Written This Year
Novels: I finally, finally, finally finished King’s Hand during Thanksgiving break. I am dreading the editing because it is a hot mess and then some. And then I immediately started a new project currently called Wrath: a Love Story because I hate myself. I also put together an anthology of the Captain Ramos novellas, which involved writing new material to go with each one!
Shorter Stuff
- Flash: 2
- Short Stories: 3? :( Though I did serious re-edits on 3 older short stories.
- Novellettes/Novellas: 4
- Short Scripts: 20 (oh, okay, that’s where all my writing time went)
Consigned to the trunk of awfulness, never to return: Only one, though safe to say that at least 5 of the short scripts haven’t been so much put in the trunk as just written in there to begin with for practice.
Best/favorite story of the year: Actually, my favorite is one of the episodes I wrote for Six to Start‘s Superhero Workout game. Because it involved a ludicrous number of references to various musicals. And even though I wrote They Tell Me There Will Be No Pain last year, I’m super stoked about it having been in Women Destroy Sci-fi‘s limited edition print book and getting to be in Lightspeed!
Magic Spreadsheet Wordcount: I started tracking on the magic spreadsheet on June 24, 2013.
- Wordcount is at: 562,047, which makes it 353,488 for the year
- Average words per day: 968 (I can live with that)
- Days in a row written at: 555 so that means yes, I’m at over a year of writing at least 250 words every day!
Publishing
Queries sent: 38
Rejections received: 31
Pending: 6
Most rejections received: Definitely Flash Bang, the Long Game, which now has 21 rejections total, and collected 7 of those this year. Most of the rejections I receive are not form and very complimentary. No one wants it. I refuse to give up.
Total earned: $3,109.24, a large portion of which is thanks to Six to Start. Still significantly in the red considering my outlay, but I have zero complaints. It was a pretty awesome year in that standpoint, even if I’m disappointed in my query numbers.
Published this year:
- They Tell Me There Will Be No Pain from Lightspeed Magazine (Payment was donated to UNICEF UK.) (12/1/14)
- Six episodes of Superhero Workout Game
- Asleep in Zandalar from Abyss and Apex (6/30/14)
- List of Items in Leather Valise Found on Welby Crescent from Shimmer #19
- What Purpose a Heart from Scigentasy (5/3/14)
- The Heart-Beat Escapement from Crossed Genres (4/1/14) and a little bonus material
- Perfect Blue, Scorched Black from Perihelion (2/12/14)
- A World of Speculation from Lakeside Circus (2/8/14)
- And Still Champion from The Lorelei Signal (January 2014)
Slated for 2014:
- Only a Crack in a Black Glass Wall in Welcome to the Future
- The Adventures of Captain Ramos: Year One (collection) from Musa Publishing
- The Flying Turk from Musa Publishing
- Extradition from Musa Publishing
- Concerning Minister Wu’s Tea from Musa Publishing
Stories put online this year:
Goals for 2015:
- Shut up and write. Always.
- Keep plugging away at the new novel.
- Write at least one feature-length screenplay because I believe I can do it.
- Then cry because I will have yet another long thing sitting on my hard drive and slushpile hell argle bargle weh weh weh fart noise sad trombone.
- I can still dream of having an agent, can’t I?
- Birthday story for Mr. TH. I know what I want to write. Just have to do it. Don’t choke, self.
- Finish editing second novella I owe Musa. Write the third and turn it in. Come up with proposals for one or two more for 2016.
- Write at least one brave, difficult, strange story that makes me weep at my keyboard.
- Write a few more short stories. Be better about slushpiling novels.
- Speaking of, get Throne of Nightmares out into a slush pile already. (Fire in the Belly actually is sitting in another, currently at four months and counting…)
- Submit some shorts to a festival or two because Sera believes in me.
- Get back out there and look for more script writing freelance work.
Other/Personal Shit
- Have been involved in the terrifying and Byzantine process of planning to shoot a short film. And I haven’t even been doing the difficult stuff, holy shit.
- Survived my first workshop at work, presented a well, wore a bow tie while doing so and looked goddamn fabulous.
- Had surgery on the big toe of my left foot. You know how I said shoulder surgery sucks? I’m honestly starting to feel like this foot surgery has sucked way more. Something to do with that whole foot being constantly in use due to walking and standing thing.
- Got divorced.
It’s been an interesting year.
4 replies on “2014 Writing Year in Review”
More Captain Ramos! YAY! And out of curiosity, what happens to slush pile stories? Do they get deleted for all time or just put away and you stop trying to sell them? I have, in my imagination a box of books stashed in a closet to be discovered when you’re dead (kind of morbid, I know…)
Do you mean trunk stories? The trunk stories get archived in a safe place where they can’t escape and hurt innocent passersby. XD Slush pile just means a story has been sent to be considered for publication and is sitting in a pile with all the other stories, so once it gets rejected it gets sent back out again. Those ones are still active.
Great recap and an excellent goals list. I wish I was as organized regarding getting my shit together for 2015.
All of that said, now I want to read Flash Bang, the Long Game. Not for any other reason than I am intrigued by your commitment to it — and the fact that I enjoy your writing. I think They Tell Me There Will Be No Pain was top shelf. Really fucking great.
Have a great 2015.
Every day is a fresh day to start! And man, I hope you get a chance to read it some time. If I run out of places to try it, I’ll just self-publish it, I think…
Thank you! :)