2017 Writing Year in Review

Writing This Year

Novels: 2 (Blood Binds the Pack and an as-yet untitled scifi novel that I finished off at the beginning of December.)

Novellas: 0

Novellettes:  0

Short Stories: 1

Flash: 3

Feature Length Scripts: 0

Other Scripts: 2 scripts written for Six to Start

Paid Reviews/Nonfiction: 4 for Tor.com, 17 for Book Riot

Treatments/Outlines: 7

Editing: A couple of small paid editing gigs.

Consigned to the trunk of awfulness, never to return: None this year, maybe because I’ve been completely ignoring my short stories in favor of long stuff.

Best/Favorite story of the year: Without a doubt, it’s Blood Binds the Pack. I am so fucking proud of this novel. It did everything I wanted it to do and then some.

Magic Spreadsheet wordcount: I have been tracking on the spreadsheet since June 24, 2013.

• Total words written: 501,010 this year (1,933,798 in the last ~4.5 years)
• Average words per day: 1,373 (more than last year’s 1,276/day)
• Days in a row written: 1,651 (over 4 years without stopping)

Publishing

Queries sent: 10
Rejections received: 8
Pending: 2
Most rejections received: This year, it’s Excerpts from the Personal Journal of Dr. V. Frankenstein, MD, Department of Pathology, Our Lady of Mercy Hospital, again. But I am going to sell this story, dammit.
Total earned: $9,872.41, surpassing last year by over $2K and making this year the most I’ve earned with my writing thus far in my life. Obviously still not at a level where I could even entertain the notion of supporting myself, but it’s heartening.

Published this year:

1. Hunger Makes the Wolf (Barnes and Noble, and Kobo)
2. Angel of the Blockade from Tor.com (ebook version)
3. Past the Black Where Call the Horns in KZine issue #19
4. Comfort Food in Haunted Futures: Tomorrow is Coming
5. Once Upon a Time There Was a Xurit Named Xcanda from Humans Wanted
6. Six More Miles in Giganotosaurus (3/1/17)
7. [REDACTED]
8. The Escapism of Romance (Book Riot)
9. Recommended Reading for Andy Weir (Book Riot)
10. 9 Space Magic Books for Fans of the Destiny Games (Book Riot)
11. Reasons I didn’t finish the book you loaned me (Book Riot)
12. Tolkien’s Map and the Perplexing River Systems of Middle Earth (Tor.com)
13. Tolkien’s Map and the Messed Up Mountains of Middle Earth (Tor.com)
14. Speculative Fiction on Tap: Revenge of the SF (Book Riot)
15. Hugo Awards 2017: The Wonkening (Book Riot)
16. 7 Ways to Support Your Favorite Authors (Book Riot)
17. Choose a Better Chosen One (Book Riot)
18. How Deadlines Put My Reading Habits into Overdrive (Book Riot)
19. Star Wars: Still Disappointingly Heterosexual (Book Riot)
20. What the World of The Hunger Games Teaches Us About Global Warming (Tor.com)
21. Arrakis, Tatooine, and the Science of Desert Planets (Tor.com)
22. Keep Your @ to Yourself (Book Riot)
23. Solidarity Reading List (Book Riot)
24. The Hugo Report: Finalists 2017 (Book Riot)
25. SFF On Tap: Pairing Books and Beers (Book Riot) (part 1 of potentially… more than one)
26. The Hollow Woman: Female Characters in Science Fiction (Book Riot)
27. My Glorious Return to the Library (Book Riot)
28. Books as Self Defense (Book Riot)

Slated for 2017:

1. Blood Binds the Pack from Angry Robot Books (available for pre-order!)
2. As yet untitled story in the Sword & Sonnet anthology
3. The triumphant return of Captain Ramos from Queen of Swords Press

Goals for 2017

1. Shut up and write.
2. Wake up and fight.
3. Write the two feature-length screenplays I’ve outlined.
4. Write at least one novel, probably a fantasy novel this time around.
5. Get the birthday short written, and try for a couple of others. My short story stockpile is almost nonexistent. This of course requires remembering how the hell to write short stories.
6. Pitch a blog post series about geomorphology and geology for GMs.
7. Find a sensitivity reader for that novella and get it done at long last.
8. Read at least 60 books.
9. Finally convince Bungie to let me write that Twilight Gap novel in the style of Killer Angels. I’ve got to have an impossible dream on this list every year, right?

Other Stuff

1. I DID get Blood Binds the Pack to Angry Robot, well-written and on time.
2. Destiny 2 has turned me into a Striker and I don’t know how I feel about that.
3. Started reading romance novels in earnest this year, as a form of escapism. No regrets.
4. According to my list on Goodreads, I read 94 books this year. Having a library card really helped push this. Though as a note, some of the “books” are actually short stories/novellettes/etc from the Hugo reading list that were still listed on Goodreads.
5. I went to Finland and Iceland this year. And despite the fact that I was incredibly sick for most of that trip, in Iceland I WENT DOWN INTO A MOTHERFUCKING VOLCANO YOU HEARD ME RIGHT.
6. The Last Jedi is officially my favorite Star Wars film.
7. This is the year I started vlogging as an experiment. Still having fun with it.