Happy New Year!

Another year has come and gone, and I wanted to take a few moments to reflect on some of the good and bad of last year. At least as far as writing is concerned. I got quite a word count for 2012 (for me at least!), but as you’ll see plenty of other areas got neglected along the way. So let’s start on a high note. How about that word count for the year?

Not too shabby, right? Though I have to admit that most of that count is from the June Camp Nanowrimo and November Nanowrimo I won. The less glamorous fact is that neither of those novels is finished. Secrets of Leekston is over 100k at the moment and even though I’m in the final few chapters, it’s tough to bring down. Plenty of characters with numerous motivations makes for tons of decisions to make. Smoke and Witchcraft is nearly finished too, though the trouble I ran into with that tale is the diverting storyline. Characters split up into multiple directions, and the antagonists of the story are particularly difficult to write since I try to give them real motivation.

I definitely was more productive with writing last year, but not so much in the reading department. In fact, Goodreads let me know that I was quite a few books shy of my goal last year. I had hoped to read 20 books last year and only read 6. Yes, I’m notoriously slow when it comes to reading. I’ve considered purchasing more audiobooks for my daily commutes, but they’re just so expensive.

In other news, I’ve signed up to Scribophile and have really enjoyed how this community works! I’ve gotten some very helpful feedback on Ghosts of Pikes Peak and I feel like I’ll be ready to start submitting it to agents soon. It’s amazing how having other folks look over your work helps to work out the bugs. I did quite a bit of research on the site before finally trying out a free account for a few weeks. I ended up finding it so helpful that I got an annual account as well. Once Ghosts is up to speed, I’ll probably do a round of edits on Suzie’s Nightmare one last time. That will give me two completed manuscripts to ship around with two nearly completed sequels. Not too shabby for the new year!

In the publications department, “The Mysterious Disappearance of Charlene Kerringer” got picked up for The Zharmae Publishing Press’s RealLies anthology which is due out February 1st. I’ll be giving more attention to that amazing collection in a later post, but it’s definitely one of the things I’m most proud of from last year. That story would always get excellent feedback from publishers, but would be considered too long (at 9,900 words, it’s understandable) or that it wouldn’t quite fit. Very pleased to have it picked up. The story had quite a bit of competition, and although it was in the top 15 to begin with, it ended up getting pushed to a lower ranking. My guess it was simply too long and it had to get put in the second anthology instead.

Overall it’s been a great year. This year I’m hoping to start querying agents for my two novels and to finish up their straggling sequels. Not an impossible task, but it does seem pretty daunting at the moment.

What are your writing/editing/publishing goals for 2013?