A Writing Year in Execution Mode

A fragmented year focused on delivery instead of starting major new projects

Jan 02, 2026

This is a small bonus post, slightly outside the usual focus of this newsletter. Looking back at my writing year 2025, it became clear that it wasn’t defined by new beginnings, but by seeing major projects through to completion.

Many Threads, One Calendar

Looking back, 2025 was above all fragmented. Several projects running in parallel, different kinds of deadlines, and an unusually large amount of polishing and closing things off rather than starting something new. Not particularly glamorous work, but absolutely necessary if you want outcomes instead of half-finished initiatives.

In many ways, the year looked less like a clean roadmap and more like a portfolio already in execution mode. Fewer new bets, more responsibility for delivery.

One Visible Milestone, a Lot of Invisible Work

The only clearly visible publication milestone was the release of my English-language enterprise architecture book in October: Enterprise Architecture: Your Guide to Organizational Transformation. By then, the actual writing phase was already behind me.

What followed was familiar to anyone who has ever tried to get something properly out the door: layout comments, detail fixes, coordination, and a surprising amount of marketing work. Not especially interesting, but unavoidable. I spent more time on marketing than in any previous year, and it showed very concretely in my calendar.

When “Almost Ready” Is the Hardest Phase

After the summer, my focus returned to my debut novel Pohjoisen tie (The Northern Road), with a hard deadline in November. This was probably the heaviest single project of the year.

Not because anything essential was missing, but because there was always something that could still be improved. This phase is deceptively expensive: diminishing returns, growing uncertainty, and the constant temptation to keep tweaking. At some point, you have to decide that this version is good enough, and move on.

Parallel Deliverables, Different Audiences

Alongside that, I finalized a children’s nonfiction book about money, built around storytelling, with a deadline at the end of the year. This one required only a couple of editing rounds, as the core writing had been done years earlier.

In the fall, I also took part in a children’s writing competition with another narrative nonfiction manuscript. Earlier in the summer, I published a short English-language children’s book as a self-publishing experiment.

Experiments, Competitions, and Accepting Mixed Results

On the short fiction side, the year was oddly split in two. A school-themed competition, Art Breaks Walls, brought a top-16 placement and an anthology publication for a text that came together with surprising ease. That was the clear highlight.

At the same time, an atmospheric horror story didn’t place in either Nova or Portti (established Finnish speculative fiction writing competitions), despite being one I personally liked quite a lot. On the brighter side, a short story combining Cthulhu with politics—originally started back in 2023—finally seems to have found a home for 2026. Towards the end of the year, I wrote one more competition entry.

Writing as Ongoing Professional Practice

Writing didn’t stop at books or fiction. I published four articles in Juomaposti (Finnish publication focused on beverages, drinking culture, and related industry topics), wrote weekly for my Substack newsletters, and kept LinkedIn active. Along the way, I also started writing on Medium—mostly about writing itself.

Much of the work never shows up as a single publication: website updates, marketing materials, presentations, and similar background tasks. Marketing took noticeably more time than in earlier years, but at this stage it felt like a justified investment rather than a distraction.

Choosing Not to Start Something New

What I didn’t do was start any entirely new book-length writing projects, either fiction or nonfiction. Ideas certainly existed, and I even pitched one of them to a publisher. It didn’t move forward—too B2C-oriented for their list—which was a sensible call. There was already more than enough in flight.

A Solid Year, Without a Grand Finale

So how did the year go? From my own perspective: quite well. There was a lot to do, and a lot got done, even if there wasn’t a single obvious finish line or triumphant moment. In hindsight, 2025 feels more like a year of building, consolidation, and preparation than one of visible breakthroughs. And that’s fine.

None of this would have been realistic without a four-day workweek. Without that structural decision, pushing this many parallel efforts forward simply wouldn’t have worked.

What Comes Next

What’s next, then? In March, my debut novel will be released by Momentum Kirjat. In the summer, the children’s nonfiction book will follow with Aviador. There’s also an interesting new nonfiction idea in the back of my mind—but we’ll see what it turns into, if anything.

👨‍💻About the Author

Eetu Niemi is an enterprise architect, consultant, and author.

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