Category: year in review

Writing This Year

Novels: 1 (finished editing)

Novellas: 1 (finished editing)

Novellettes: 3

Short Stories: 1

Flash: 0

Paid Nonfiction: Book Riot newsletter and a couple of posts

Editing: Several small freelance editing gigs

Consigned to the trunk of awfulness, never to return: None this year.

Best/Favorite story of the year: I’d have to say it’s actually One People, One Purpose, which is my first ever IP story.

Statistics

Words: 331,712

Time Spent: 202:45 hours

Days Written: 293 out of 365

Wow, this is a big jump over last year. Probably helped by NOT having any of my bones fused. It’s weird, because I don’t feel like I’ve been more productive, yet I definitely have been. And that even though this has been the worst year ever, basically.

Publishing

Queries sent: 8
Rejections received: 6
Pending: 1
Most rejections received: That would be Raising the Steaks, which finally did get published this year by Andromeda Spaceways! I’m so proud of that story.
Gross earned: $8,457.39, almost $3k less than last year. Which was unfortunately already down from the year before. The good thing is, this is more than I expected to make! I had one big project roll in unexpectedly during the summer, and a couple of sales, but this was mostly several regular revenue streams (Book Riot Newsletter, Patreon, and my regular freelance proofreading gig) just adding up together; I only made about $550 from royalties this year.

Published this year:

1. The Books That Hate Us for Sarah Gailey’s Personal Canons series (8/18/20)
2. One People, One Purpose for the 10th Anniversary of Blizzard’s StarCraft II (7/28/20)
3. Raising the Steaks in Andromeda Spaceways Magazine #78 (6/18/20)

Well, if my word course made me feel like I’d actually been productive this year, this list sure just set me straight, didn’t it. I’ve at least also put up some content on my blog and Patreon, but that’s really not the same as someone else publishing it.

Favorite Patreon posts for the year:

1. Well, I read It (public)
2. Jiu Jitsu
3. The Lighthouse (2019)
4. Chapter 17: How It Feels

Favorite blog posts for the year:

1. Quiz: Protoss or Ikea Furniture
2. Thoughts on Turning 40
3. Slush v Solicitations: Just Tells Us Where We Stand

How did I do on last year’s goals?

1. Figure out how to incorporate writing time into my new work week; achieve an average of 6,000 words per week.
2. Write at least 3 short stories. (Additional: I really want to write a story to sub to Silk & Steel so one needs to be early in the year.) I actually technically did this, though only one of them is an original short story, the one I wrote for Silk and Steel. Which did not make it into that anthology, so I am sentenced to the hell of trying to sell it elsewhere.
3. Finish both of the novels that I started this year. I get half credit for this one; I finished one of the novels, made some progress on the second.
4. Do NaNoWriMo. Finished it again!
5. Read at least 60 books. Read 75!
6. More blog posts. I think? Does Patreon count?
7. Refocus on character, character, character.
8. Put fair share of time in on ongoing collaborative projects.
9. Spend less time on Twitter. LOLOL

Considering what a goddamn dumpster fire 2020 was, I actually did really well on my goals. Shockingly so. Even if goal #2 is completed on what feels like a technicality. And yet I’ve come through the year without much of a feeling of accomplishment, even after crossing all these things off. I think that’s mostly linked to how little I had published this year, even though I felt like I was working my ass off under very trying circumstances. My writing income has shrunk two years in a row, my credits have shrunk, and it doesn’t feel great. Financially, this is not me panicking; I got a new job back in 2019 and I’ve been working it for a solid year now, and I’m in the best place financially I’ve been since I got laid off in 2016.

The new job has come with a lot of new challenges, one of which has been trying to figure out how to write around the brain drain of 40 hours a week of mental labor, which was not something I had to do when I was working in construction. (Then, I could be physically exhausted at times, but I still had a lot of unstructured waiting time where I could literally pull out my laptop and write while I was waiting for crews to get their shit together.) The financial stability that’s meant I haven’t had to scramble so much to do other people’s work and stress constantly about money has instead meant I don’t have as much energy to do my own work. I’m sure there’s some kind of irony there–though I’m certainly not complaining, because at least, as I mentioned before, I’m not constantly freaking out about money which is its own kind of brain drain.

I think ultimately my feeling of discontent and sadness at the end of 2020 is partially just because the year generally sucked. And the other part is the anxiety of being a writer, where you’re absolutely certain that the minute you aren’t publishing something, you will disappear and be forgotten. Social media does not help this, and honestly neither does my Book Riot gig where I’m constantly tracking what new things are coming out. When you’re never the new thing, and all of your peers seem to have a lot more in the pipe than you, it’s hard not to feel like you’ve sunk beneath the water. There’s a certain amount of “keep your eyes on your own paper” that comes into play; everyone’s career is unique and you cannot measure yourself by the achievements of others if you don’t want to lose your fucking gourd.

But on the other hand, I’m also only human, and at this point even deleting Twitter forever wouldn’t stop me from noticing how much everyone else is doing because it’s kind of my job to pay attention to that. So I’m just going to have to deal with the constant, choking feeling of inadequacy and soldier on. The most annoying thing about writing is I can’t even soldier on in the determination that in the future, my day will come. While I can do things to try to reach that goal, it’s ultimately out of my control. All I can do is set my shoulders and keep doing the work.

Which is an answer, and maybe the only answer, but it’s not a very satisfying one for hollow feelings.

Goals for 2021

1. Continue averaging 6,000 words a week. Stretch goal: 6,500?
2. Write 3 short stories.
3. Finish drafting The Smallest God and The Greatest Baking Show in the Galaxy.
4. Finish editing at least one of the above and make it DongWon’s problem.
5. Do NaNoWriMo
6. Finally start the goddamn epic fantasy book. New outlines need to be done first because things have shifted.
7. Read at least 60 books.
8. If possible, finish the collaborative project (WE ARE SO CLOSE!) and start on the next book.
9. Focus more on writing sprints. Figure out a routine that works with day job.
10. Work on expanding the Patreon audience; keep up faithfully with the obligations there.

I’m a little unsure face about refocusing on Patreon (since depending on someone else’s infrastructure is always frought), but it was an important income source for me this year and I think I can do a better job with it. It’s a more viable platform for me than a newsletter model, I think. I already write two newsletters a week for Book Riot and I cannot currently brain more.

Final Thoughts

Well, that was sure a year, wasn’t it. A year horrible enough to be a capstone on four already horrible years, and I’m not some fool that thinks things are magically going to be better because it’s 2021, but I’m not a cynical hope-eater, either. I don’t have anything profound to say about how fucking awful things were (or will probably continue to be for another half a year at least) other than we got through it because we’re the lucky ones, and the only way to truly honor that is keep fighting for both justice and kindness and flipping the bird to the people who have tried through hatred or ignorance or selfishness to kill us.

This is my tenth year doing year-end writing reviews… I started in 2010 but somehow ended up skipping 2011? I don’t know. I was in grad school and very busy. If you’re curious about a walk down memory lane just check out the year in review category.

I think me of ten years ago might be impressed that I was making money in the thousands from my writing. Would be seriously excited that I have an agent and have had books published. And would be sad that it’s not nearly enough money for me to be doing things full time. But 2010 me was also pretty realistic about things.

This year, I:

1. Bought an ebike with the intention of regularly doing the 36 mile round trip for work that way. And… yeah. That sure didn’t happen. But I’m still really enjoying the bike.
2. While I know that the lockdown isn’t necessarily a good measure of one’s ability to work from home because of these weird, stressful circumstances… I think this did tell me I could do it. If somehow I could make enough writing income to cover my bills, I could keep my shit together and get the work done. Especially because I’d be able to leave the house on occasion, unlike this year. I’ve actually really enjoyed working from home, despite the circumstances.
3. Had a hysterectomy and it’s literally the best thing I’ve ever done for myself medically. As surgeries go, it was way less horrible than the foot surgery, too. Three cheers for gender-affirming care!
4. Got hired to do IP fiction writing for the first time ever, which was cool and fun and I loved the work I did and the people I worked with.

Here’s hoping 2021 will be exponentially better. And I wish us all the strength and stamina to do the work that will make that happen.

Writing This Year

Novels: Have written 40k on one and 70k on another, but none finished.

Novellas: 3 novella-length WFH books

Novellettes:  0

Short Stories: 0

Flash: 1

Paid Nonfiction: Book Riot posts, newsletter

Editing: Several small freelance editing gigs

Consigned to the trunk of awfulness, never to return: None this year.

Best/Favorite story of the year: N/A since I didn’t really finish anything as such this year.

Statistics

Since I stopped doing the magic spreadsheet last year, I’ve decided to try a different tracking scheme. I’ve been tracking raw word count, the number of days I’ve been writing, and time spent on things like editing that are writing tasks but don’t directly generate word count.

Words: 290,850

Time Spent: 115:55 hours

Days Written: 267 out of 365

Obviously I’m not on the “Write Every Day” train any more. Did this work for me? I’m not sure. It’s been a weird fucking year.

Publishing

Queries sent: 5
Rejections received: 3
Pending: 1
Most rejections received: This year, it’s The Devil Squid Apocalypse… which then sold to Giganotosaurus! WOO!
Gross earned: $11,153.59, about $2.5k down from last year. The bulk of this income came from work for hire; I didn’t sell anything that paid an advance this year, and royalties probably amounted to less than $1.3K total.

Published this year:

1. Wireless and More Steam-Powered Adventures
2. The Devil Squid Apocalypse
3. The Stoker and the Plague Doctor in Straight Outta Deadwood
4. Speculative Fiction on Tap: Romance Takeover Edition
5. 25 of the Best Sci-fi Audiobooks to Listen to in 2019
6. Pictures Worth a Thousand Nightmares
7. Little, Brown to Publish Transphobic Novel That Erases Historical Trans Man
8. From Audio to Paper: Deciphering Heard Words on the Page
9. Speculative Fiction on Tap: Winter Books, Winter Beer
10. One-Nighter Reads

How did I do on last year’s goals?

1. Get back into writing nearly every day; get writing endurance back up to 1-2k words per day.
2. Finish novella project and turn it in.
3. Suck it up, find the money, and put at least the TV pilot script on the Black List. Submit to more contests.
4. Make an actual effort to find out about work for hire for video games instead of just whining about it.
5. Work on at least one collaborative project.
6. Write one novel. Two as a stretch goal, but unlikely with the amount of freelance work I’ve frontloaded with.
7. Finish editing Flash Memory and make it my agent’s problem.
8. Read at least 60 books. (I read 63!)
9. Do the birthday story, as usual.
10. Do posts on my personal blog more often. My ability to write blog posts has kind of atrophied, and I need to practice it. (And convince myself I have interesting things to say, which is sometimes the harder part.)

Six out of ten ain’t bad, I guess?

Goals for 2020

1. Figure out how to incorporate writing time into my new work week; achieve an average of 6,000 words per week.
2. Write at least 3 short stories. (Additional: I really want to write a story to sub to Silk & Steel so one needs to be early in the year.)
3. Finish both of the novels that I started this year.
4. Do NaNoWriMo.
5. Read at least 60 books.
6. More blog posts.
7. Refocus on character, character, character.
8. Put fair share of time in on ongoing collaborative projects.
9. Spend less time on Twitter.

As always, the challenge for making goals is answering the 3 questions: Is this something I can control? Is this actually achievable? Is this helping me?

Final Thoughts

If last year was a sucky year, this year was… perhaps less personally sucky, since it didn’t involve me having two screws put in my foot this time around. But it was a really weird year. Mostly positive personally, for all the world is a trash fire, but still definitely weird and I’m still trying to figure out how to work things out.

This year, I:

1. Finished recovering from surgery, got off disability, went back to my full workload with stern warnings from my orthopedic surgeon that I needed to find a new job.
2. Found a new job that’s a desk job, which also pays much better than my old job… but has a lot less available down time.
3. This new job pays well enough that I no longer need to scramble for work for hire to cover my bills. So I came to the realization that I can now focus just on my stuff…
4. Which has also come with the realization that my writing time is a precious resource and I need to be thoughtful about what I use it to write. I still have long term goals about screenwriting, but right now I need to focus on novels. Because hopefully novels will help me get to a place where I can have more time to work on other projects I want. But running around in all directions isn’t doing anything but stressing me out, because I’m doing multiple things halfway instead of one thing all the way.

One year out from 40, I’m still trying to figure out how to configure my life. I’m still trying to figure out who I am as a writer. And looking back on this year, despite the fact that I wrote almost 290K words, I feel like I didn’t do anything. Which is an illusion; I did a lot. I covered student loan payments with my writing. But finishing work for hire stuff and finishing your own stuff feels very different. And I finished damned little that belonged to me this year. I sold very little that belonged to me. It’s difficult to not have a massive internal crisis about this–I am having one, to be frank. Sometimes, I feel like I’ve forgotten how to write. Others, I feel like I am only, to quote, “competent, but unremarkable.” There are obviously far worse things to be, but I’m ambitious enough to want to achieve more.

Next year, I hope, will be different. As always, the solution is to do the work. That is the one thing I can control.

Also, Parasite was the best movie of the year. Pass it on.

Writing This Year

Novels: 0

Novellas: 2

Novellettes:  0

Short Stories: 5

Flash: 2

TV/Movie Scripts: 1

Other Scripts: 2 scripts written for Six to Start

Paid Nonfiction: 22 for Book Riot, 3 short textbooks written

Treatments/Outlines: 2

Editing: Several small freelance 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: Probably Siren. You can read it in Sword and Sonnet.

Magic Spreadsheet wordcount: I stopped tracking this year, which may have been a mistake. I felt like I finally hit a place where I could be productive without really flogging myself with daily tracking…and then everything basically went to shit from August onward, mostly thanks to having surgery on my foot. I’m trying to get back into the habit now, and in the new year I think I’m going to start tracking my word count and editing hours again so I can set more concrete goals.

Publishing

Queries sent: 25
Rejections received: 21
Pending: 4
Most rejections received: This year, it’s The Devil Squid Apocalypse, but I’m going to keep trying goddammit. I LOVE THAT STORY TOO MUCH.
Gross earned: $13,645.47, surpassing last year by over $2.8K. Which I’m finding even more personally impressive because I only had one advance payment for a novel this year. The bulk of the rest was freelance income or work for hire.

Published this year:

1. Blood Binds the Pack
2. Murder on the Titania and Other Steam-Powered Adventures
3. Excerpts from the Personal Journal of Dr. V. Frankenstein, MD, Department of Pathology, Our Lady of Mercy Hospital in We Shall Be Monsters
4. 40 Facts About the Strip Mall at the Corner of Never and Was in Shimmer #46
5. Siren from Sword and Sonnet
6. The Best Fantasy Short Stories and Where to Find Them
7. The Weird Libertarian Trojan Horse That is the Little House Books
8. 10 Great Underwater Sci-fi and Fantasy Works
9. 5 Books Over 500 Pages That Are Well Worth Your Time
10. All Issues of FIYAH Literary Magazine Removed from Goodreads
11. WorldCon 76 Report: Hugo Awards, Lodestars, and MAGA Hats
12. Overdrive vs. Libby: Which Will Serve You Best?
13. 12 Books to Pierce the Filter Bubble
14. WorldCon Updates Programming in Response to Critiques from SF Creators
15. How WorldCon Failed Marginalized Creators With Programming and Communication
16. Tor Hits Libraries With Lending Delay
17. The Ripples of #Cockygate
18. 35 of the Best Fantasy Audiobooks
19. #Cockygate Continues: The Best Bits of the Recent Hearing
20. My Housemate Explains The Fountainhead to Me
21. 5 Speculative Fiction Takes on Sherlock Holmes
22. The Most Ambitious (Literary) Crossover Event in History
23. Thank You, Naoko Takeuchi, for Sailor Moon
24. Reader Shame: Award Season Edition
25. Speculative Fiction on Tap: The Light Side of Beer
26. Brain Armor: 6 Books for Skeptical Self Defense
27. Author Banned From Attending WorldCon
28. Science Fiction Short Stories to Read Online (and where to find them)

Slated for 2019:

1. The Plague Doctor and the Stoker in Straight Outta Deadwood
2. The second installment of the collected Captain Ramos Novellas from Queen of Swords Press
3. Those text books I wrote this year–and I have three more I’ll be writing next year.
4. Looks like I’ll be doing some TTRPG writing for Laser Kittens!

Goals for 2019

1. Get back into writing nearly every day; get writing endurance back up to 1-2k words per day.
2. Finish novella project and turn it in.
3. Suck it up, find the money, and put at least the TV pilot script on the Black List. Submit to more contests.
4. Make an actual effort to find out about work for hire for video games instead of just whining about it.
5. Work on at least one collaborative project.
6. Write one novel. Two as a stretch goal, but unlikely with the amount of freelance work I’ve frontloaded with.
7. Finish editing Flash Memory and make it my agent’s problem.
8. Read at least 60 books.
9. Do the birthday story, as usual.
10. Do posts on my personal blog more often. My ability to write blog posts has kind of atrophied, and I need to practice it. (And convince myself I have interesting things to say, which is sometimes the harder part.)

Other Stuff

1. HUNGER MAKES THE WOLF WON AN AWARD!!!! I’m still fucking blown away by this.
2. I read 68 books this year, which is two short of my goal of 70.
3. I fucking love my Destiny clan.
4. Got back into baking this year, and I want to continue next year. Goals include: curry goat pie (hot water crust pastry), learn how to make bread, something involving meringue, make a puff pastry once so I never feel the need to do it again
5. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is my pick for best movie this year, and definitely the one that made me feel happiest. Close second is Black Panther.

Real talk: while I managed to do better monetarily than last year (and I’m proud of the work I’ve done), this year has kind of sucked for me on a personal level. Mostly because I got taken out by an injury at work in March, and it’s just been that drama ceaselessly since. I’m on the road to recovery now, but it’s slow, and it’s fucking painful, and I think that’s really hurt my ability to write since August (when I had surgery). Beyond that, it’s forced me to do some really painful self-assessment about what I can even physically do any more, at the ripe old age of 38, and what that means from aspects of my life from my leisure activities to my ability to do my current job. And that’s also been a major, ongoing source of anxiety for me. Like this is probably the most continuously stressed out and anxious and internally fucked up I’ve been since my last year at AT&T, when I was so depressed I literally stopped sleeping.

So yeah. Here’s hoping 2019 is calmer.

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.

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:

1. They Tell Me There Will Be No Pain from Lightspeed Magazine (Payment was donated to UNICEF UK.) (12/1/14)
2. Six episodes of Superhero Workout Game
3. Asleep in Zandalar from Abyss and Apex (6/30/14)
4. List of Items in Leather Valise Found on Welby Crescent from Shimmer #19
5. What Purpose a Heart from Scigentasy (5/3/14)
6. The Heart-Beat Escapement from Crossed Genres (4/1/14) and a little bonus material
7. Perfect Blue, Scorched Black from Perihelion (2/12/14)
8. A World of Speculation from Lakeside Circus (2/8/14)
9. And Still Champion from The Lorelei Signal (January 2014)

Slated for 2014: 

1. Only a Crack in a Black Glass Wall in Welcome to the Future
2. The Adventures of Captain Ramos: Year One (collection) from Musa Publishing
3. The Flying Turk from Musa Publishing
4. Extradition from Musa Publishing
5. Concerning Minister Wu’s Tea from Musa Publishing

Stories put online this year: 

1. Midnight Baking

Goals for 2015: 

1. Shut up and write. Always.
2. Keep plugging away at the new novel.
3. Write at least one feature-length screenplay because I believe I can do it.
4. 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.
5. I can still dream of having an agent, can’t I?
6. Birthday story for Mr. TH. I know what I want to write. Just have to do it. Don’t choke, self.
7. 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.
8. Write at least one brave, difficult, strange story that makes me weep at my keyboard.
9. Write a few more short stories. Be better about slushpiling novels.
10. 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…)
11. Submit some shorts to a festival or two because Sera believes in me.
12. Get back out there and look for more script writing freelance work.

Other/Personal Shit

1. 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.
2. Survived my first workshop at work, presented a well, wore a bow tie while doing so and looked goddamn fabulous.
3. 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.
4. Got divorced.

It’s been an interesting year.

Written This Year

Novels: Zero, I’m sorry to say. I did a lot of editing on Fire in the Belly and Throne of Nightmares but grad school really prevented me from making much progress. I think I might have added another 10k words to King’s Hand.

Shorter Stuff: Relatively more success on this front, perhaps because shorter stories are ideal for picking up and putting back down while dealing with horrible grad student things.
Flash: 5 (spoiler: I still suck at flash)
Short Stories: 12 (six of which I wrote during the Clarion Write-a thon, one I wrote today!)
Novellettes/Novellas: 2 (just finished the rough of The Ugly Tin Orrery!)

Consigned to the trunk of awfulness, never to return:  None yet this year, but there are two that I’m giving the stink-eye that might be vanishing once I have the brain power to look over them better and do more editing.

Best/favorite story of the year: Comes the Huntsman, no question. It was an intense story to write, and I’m still very proud of it. It was also published by Strange Horizons, which has been a personal dream of mine!

Considering last year I wrote well over 200K words, by any measure my productivity has been much, much lower this year. To the point that I started getting a bit weird about it back in October because I hadn’t gotten to just write fiction in what felt like so long.

On the other hand I’ve written two drafts of a Masters Thesis, so I think that should count for something.

Publishing
Queries sent: 102
Rejections received: 72
Most rejections received: For just this year, A Crack in the Mirror is leading with 10. For all time (discounting Throne of Nightmares) Entangled had 18 when it was accepted for publication by Specutopia.

This was an amazing year for me for publishing. I had four sales, two of which were pro-level, and signed the contracts for five novellettes/novellas, only one of which I had already written. The two pro sales this year kicked me over to three total, which means I get classified as a professional writer. That was incredibly exciting as well, and Comes the Huntsman was the story that did that for me.

Published this year:

1. Entangled in Specutopia (which seems to have vanished, I’m sorry to say)
2. Comes the Huntsman in Strange Horizons
3. The Jade Tiger in Penumbra

Slated for 2013: 

1. Hyperion from Scape
2. A return of The Jade Tiger in the Best of Penumbra Anthology
3. Murder on the Titania from Musa Publishing
4. The Ugly Tin Orrery from Musa Publishing
5. The Curious Case of Miss Clementine Nimowitz and Her Exceedingly Tiny Dog from Musa Publishing
6. Blood in Peyote Creek from Musa Publishing
7. Do Shut Up, Mr. Simms from Musa Publishing

Stories put online this year: 

1. Infection 
2. The Last Lighthouse

Unless Specutopia reappears, once I’ve run out the six month exclusive period in the contract, I think I’ll probably put Entangled online here to be read for free in February. It’s a story that I really like and I don’t want it to just vanish.

Also, I’m hoping to get back to my little fanfic habit once the thesis is done and I have spare time again. I’ll be working a real, 40 hours per week job for the first time in five years, but I’m pretty sure I’ll still have more spare time then than I do now.

Goals for 2013: 

1. Finish King’s Hand
2. Finally get representation nailed down for at least one of my novels
3. Work with Kat on our joint project and get it done!
4. Write another birthday story in February for Mr. T.H.; an important goal for me because the one last year turned out so stunningly well I’m terrified another attempt won’t produce anything at all good.
5. Keep the novellettes rolling in on time to Musa and be faithful to my contracts there.
6. Finish editing the stories I wrote for this year’s Clarion Write-a-thon
7. Participate in the Write-a-thon again
8. Be generally more productive than I was this year, since I’ll no longer have a thesis hanging from my neck like a stone.
9. Flash fiction – how the fuck does it work?