What I Wrote This Year – A Dose of Reality

I was talking with Cat Rambo, President of SFWA, the other day. She’d posted a recommendation that authors do a “List of Award Eligibility” post on our websites. Sounded like a great idea.

Now that I’m sitting here, staring at my computer, I realize that I only had one thing actually published this year. One thing went to print. Granted, it was my latest novel, Blood Curse, book 2 in The Blood War Chronicles, but I go around and call myself a writer. This year I was a writer who barely wrote anything.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m really pleased with how Blood Curse turned out, and it’s gotten marvelous praise from people whose opinions I respect. I did also manage to write two short stories this year that were pro sales.

The first was a story written for Larry Correia’s upcoming Monster Hunter Files anthology due out in 2017. I’m jazzed to have been included int his antho, and it’s a real privilege to write in Larry’s MHI universe. Special thanks to Bryan Thomas Schmidt for inviting me to submit and Larry Correia for accepting the story.

The second story got picked up by Aaron Michael Ritchey and for his Juniper Tales Project. I went down a pretty dark path on this one, and I was truly grateful Aaron included it in his project. I’m a fan of Dandelion Iron and his Juniper War series, so to have been invited to write in that world was an honor.

So that’s it. That’s what I put out there in 2016.

If you follow me on FB, you know why my writing productivity was down. There’s a lot I could say about making commitments and working hard, but the bottom line is, I need to get more words out there.

I have a new novel nearly complete, and that’s for the Aradio brothers “Colt the Outlander” property. They’ll be ramping that up in 2017. And I have two more novels to write immediately after that one that I hope to place with ROC and BAEN, if I can get lucky.

A lot of 2016 didn’t quite go the way I’d hoped… a lot…. but I did meet some amazing people at the shows (that’s the biggest understatement of all time, by the way).

It’s been a roller coaster, that’s life. As Aaron Michal Ritchey and I like to joke, that’s “living the dream” of being a writer. But I’m not discouraged. I’m resolved. And with what’s already been accepted by editors, I already have more on the books for 2017 than I did in 2016.

So, here’s to a fabulous 2017.

May dreams yet come true.