5 Things I've Accomplished This Week - #1

Mar 15, 2025

Here are the things I’ve accomplished as a writer this week:

Publishing

Published Art is not a Business (March 10, 2025) on Germanicus Publishing. The article argued that artists should see art as something more than just a means to make money.
Published To Hell with Your Status Symbol (March 11, 2025) on Indonesian and American. This is a response article to the proposal by Arman Khoodadoost that typos are the new “status symbols” in light of AI-generated content. This article pushed back on the “Anti-AI Crusade”, criticizing their conduct as those of a cult.
Published My Universal Book Links (March 13, 2025) on Germanicus Publishing. This post listed the universal links of my books (Inquisitor’s Promise and The Santara Commentaries) for those who want to buy my books on places other than Amazon.
Published The Price of Ransom (March 14, 2025) on Germanicus Publishing. This is the fifth and final installment of my short military sci-fi serial known as Prisoner and Ransom.

Writing

Finished editing a fantasy short story (about 10.5k words) known as Adventures in Balkania, set to be released next week on Germanicus Publishing.
Translated the above story from English to Indonesian with the help of ChatGPT. Story title in Indonesian: Petualangan Balkania.

Reading

Continued my reading of Barren Metal by E. Michael Jones. Have finished Chapter 2 (Pagan Economics) all the way through to Chapter 6 (St. Bernardine of Siena). Currently on Chapter 7 (Cosimo de Medici) out of 101.

Miscellaneous

Started my first full week of online classes at Universitas Kristen Indonesia (UKI) on law. Definitely a new experience, and the first time I’ve taken classes in Indonesian in about 15 years.
- I also finished a writing assignment for Hukum Asuransi (insurance law) on MKRI Putusan No. 52/PUU-XXI/2023. A short report (about 300 words), but it’s an important milestone as this is the first thing I’ve ever written from scratch in Indonesian (other than WhatsApp messages to family) in over 15 years (basically).

-Michael P. Marpaung