120 page collection with about 80 poems. At some point I became stuck on the idea that these poems could not exist as a printed book because many of them had already been published on Substack. That assumption slowed the project more than I expected.

While circling that issue, I began examining the world building and narrative logic more closely. That process pushed me to write complementary poems that filled structural and thematic gaps. My mind shifted from a loose collection into a more intentional system. More about that on previous update:

In total I wrote around 240 poems before stopping. Even though I still had unused themes on my list, I figured it was pointless to write any more for this just because I felt like it. I deliberately chose exhaustion over endless accumulation.

From that material, I have now cut the book down to roughly 150 poems, and I am still open to further reductions.

What was removed and why

One example of a removed poem is ‘Dressed for Destiny’. I have added this one to the end of this article in both writing and as in Soundscape. Let me know what you think.

This piece was cut mainly because the first book only covers the early phases of the Systoics, while this poem introduces later conflicts that may belong to future volumes.

The same logic applies to many Substack-published pieces. A large portion of already published poems will not appear in the printed book, after all.

Current state of the manuscript

I’m finished writing the poems for this collection, aside from editorial fine-tuning. Structurally, I am satisfied with the internal logic and rhythm of the book as it stands.

Soundscapes and creative fatigue

The soundscapes are still significantly unfinished. Producing them at scale using Suno has proven more numbing than expected. It’s still great fun, but I get bored on certain style and that means loosing my focus a bit.

I briefly considered changing styles, but realized that impulse was driven more by personal fatigue than by artistic necessity. For this project, maintaining stylistic continuity makes more sense than chasing novelty.

So I keep on hammering those beats. Wow. Doesn’t that sound inspiring? In the end, all artistry and all projects have annoying elements, whether it’s washing brushes, signing books, marketing, or whatever.

What is your surprising bummer in your writing or art?

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Removed Piece - Dressed for Destiny

Dressed for Destiny

This dress does not decorate.
It disciplines.

It shapes how I enter space,
how I arrange my spine,
how much of myself
I allow
to surface.

It fits too well to be hated,
as if tailored from memory.

Instead of being worn by me
it has grown on me.

This dress
I don’t dare to tear.

This breath of air
I risk to wear.

©Samia Oldman

At this point, the work is less about creating more material and more about honoring the core and outline I have already created. I need to constantly remind myself, that the remaining task is refinement, not expansion.

What are you interested in reading next?

• Dystopian Poetry

• Artist’s Headspace

• Making of Hush Halo

• Square One

• About, My Why and My How

• Leave feedback on Reader’s Corner

What would you like to ask me?

I’d like to write more “Making of” articles. What topics should I cover?

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian fantasy poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with its own immersive soundscape. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Subscribe now

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

Most productivity advice assumes you wake up as the same person every day. With the same energy, the same focus, and the same amount of mental space. As if the mind were a machine that boots up the same way each morning.

It’s not.

Some days, life takes over before I’ve even had a chance to plan it. Other days I sit down to write “just for a moment” and resurface only when the light outside has shifted and kids are asking for dinner.

Today’s productivity culture has little flexibility for this rhythm. My brain refuses to warm up on command, and some days vanish into a mysterious void. Often my focus arrives late, but once it does, it settles in and refuses to leave.

Over the years I’ve learned to treat my focus, or lack of it, with kindness. I stopped fighting it, stopped questioning or trying to schedule it.

Instead, I harvest it when it’s available.

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Where I Thought I Was

For a long time, I believed consistency was the way. I absorbed the idea that real work happens in neat, repeatable units, at the same time every day, without friction.

I know people like this, but I’m not one of them. Irregularity felt like something to correct, not understand.

When my energy arrived in waves instead of straight lines, I treated it as a flaw. I tried to behave like someone whose mind responds well to routines, even when mine clearly didn’t.

In my head, consistency meant maturity, reliability, professionalism. It took me years to see the mistake in that thinking.

Stop Interrupting the Moment

The shift came from noticing what happens on the rare days when life leaves me alone and there is uninterrupted time to work.

On those days, I was deeply productive. I learned that my brain doesn’t want to pace itself but to lock in. That’s why I became an entrepreneur: to be in charge of my focus.

Dystopian fantasy poetry needs time and space where nothing pulls at your sleeve. I need a mental environment where thoughts aren’t broken apart in the name of efficiency.

I often sit down with a loose plan, sometimes aiming for a single sentence or sound. Then hours disappear. Time collapses. Ideas arrive fast. I feel inside the writing.

By the time I surface, the day may be gone. In return, I get poems, worlds, soundscapes I didn’t know I had. When I’m in, I don’t need a timer. I just want to be left alone until I’m done.

Presence Beats Pacing Every Time

It took me a long time to accept it, but I do my best work in immersion. The kind of writing I make leans on atmosphere as much as language, and it can’t be done on schedule.

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My mind doesn’t respond to polite routines. It responds to depth. I need to stay with the same ideas, images, and tonal threads long enough.

Discipline was never the problem. Whenever I try to force my work into productivity systems, it thins. Depth gives me speed where it matters. The writing retains an internal coherence that can’t be scheduled into existence.

Designing Around Focus Instead of Fighting It

Once I stopped arguing with how my focus works, my process began to develop. Instead of spreading my energy thin, I protect the moments when focus naturally concentrates. In poetry writing and soundscapes, creating something real matters more than the process.

Writing feasts on writing. Thinking deepens by thinking. Editing comes later.

Grouping my work this way isn’t this clever system. It’s the only way to stay honest about my attention.

Protecting Momentum Instead of Managing Minutes

Momentum is hard to restart. Bundling protects the flow. Emotional continuity inside a poem or soundscape fades quickly when interrupted. Constant switching leaks energy in ways no schedule can recover.

So when the window opens, I don’t count minutes. I dive in and let the work take the shape it needs. I can clean up later.

What Productivity Metrics Miss

Productivity culture measures what can be seen: frequency, streaks, output, schedules.

Presence doesn’t fit into metrics.

You can’t spreadsheet immersion. Showing up on schedule often means showing up thin and distracted. The writing gets done, but it feels provisional.

Bundling flips that logic. I disappear on purpose so that when I surface, something intact often comes with me. Not always—but often enough.

I don’t optimize for visibility. I optimize for being there.

I’m less interested in proving that I was present than in knowing that I actually was.

The Cost of Working in Bundles

This way of working isn’t tidy. There are long stretches where nothing gets published and nothing looks productive. It looks like absence, even when I’m working intensely.

When something finally goes out, the stakes are higher. The work carries more weight, which can create pressure.

The Tradeoff I’m Willing to Make

I spend less energy pretending to be available and less time feeling guilty. I stopped apologizing to myself for how my attention moves.

The risk is real: longer gaps, higher pressure, fewer chances to soften impact through repetition.

There is also a calm that comes from not constantly resisting my nature. I’ve accepted this tradeoff.

Learning to Trust My Own Rhythm

Consistency isn’t the villain, but for my writing, regularity matters less than resonance.

I care about alignment—working in a way that matches how my attention actually moves. When I honor that movement, there’s less friction and less internal negotiation.

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Bundling stopped being a strategy and became a form of self-trust. Not rebellion, just refusal to borrow a rhythm that was never mine.

On Finding Your Way

I’m still learning to notice when attention is available instead of forcing it. Some days that means doing very little. Other days it means disappearing into the work.

There’s no single right rhythm, only the one you can sustain without breaking trust with yourself.

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Your Presence Here Matters

Thank you for supporting this evolving project, even when the work is abstract, layered, and hard to explain.

As always, I’m glad to hear your thoughts.

Own your glitch.

Yours,

Sam

ps. I appreciate if you take a moment to leave your thoughts on my Readers Corner.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Discover my Poetry or read more about my writing process:

Did you miss the latest Artist’s Update?

What would change if you worked true to your rhythm?

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian fantasy poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with its own immersive soundscape. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Subscribe now

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

You know the feeling? Right before the finish line, when everything suddenly halts? I do. Not from doubt this time, but from clarity.

In this update, I’ll share what actually happened during the holidays. Why the project suddenly expanded. And how one quiet pause turned into the full blueprint for the entire Hush Halo universe. You’ll get a sneak peak on new poetry, weird inspiration and can check out the teaser on cover designs.

It All Looked Done, Until It Didn’t

It was only a few weeks ago that I genuinely believed Paradise Beyond Pulse was ready to go.

I was in a hurry. The layout was finished, the ISBN purchased, the cover designed, and the Amazon KDP settings polished to the point of - - Well, I was already mentally in the launch phase.

And then the momentum just halted. Not dramatically. Not in a crisis kind of way. More like a quiet internal brake.

When Flow Stops for a Reason

When my flow stopped, it felt more like a signal than resistance. The world behind the poems was bigger than the book I was preparing to publish.

I knew the poems carried atmosphere, mood, and tension. I also knew the internal logic still needed anchoring. I didn’t want this weird world to scatter into beautiful fragments without a spine to stand on.

That was enough to make me step back.

Rewriting the Hush Halo Synopsis

During my so called quiet days between Christmas and New Year, I ended up rewriting a full synopsis of the entire Hush Halo.

Not as presentational material, but as a tool for myself. I needed an inner map to keep the world coherent and the logic intact. I wanted to make the emotional arc steady enough for anyone trying to follow along.

Pulling Down the Idea-Cloud

Hush Halo had hovered over me like a giant idea cloud. I knew what it felt like, but not what it actually was.

Writing the synopsis pulled everything into view, connecting threads and creating logic and motivation. The realm formed rules I hadn’t consciously articulated before.

I wasn’t just chasing an atmosphere. I was building an actual story.

The Poem Count Shock as the Material Multiplies

Until now, I’ve published around 100 dystopian poems on Substack. But once the larger structure clicked, I realized I had more than 200 pieces that could fit the first book alone.

Great, right? Yes, in theory.

In practice, this means going back through everything and choosing what actually belongs in the first book of Systoics: Paradise Beyond Pulse. It also means reworking anything that drifts too far from the core.

A Glimpse Into the Tone of Poetry

That sudden expansion opened a new creative window. I’ve written several fresh pieces that came directly from understanding the world more clearly.

Here’s a poem from that new batch. It’s just a small preview of where the tone is heading now that I’m writing poetry with an actual map in my hands.

When Everything Yields

When Everything Yields

Moving through spaces
designed to bend before me.
Widened doorways, lightened halls,
steady floors.

Nothing catches on my clothing,
touches my thoughts.
Every surface agrees.

Interactions arrive pre-smoothed.
Disagreements dissolve into tone.
Tension gets edited out of the room.
Whispered words get heard.

My body relaxes a bit too easily.
Shoulders drop before they rise.
This life protects me from collisions
with invisible armor.

I wish edges told me where I ended,
pain defined my shape.
I wish resistance gave my choices weight,
reaction made my touching real.

But here, everything yields.

Safety as an atmosphere.
Comfort replacing friction.

I feel myself losing the memory of me,
how I learned what I know,
who I was before the bow.

As I kneel I feel, 
this aint me.


©Samia Oldman

Let me know what you think!

Leave a comment

How My Brain Helps and Complicates

I’m first to admit that I’m naturally impatient. At times, almost too quick with my hands for my own good. I create fast, a lot, and often without stopping to ask whether I’m working on the essential parts or just the exciting ones.

The point stands. I move fast. Maybe this project is teaching me to slow down just enough to let ideas find their right place and time.

The Timeline Shift I Didn’t Plan But Needed

I know no one is holding their breath for my debut except me, which is probably healthy. Still, here’s a casual heads up: the original release date will almost certainly shift.

I’d rather correct now than publish too soon. This pause did not cancel or derail the project. It clarified it. That feels far more valuable than sticking to a date on a calendar.

Unexpected Inspirations

I’ve drawn a lot of creative energy from Substack lately, but also from films, series, and books. As this might turn into an interesting topic later, I’ll say this much now.

One of the strangest related surprises has been returning to Lucy M. Montgomery. Yes, that Montgomery. The one who gave us Anne Shirley, the daydreamer of daydreamers.

A solid reference point for dystopian and sci-fi poetry, right? And yet it hits differently when you are building a bleak future realm while still trying to leave a crack open for hope.

Anne of Green Gables might not approve of my world, but she would understand the imagination required to build it.

“Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”

A First Look at the Systoic Trilogy

The first three book arc, told from the perspective of the Systoics, now has a visual identity. Or at least a strong candidate for one.

The general direction is a clean, atmospheric, slightly eerie aesthetic that captures both the cold logic of the Systoics and the beautiful, blooming stream beneath the system.

Think of it as a mood board in book form. Knowing myself, I reserve the right to change everything at the last minute.

Let me know what you think?

Leave a comment

Your Presence Here Actually Matters

I want to thank you for supporting this strange, evolving project. Especially because my artwork is abstract, layered, and occasionally a little hard to explain without a twenty page disclaimer.

As always, I’m happy to hear your thoughts.

Own your glitch.

Yours,

Sam

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

All works are created and copyrighted by Samia Oldman.

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Discover my Poetry or read more about my writing process:

Did you miss the previous Artist’s Update?

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian fantasy poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with its own immersive soundscape. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Subscribe now

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

In this update I’ll reflect on choosing Substack as a platform, in hopes this might be useful for some of you writers.

#1 About Choosing Substack

I chose Substack after a fair amount of hesitation. What ultimately made the decision for me was simplicity and focus.

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Still, using Substack allows me to publish and distribute content within a single system. Writing and publishing remain the core actions, and right now that matters more than polish.

Substack also supports the way my poetry is unfolding. It is not an ideal platform for building complex literary worlds, but it is functional enough to let the work exist and grow.

#2 Let’s Talk About Substack as a Platform

As said, I didn’t choose Substack lightly or over night.

I have built websites professionally using platforms like WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix. Committing to Substack meant deliberately accepting far less control than I am used to. From a technical and visual standpoint, it is a compromise.

Substack helps me keep writing and publishing somehow connected. There is no separate system for building pages, managing distribution, or maintaining infrastructure. At this stage, that matters more than complexity, flexibility or polish.

For an indie writing project that is still evolving, momentum is more important than a perfect setup. Substack makes it possible to publish consistently without turning the platform itself into a project.

#3 Site vs. Substack

I think we should talk more about Substack’s two faces. Understanding the differences has helped me make clearer choices with Hush Halo.

The reader experience of Substack is fundamentally different depending on where you encounter it. There is Substack as a writing and reading environment inside the platform, this is especially familiar to writers and active subscribers. And there is Substack as a public-facing website that people arrive from outside, using links and searches.

By site, I mean the public-facing website that readers see in a browser (both mobile and desktop).

By platform, I mean Substack’s backend, its publishing logic, and the app experience.

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Substack as a Site

The way I see it, the site functions as a container. It carries the project so I don’t have to keep rebuilding it while writing.

The Hush Halo site brings together an ongoing dystopian poetry project, related soundscapes, and behind the scenes documentation in one place.

• I can shape structure, hierarchy, and entry points by managing navigation and pins.

• New pieces can be added without rethinking the layout.

• I can plan what is visible first and how content is grouped through tags and sections.

• I can at least try to influence how a reader might explore the work.

This does not mean the project is finished or fixed, but that the structure is stable enough to support it.

Substack as a Platform

As a platform, Substack is something else entirely.

Here, I have very limited control over structure and visual presentation.

The app in particular enforces a standardized reading experience. Features like pinned posts, navigation choices, or structural decisions made for the website can feel awkward or even counterproductive inside the app.

All the effort put into sections, tags, navigation, and site layout is largely irrelevant when a reader uses the app.

Rather than trying to resolve this conflict perfectly, I have accepted it.

I treat the platform as a publishing and connection layer. It allows me to write regularly, reach readers directly, and learn through practice. It is where dialogue, subscriptions, and continuity happen.

Site and platform overlap, but they are far from identical. Recognizing this has made it easier for me to make decisions without trying to optimize every part.

Substack as a platform is my best effort to connect with you and to learn more about writing. I will do my best to give back your support or pay it forward by sharing my wins and my losses.

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#4 Still Under Construction

Navigation remains somewhat rough, and finding your way through the material is not always intuitive. Unfortunately, Substack does not offer many tools for improving this.

Some sections are still sparse, and others will likely be reshaped or merged as the project develops. For example, I haven’t figured out yet where to add the actual books once I get to publish them.

#5 A Practical Note for Fellow Newbies

The main lesson I’ve learned so far is this: you don’t need a final or perfect site to move forward.

Structure helps, but in the beginning you often don’t yet understand enough to create a structure that actually works. Don’t get stuck there.

Start without having everything figured out. You can fix things as you go, and the mistakes you make will become the most valuable lessons you cannot grow without.

When you do work on structure, keep it really, really simple. In the beginning, what you actually need from a site is something that:

• allows you to publish without friction

• supports growth without constant rebuilding

• does not pull attention away from the work itself

Especially early on, reducing options often increases output. Choosing a limited platform like Substack can be a strategic decision, not a compromise.

Own your glitch.

Yours,

Sam

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

All works are created and copyrighted by Samia Oldman.

Read more about my writing process:

Did you miss the previous Artist’s Update?

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian fantasy poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with its own immersive soundscape. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Subscribe now

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

So, as we are both seasoned with neurodiversity, double hyperfocus it was.

Building a gingerbread house earlier this week had nothing poetic about it. Just a kid at the edge of his creativity and focus, and a mom trying to keep the experience positive while keeping the mess to a minimum.

Apparently Gingerbread Starts With Geometry

Even though I asked, my son didn’t start by drawing a house.

He grabbed a ruler, a stack of white paper, and began sketching parts. Walls. Roof pieces. Angles. Exact measurements he was very proud of.

We talked about what had to match and why the base had to be larger than the house itself. A surprisingly difficult concept.

While he was fully in it, confident and curious, ruler in hand, I stayed close, smoothing the path so the experience would remain a good one.

Baking the Pieces (and Accepting Their Opinions)

We used ready made dough and cut the pieces using ‘the blueprint’ as our guide. I even managed to find a semi clean ruler for the actual dough work. Half the dough disappeared into strategic snacking. The rest became walls and roofs.

Some pieces came out a little burned, some a little soft. One roof part puffed into a shape that definitely was not in the plan. We almost forgot to cut doors and windows before baking, but remembered at the last second.

Day Two: The Part Where Patience Was the Main Ingredient

We let the pieces rest overnight. Neither of us had the energy to go further.

The next day, we started gluing the house together with icing, which works like edible cement but requires you to hold each wall in place for about ten minutes.

But he managed. Barely. And so did I. Barely.

Some, or most to be honest, pieces did not line up and were warped. One roof part was too soft and nearly cracked under the weight of candy. We adjusted, propped, rotated, and kept going until it stood.

Decorating: Two Sugar Pugs and a Lot of Strong Opinions

This was the moment my kid had been waiting for.

He decorated the two sugar pugs with care, gave each one a specific decorative color, and placed them proudly in front of the house.

We added ladders and candy canes, creating a slightly chaotic scene. I quietly reinforced a few pieces from the back so they would not collapse overnight.

The Confidence Leap

When everything was done, my kid stepped back, looked at the house, and said:

“Actually… I think I could build real houses too.”

And looking at our crooked but cute construction I admired that confidence. He wasn’t thinking about the burned edges or crooked rooflines. He saw the finished thing and assumed possibility.

“This is the most beautiful thing I have ever built.”

There’s something refreshing about that. Kids don’t overthink the flaws, unless we point them out to them. And again, I didn’t.

Big junk of neurodiversive parenting is guarding the positive, catching and praising for the effort and polishing the memories.

Imperfections Still Make a Whole

Later, the house was finally sitting on the counter. Leaning a bit, decorated with enthusiasm, guarded by two candy pugs, admired by us - I reflected on this.

• Nothing went exactly according to plan.

• The shapes changed.

• Some parts burned.

• Some needed more support than expected.

• And yet the house stood.

• Kid was so happy and proud.

• I was just happy.

The process worked because we kept going, not because everything went right.

Are My Drafts Just Gingerbread Pieces?

I realized how familiar the whole thing felt.

• My poems rarely match the blueprint in my head.

• Some come out warped, some too soft, many of them overbaked.

• Some need to sit overnight before I can even look at them again.

But the same rule applies: the work still stands if I keep building.

Chaos is Given; Control Is Optional; Finishing Is Not

This gingerbread project reminded me that:

• I don’t need to control every part of the process.

• I don’t need to force the outcome.

• I definitely don’t need everything to fit on the first try.

• And sometimes, what comes out is way better, than what I had in mind in the beginning.

What matters is finishing the damn thing — crooked roof, mismatched walls, small triumphs, all of it.

That’s how the gingerbread house got built.

Own your glitch.

Yours,

Sam

ps. Don’t be a stranger. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

All works are created and copyrighted by Samia Oldman.

Happy holidays to you all!

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian fantasy poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with its own immersive soundscape. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Subscribe now

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

My self published poetry book will be published in January 2026. It’s the first book of the Hush Halo world.

Which flower should hold the cover? (poll below)

Need some context?

About the Book: Paradise Beyond Pulse

The collection unfolds in the aftermath of the Systoics’ transformation. Consciousness has been refined into function, emotion translated into efficiency.

Every need is met before it is felt. Peace is engineered. Safety perfected. There is no hunger, no hesitation, no interruption. Life is smooth, safe, and quietly hollow.

The cover flower needs to carry this world.

About the Illustrations

The back story of the Hush Halo begins cold and controlled. I wanted to move the visuals toward softness and femininity to create tension. I feel this tension sits at the very core of Paradise Beyond Pulse.

This is dystopian, but not a space adventure. It’s more of a journey inward.

The flowers belonging to this world are made in this world. They grow through technology rather than soil, built from light, wires, screws, and holograms. They appear organic while remaining synthetic.

About the Flowers

Both options belong to this world.

White Calla Lily (left)

• Cold white. Sterile elegance. Perfection without warmth.

• Often associated with modern minimalism, controlled power, and dystopian visual language.

Silver Lotus (right)

• Metallic silver. A future-corrupted symbol.

• Enlightenment without spirituality. Purity achieved through systems, not soul.

Take the poll.

New to my dystopian poetry?

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

All works are created and copyrighted by Samia Oldman.

I’d love to hear your reflection on this. Comment below!

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian fantasy poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with its own immersive soundscape. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Subscribe now

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

This is a small but real milestone, I want to share.

In this update I’ll list what has changed on the Hush Halo publication. Hopefully you’ll get some ideas for your own Substack site.

#1 Hush Halo has a Home Now

The project now has its own designated domain: HushHalo.com actually exists.

I have also put some work into structuring the site. These changes are unfortunately not visible in the app, only on the website due to limitations on this platform.

#2 On Site Evolution

As I’m narrowing my focus, a few concrete things have changed. These are practical changes, but they mark a clear step forward in how the work exists and how it can grow.

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Domain and Home Page

As mentioned, the project now lives under its own domain www.hushhalo.com.

This creates a stable reference point for the work and supports long term structure, discoverability, and continuity without changing the publishing workflow itself.

The Home Page will never be ready. I try to serve readers who arrive at the site randomly, not necessarily through the Substack app. For now, I have added some depth by highlighting different areas of the site that will hopefully draw new readers forward.

Within Substack’s closed realm, especially the app, this is not very relevant.

Still, it matters to me. These changes will hopefully carry the brand of Hush Halo and SEO of the site in the future.

Site Structure

I have reorganized the site structure using sections and tags.

Earlier, everything lived mostly in a single stream. Now the content is grouped so readers can arrive from different entry points, explore selectively, and return later without needing to read everything in chronological order.

My goal for now is to offer just enough structure to make the project readable and navigable without overcomplicating it. The About Page explains the basics of the project. The starting point is a Square One page that acts as an entry for new readers. It gives context and points toward the most relevant places to begin or continue.

Sections give structure to the site and can later be used as separate newsletters if that feels right. The setup looks simple, but it took some effort to get it right (or now, at least).

If you have lots of content that needs categorizing and managing, I highly recommend learning about tags and sections.

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Sharing My Process

I am introducing the Artist’s Headspace and Making Of sections.

These are dedicated spaces for documenting decisions, development, and structural changes alongside the published work.

#3 Newsletters

Knowing myself, I will never sustain consistency like Ali Abdaal or Dan Koe. I simply don’t have the brainpower nor the interest for that level of content creation.

Instead of daily, weekly, or monthly newsletters, I commit to randomness.

My process is closer to entropy, and I do not want to pretend it is clean or tidy. You will receive my letters when I have something real to share.

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#4 What’s Next?

1. I have planned to write about choosing Substack as a platform. It is far from perfect, but I chose it anyway.

2. I will also drag you, willingly I hope, into the process of actually designing a poetry book. There is plenty to share about cover design, editing, and publishing.

Don’t be a stranger. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this and also about your own process.

Own your glitch.

Yours,

Sam

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

All works are created and copyrighted by Samia Oldman.

Read more about my writing process:

Did you miss the previous Artist’s Update?

Let me know your thoughts on these changes.

Is there maybe something here you could use on your own work?

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian fantasy poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with its own immersive soundscape. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Subscribe now

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

Welcome to my first Artist’s Update!

The Hush Halo has carried me far deeper than I expected when I wrote the first poem here on Substack roughly five months ago (July 2025). What began as a loose constellation of thoughts has grown into a world with its own pulse, its own rules and forms.

I want to take a moment to share where things stand, how I got here, and what comes next.

Lost on the Launching Pad

These past months have been a strange and steady kind of acceleration. A heavenly mess of connecting, learning, and realizing that something bigger was forming underneath my feet.

I started by writing through the fog, trying to understand the future we’re walking toward. Somewhere in the process, the poems began forming a spine. A Realm emerged. A logic, a rhythm, a shape. This odd format became mine.

At some point, I realized I wasn’t writing random standalone pieces anymore. I was building a world. A world that felt alive enough to ask for an audience.

So here we are. Or at least, here I am.

My First

Hush Halo is no longer just a collection of posts scattered across Substack, but it is officially becoming a published poetry book. My first. And first dystopian fantasy poetry book with soundscapes—at least that I have come across.

Paradise Beyond Pulse (aka Book One) already exists, sort of, on my screen. It’s sort of structured, laid out, and practically ready to print.

In this update I’d like to tell you how I got from “publishing my first poem online” to “accidentally creating a book.”

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Becoming of “Something”

Nothing about this journey has been strategic. I wrote because I needed to. I published because I wanted to experiment. Until this project, I’d never shared anything online that truly belonged to me.

Somewhere while writing the early poems and experimenting with those first soundscapes, I stumbled into this current format. I have started to describe it as poetry with pulse. Catchy, right?

Your reactions and comments kept the momentum alive, from the very beginning. Without that support, I doubt I would have made it past those first three weeks. What began as an ongoing experiment slowly shifted into:

My Binding Decision

The decision came slowly. From the beginning of this project, I’ve struggled to explain this strange concept and format in a way that feels coherent. I think that if not immediately, maybe not even soon, but eventually, it should start making sense to readers. To you.

I have a movie running in my mind as I write. But expressing it in digital form through notes and posts feels like liquid, quite hard to grab and comprehend.

So I made a choice. Hush Halo will become a physical. I believe it deserves more than to be scrolled past.

Already Out There?

I crashed into the realization that I actually had already published almost everything needed for the first volume. Damn it!

Publishing a physical book forced me to rethink how the digital side of Hush Halo should exist. It felt odd to release a print edition while all the material remained freely available online.

This is me giving you a heads-up on upcoming changes:

Publishing Unreleased Pieces

Since most of the core material of Paradise Beyond Pulse has already appeared here, I’ll add some unreleased pieces from my drawer.

A portion of this bonus material will be published on Substack, but some I’ll reserve for the book so it holds something unseen. These include poems that never fit the weekly rhythm and pieces that simply needed more time.

Hiding Some Gems

I will also unpublish some older pieces, to eventually have a book-worthy collection that is not all available online. (So go and read it all now, while it’s still all there. )

Shift to a Time-Sensitive Paywall

So I decided to keep Hush Halo free for active readers. After 14 days, many posts will slide behind the paywall automatically.

Read more about the paywall:

Committing to This Carnival

Paradise Beyond Pulse is essentially complete. The layout is done, though I may redo it a couple of times. The shape of it feels right. The only thing left is choosing a release date.

But I’m glad I decided to pause and take a breather. December felt way too loud, and I felt I needed to get my head straight. Not entirely possible, really, but something in that direction.

So I moved the release to January. The big day will probably be either the 21st or the 28th.

January is a calmer month, readers have rested minds, and the days are slowly getting lighter again. You know, all the logical reasons to make a decision...

I will lean on urge people have in January to look for something new, maybe to feel excited about life again.

This is the Beginning of… What Exactly?

Paradise Beyond Pulse will be the opening book of Singularity of Systoics, one of the four major story arcs within the larger Hush Halo universe.

I’m learning about myself as a writer at the same time as I learn to write poetry, self-publish, design covers, and market a book. Not knowing the workload required and not having experience is probably a blessing, something I may realize later.

I’ve drafted the thin and winding roadmap. If everything holds, the entire arc will take me two to four years to complete.

The rest of Singularity of Systoics is planned for release throughout 2026. I’ve mapped the structure, the emotional beats, the migrations between worlds, and the loose hero’s and heroine’s journeys that will thread through it.

This Is Me Diving Into the Deep End

This is just the beginning. There will be plenty of poems that refuse to behave. And at least one poet who definitely refuses to behave… It’s ambitious and unfamiliar territory, yet it feels right.

Thank you for being here and supporting my work, truly. This project exists because someone on the other end is listening. I don’t take that lightly.

Own your glitch.

Yours,

Sam

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

All works are created and copyrighted by Samia Oldman.

Read more about my writing process:

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian fantasy poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with its own immersive soundscape. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Subscribe now

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

Lately I’ve had to rethink how this digital side of Hush Halo should exist here in Substack. As I’ve made further plans, it felt odd to move on beyond certain point while all the material remained freely available online.

So I decided to paywall the archive, not new posts. This way most of Hush Halo will remain free for active readers.

If you’re an active reader, nothing really changes. You’ll still get almost everything just as before. After 14 days, many posts will simply slide behind the paywall automatically.

This means:

• If you follow actively, you can read almost all new poems and posts for free.

• If you want full access to the archives, you need to support the work with a monthly or yearly subscription.

• Some occasional content (like playlists) will be paid-only from the start.

This isn’t about locking the world down. It’s about making space for the book, the long arc, and the next stages of this passion project. It’s the gentlest model I could imagine.

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian fantasy poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with its own immersive soundscape. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Subscribe now

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

Neurodiversity, in all its spiciness, pulls me in every direction, while burnout and depression flatten the edges in unpredictable cycles. I use tech and AI every day, yet there is a part of me that dreads the future we are building.

Writing dystopian fantasy poetry is not the obvious way to sort that out, but somehow it works. I have always been drawn to stories where everything feels lost, yet something small insists on surviving.

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This darker thread in my heritage understands long winters and the steady ache of watching horizons for signs of change. Hush Halo grew from that mix. In the beginning, I called the project “I Am Complex,” since I felt this complexity within me and around me. Depth and the layers I work through do not always show in the final poems, but they shape everything.

Creating this fantasy world of Hush Halo has helped me make sense of the real one we are heading toward.

Read or listen to the very first poem: “The First update Felt like a Relief”.

Melancholy as My Baseline

Melancholy is not an artistic choice for me. It is the place I start from, long before I open the editor. It shapes my first draft, my tone, and the rhythm I naturally fall into.

I often begin on the darker side without planning to. Not rough or pop like Bukowski, even though his writing truly inspires me. Mine is a different kind of moody. The melancholy of a mother. A lone-wolf woman who is barely making it day by day while still trying to hold on to a vision of herself, of life, and of the future of her children.

Read about My Why

The seasonal depths of darkness add its own sweet pull toward looking at our horizons, ahead or behind. Burnout and depression bring different kind of depth, tone, savageness, and a certain brutality. I may be fighting a good fight, but I’m tired.

Melancholy sits at the baseline of my creative process. Not as drama or tragedy, but as a quiet undercurrent beneath almost everything I write. I recognize it long before the first line appears.

The Weird Ways Hope Slips Into My Poetry

Hope shows up in tiny decisions while I write. I am grateful for my neurodiverse traits, the ones that keep my prana moving and bring twists, joy, and light.

These moments of brightness often surprise me more than they surprise the readers. Somehow even the smallest trace of warmth makes the world of Hush Halo feel truer, but not necessarily lighter.

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Writing Hush Halo has shifted my perspective from fearing the future to being curious about it. In six months, my point of view has changed. What felt like a true vision of the future at the beginning of Hush Halo now feels like good fantasy.

Do Not Polish

To avoid polishing the poem in early stages is a very practical choice. I do not lock a poem into a certain depth or mood, but allow it hold pain and possibility at the same time. My drafts contradict themselves without restrictions. This is the only way to keep the piece alive long enough to find its core.

I love to work in batches, mostly because it’s more convenient. It is easier to stay in one emotional state and let it guide a whole section of work. Often my soundscapes are created in a wildly different mood or situation, generously creating another layer to my dystopia.

I know I cannot return to the exact same tone later, so some poems feel like they come from different families. Like siblings who grew in different emotional climates.

Letting contradictions sit side by side is part of the process. I try not to sand the edges off when I edit.

The Collapse and Resilience

I have always been drawn to “all is lost” stories. That spark of survival, that small trace of almost lost personal power and silent stamina forms a powerful core.

The future might hold both collapse and resilience, maybe even in the same breath, at the same time, in the same mind.

Melancholy gives the poem its weight. Hope gives it a pulse. In my writing I try to leave the loose ends hanging on purpose, for you. You, as a reader, should be able to feel the heat of the mess on your own terms.

What about you? How do you feel when you read dystopian poetry or fiction?

Leave a comment

Systoics Are the 1%

In the first part of Hush Halo, the contrast between the Systoic ideal world and the remnants of humanity is intentionally sharp. I want you to feel unsettled. To be appalled by the choices made. And at the same time to wonder, maybe uncomfortably, if any of it could be possible.

Hush Halo became a way to process that tension. I can see and even name people who consider themselves the 1% and I’m sure you can too. Those who think they are forever entitled and forever capable. In my storyline, Systoics get exactly what they want and deserve. So how would you feel about joining them?

My personal dilemmas with current tech and humane values are at the core of this Realm. My dystopian poems hold space for what I cannot yet resolve, but I try. Poems let the heaviness stay, but they also leave a crack open for light.

You cannot see it yet, but it’s there.

The light, it is always there.

READ MORE about my writing process:

What about you? Do you look for the light in dystopia, or do you lean into the darkness? Comment below!

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian fantasy poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with its own immersive soundscape. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Subscribe now

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓