Old Year New Year

Had to sift through the various goals threads I'd started this year to keep track of what I'd accomplished...

Publications:

• My novella Heroes Die Young came out from Champagne Books
• 3 new short stories published, 2 from Ray Gun Revival, another at The Writers Vineyard
• 1 short story was accepted, but not yet published by RGR
• 1 reprint published in The Written Word (which oddly, was for more money than I made in the original publication)

Writing:

• Completed 13 new short stories, only 2 of which were in that list of publications above
• Completed a 50K word first draft of my NaNo novel, The Cure
• Completed the final draft of my 57K Aston West novel, Friends in Deed
• Completed 24K toward my Aston West novel, Death Brings the Victory

For me, 2009 is wide open. December has been a sh*tty month in terms of rejections (I think I had around a dozen in the first week alone), but had some positive feedback on a pair of rejections where the outlet asked me to resubmit with changes, so who knows? My hope is to get Friends in Deed and several of those remaining short stories published this next year, and to complete Death Brings the Victory, The Cure, and several more short stories. I also get to find out how well Heroes Die Young is doing...based on some tracking numbers thus far, I'm hopeful, but you know what they say about hope.

2008 - I can do without another year like this one.

had my first novel crash and burn due to my choosing a bad publisher (NOT PublishAmerica!) - since I wasn't willing to put more money out on buying my own copies to resell I've pretty well written it off. Not a bad book; got good reviews but with little/no editing and no bookstore placement I'm willing to just forget about it and mark it up to experience. Never go POD, boys and girls - it's not worth it. Period.

had another story that's been on hold for two years with a publication drop out of sight; they're not answering queries. Always good to see manners going out of style. Another short story in limbo with another publisher who claims to be putting it up on Fictionwise with other short stories; been there for three years. Yawn. At least it's a reprint and any extra money off of that is a bonus.

decided to shift sideways into poetry a bit - had two pieces just accepted for a March 2009 issue of Niteblade Magazine and hope to get more nibbles in this area. Finding it a lot easier to work with at the moment.

finished/won NaNoWriMo and working to finish "Blaze of Glory", a superhero book. Then get it out to agents and so forth; looking to score a real publisher this time.

still flogging "What God and Cats Know" to agents and publishers. Got a nice rejection from a good small press and that's encouraging.

all I have to say is that I thank God I don't have to live on my writing income.

2008

Well, it's been a year of firsts for me:

• I saw my first short story sales, five of them total now, three originating from SFF prompts in SYW
• Honorable Mention and Semi-finalist placements in the Writers of the Future Contest
• Started querying my novel and have gotten my first request for a full
• Attended my first literary convention and met my first AWer in real life
• Production wise, wrote and submitted 20 pieces of short fiction

2009

• I plan to finish my NaNovel and start submitting it by October
• Get my writer's website up and functioning
• Make 100 short story submissions
• Join a writing group or two

We'll see what the year brings!

Nicole