Darragh Ó Bradáin

Witness to the Forgotten is the latest working title of my WIP. I did like the original, “When Sunday Ended”, but I was never a hundred per cent convinced of it. It served a purpose, it had a poetic feel to it, but it also didn’t encompass enough of what the story was about. Although it alluded to the central theme, I didn’t do justice to the other themes that have begun to arise as I write the story.

The story’s new title focuses on the main character and is more literal, whereas the old title was more about what had happened to the society the protagonist finds himself in. Both work, but in different ways.

The story itself is progressing nicely. I’m lucky insofar as I haven’t experienced writer’s block with this novel, yet. Any time I sit down with the laptop, I open Scrivener, remind myself of where the story is at that point, and write. I have the big idea in my head, and I base the smaller ones on that. So no, I don’t plan out every scene in advance, but I know what the progression will look like, and that guides my writing.

Right now, my momentum is strictly on Witness to the Forgotten. I know that I’ll return to my other projects at some stage in 2026, I just couldn’t tell you when. Once I finish the first act of the story, that might be the right time to take a break from it, but we’ll see. You can’t predict these things.

In other news, I got a reply from a competition I entered, the Frazzled Lit Short Story Award 2026. Unfortunately, I wasn’t long-listed. No biggie, it was my first attempt. Plus, I still wrote a short story, of which I’m quite proud. I’ll enter it elsewhere over the next year, and if nothing comes of it, I’ll host it on the website, in a dedicated section for short stories.

In the meantime, write, write, write. For fun, with a hope for publication some day.