Well… that was 2014. Overall, I had a good year for writing related pursuits and in general. It was a year of firsts for many writing related projects. Here are some of the highlights:
1. I finished a novel. It is the first draft and it is utterly terrible, but I finished! Right now it has been trunked, but I’m working on a substantially different second draft. Finishing the novel was important because I got past the mental barrier of finishing something novel length and I learned a lot about what does and doesn’t work for my process.
2. I sold and had a story published in an anthology! This was my first pro-sale, and the story “Of the Dying Light” was the first story I finished after nearly two years of not having written anything.
3. I started reading slush for Podcastle. I’ve listened to Podcastle for a few years now and really enjoy the range of stories they’ve published. It’s been an enlightening experience to read slush, in terms of seeing the quality of stories being submitted as well as working out why certain stories don’t work for a particular market.
4. I had a 114 day unbroken writing streak. I averaged 377 words per day, and wrote a total of 43000 words in that period. I’m hoping to top that this year.
5. I attended my first convention (4th Street Fantasy) and was invited to participate on a panel (“Advice from New Writers”). I enjoyed meeting so many others who geeked out about writing and I’m looking forward to going back again this year.
Reading: You can see most of my reading list for 2014 on Goodreads. I read an eclectic collection of short stories, non-fiction, graphic novels, and novels. I’d recommend mostly everything on that list.
So it was a good year overall. To put it in perspective, I’ve been writing with the intention of getting published since 2006, but 2014 was the first year I really started to see the results of working at the craft. As I remarked on Twitter some time back, I’m glad I didn’t give up after the first unsuccessful attempts at writing. It’s a long road, and always will be, but it’s totally worth it. Here’s to a great 2015.
Aruninations 