A Fragmented Writing Year, by Design
Writing, finishing, marketing—and learning to live without a single climax
This is a small bonus post, slightly outside the usual focus of this newsletter. It’s a short reflection on my writing year 2025—a year that was less about starting major new projects and more about finishing the ones already in motion.
From Drafts to Deliverables
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 ideas, drafts, and plans to turn into something that actually exists.
One Visible Outcome, Many Hidden Phases
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 that point, the core writing work was already behind me.
What remained was the kind of work that often stays invisible: commenting on layouts, refining details, aligning content, and—above all—marketing. Not particularly interesting in itself, but entirely unavoidable. I invested more time in marketing than in any previous year, and the impact was immediately visible in how my time was actually spent.
Knowing When “Good Enough” Is Enough
After the summer, my focus returned to my debut novel Pohjoisen tie (The Northern Road), which had a hard deadline in November. In many ways, this was the heaviest project of the year.
Not because anything essential was missing, but because there was always something that could still be improved. This is a familiar situation in architecture work as well: at some point, the value of further refinement drops below the cost of delay. You have to make a decision, accept trade-offs, and move on.
Parallel Work, Different Maturity Levels
Alongside that, I finalized a children’s nonfiction book about money, built around storytelling, with a deadline at the end of the year. This required only a couple of editing rounds, as the core writing had been completed 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 and 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 clearly the highlight.
At the same time, my 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 also wrote one more competition entry, almost out of habit.
Writing as Ongoing 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.
A significant share of the work never shows up as a single publication: website updates, marketing materials, presentations, and other 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.
A Conscious Decision 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 decision. There was already enough in progress.
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 and preparation than one of visible results. And that’s perfectly acceptable.
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.
Follow him elsewhere: Homepage | LinkedIn | Substack (consulting) | Medium (writing) | Homepage (FI) | Facebook | Instagram
Books: Enterprise Architecture | Technology Consultant Fast Track | Successful Technology Consulting | Kokonaisarkkitehtuuri (FI) | Pohjoisen tie (FI) | Little Cthulhu’s Breakfast Time
Web resources: Enterprise Architecture Info Package (FI)
📬 Want More Practical Enterprise Architecture Content?
Subscribe to Enterprise Architecture Transformation for real-world advice on architecture that supports change, strategy, and delivery.