Reflection and Resolution

Looking back on the year and my goals for it writing-wise, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed in myself. Writing has always been an on and off obsession for me, as I have been distracted often my music, family, work, etc. but I had entered into the year with a renewed focus on writing. Strangely enough, this was due to James Patterson’s jab at the fictional Rick Castle: “Only one book per year?” While I have worked piecemeal on different novels since 1998, I have only fully completed 5 in 15 years: The Suicide Letters, The 11th Hour, The Legend Born of Tears, Daemons, Dragons & Darkness, and S.O.B. There are pieces of other novels floating around out there, but those are the only ones that can be truly said to be finished.

I wanted to write two books this year (at least), but I found myself in many a wayward place. I started on the second book to Saga Chancelleria and got over 400 pages in before I found myself looking at other projects. I wrote my first novella in the Partisan universe, started a novella partially based on the adoption of my son, and began work on the sequel to S.O.B. (now at a respectable 125 pages) after getting a positive review on S.O.B., did some short story work. But I also left 111 Souls by the roadside for the time being, hopefully to be picked up later in 2014 as well as Revolution which I may abandon permanently. Revolution is the telling of the French Revolution set in a high school, so it does deal with high schooler on high schooler violence and there would be an armed takeover of the school. After what happened in Sandy Hook, I couldn’t put my heart into that story, even though mine is merely a fictional account of a historical event updated to modern times (and has only 1 death as planned). Even now I am getting distracted by new ideas: Havenhearth and Psychopomp, the latter coming to me only a few days ago. I have done a lot of writing this year, but have left myself with simply more incomplete stories waiting to be told. So, New Year’s Resolution time: On the writing front: 1) Finish F.U. (the sequel to S.O.B.) 2) Write the next installment in the Partisan novellas 3) Finish 111 Souls 4) Begin G.D. (Part 3 of the Parliament of the Profane Trilogy) 5) Finish Book 2 of the Saga Chancelleria. Overall, I am talking about 1000 pages worth of writing here, which is roughly 3 per day. Certainly seems doable on Jan. 1. On the publishing front: 1) Get S.O.B, The 11th Hour, Daemons, Dragons & Darkness, and Partisan onto Smashwords 2) Expand poetry and short story submissions to various magazines (harder and more time involving that most may think) This may be overly optimistic, but hey, it’s the New Year. It’s the one day of the year when everything is still possible.