Year In Review 2023

Last year in December I wrote a ‘Year in Review 2022’, the main purpose of which was to convince myself that although I had not published my first novel, nor even got an agent, that I had achieved something in the sphere of writing. As we close out 2023 I thought I would do it again and write a short blog on this year – because I did actually find it helpful last year to review and it inspired me to reach for new heights. Hopefully, this year will be even better!

Novels:

I joined the ‘Ubergroup’ a group of writers trying to help each other by critiquing each others novels. Joining is complicated (though worth it) and involved 6 weeks of learning a specific approach to writing and creating the outline for a new novel. I even quite like the novel outline I came up with and so may actually write it – but have not yet set pen to paper (fingertip to keyboard) on it beyond the outline.

The second part of Ubergroup is another 6 weeks of dragging your already created novel through a review process based on that. I took my earlier novel Schism of the Mages Order a 106k word adult epic fantasy novel, through the uber process. I did learn a lot from doing this, not least of which is that the novel needs a complete re-write. 😦

I also started sending out another novel Leather and Steel, a 96k word adult epic fantasy novel to agents

9 months later its been to 20 agents, got 1 partial request and 1 full.

Short Stories:

I’ve written 29 short stories (8 more than last year) from as short as drabble (100 words) to as long as 12,500 words, which I guess technically is actually novelette length.

I have submitted a total of 70 times and for that gained 12 acceptances for fiction and one for non-fiction on writing craft (though none yet at ‘professional pay rates’)

I ended up a finalist for the 2023 NESFA short story writing competition and got to do a reading of my story at Boskone!

I also got two Silver Honorable Mentions in the Writers of the Future contest.

Social Media:

I haven’t invested much time in social media this year.

After trying to build a twitter presence last year, twitter, or X, as we all know, somewhat imploded. I still use the platform but have gone months without posting. I mainly use it to keep in touch with the writer friends I made there. I have not joined Blue or Mastodon or any of the alternatives.

I did do #DVPit – which sadly retired this year, despite the transition to discord.

My main social media activity has been updating this webpage and posting to my blog. It’s been really nice to hear from people who enjoyed a post or reached out to ask more.

Writing Tools:

I’m still using scrivener, though I unsubscribed to Plottr.

I bought myself a new Chromebook as something exclusively for writing so I don’t have to use my work computer and feel like I’m working. Separating the worlds a little has helped.

Other SciFi/Fantasy Writing:

Last year I got an invite to write from Dan Koboldt for his Science in SciFi series, and this year he invited me back to his Fact in Fantasy series and I wrote not one, but three articles for that!

Mentorships/Networking

I applied to the SFWA mentorship program. Didn’t match (again). I say this not as a “poor me” but because I think it’s important to be honest about your failures/disappointments too so that any other writers reading this (especially beginning or struggling ones) see the struggle is universal.

I attended Boskone, and Readercon, and Fyrecon!

I did the Futurescapes writers workshop which I really enjoyed and wrote a blog post about that here if you want to read about it.

Beta-reading and Critique Partnering

AB Martin and I, who I originally met through twitter and then in person at Worldcon 2022, has continued to be a good writing friend and we have continued exchanging query letters for mutual critiques which has been very helpful to me

I also did Futurescapes, and Ubergroup mentioned elsewhere, exchanged manuscripts with people from the Writers of the Future forum, and exchanged an entire novel with one of the other writers from my group at Futurescapes.

Learning the Craft and the Business

I participated in Clarion West writeathon and also their 6 week Flash Fiction workshop, which was great!

I also started reading slush for one of the magazines and that has been eye opening. The writing is so talented, it really puts things in perspective.

I read less novels this year – 17 novels – but have read far, far more short stories including from the major magazines (Fantasy and Science Fiction is on kindle unlimited, Clarkesworld and others are online, I do have memberships to a couple), and I have bought multiple anthologies including from Writers of the Future.

I also joined a reading group of spec fiction writers and we read short stories that won or were nominated for the Nebula or Hugo, and try to analyze/learn from them.

I also started attending the Odyssey Writers salon.

I attended a lot of craft talks at Fyrecon and Boskone.

I continued listening to Writing Excuses starting in Season 10, as recommended by the authors

I read 19 different books on the craft (I couldn’t believe it was that many when I counted but they are all listed right here!)

The Future

And looking to the future for 2024? Well, I have better quality short stories this year and I plan to continue submitting them. As with last year, I don’t think all will end up published. I’m confident about some.

I think it’s time to start seriously thinking about writing another novel, but I’m so wrapped up in learning through the medium of short stories right now that may have to wait.

I plan to apply to the Odyssey writing workshop again this year (applied last year, but didn’t get in). Right now I am thinking I will not apply to the Clarion workshops. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they are wonderful. But with a fulltime job and two teenage kids at home, their format just doesn’t work for me.

And I’m planning heading to Boskone 61 in February – I took my kids last year and they loved it – so if you see me there, or are going, feel free to say ‘Hi’!