2019 Year-in-Review (5 Year Plan Revisited)

Whelp, we survived another one. There seemed to be a few close calls there, but somehow we keep on trucking. In my personal life, it would be pretty hard to be worse than 2017 (please don't try, 2020), so I'm thank for anything that shows even mild improvement.

And hey, the close of this decade is a pretty big one for me. In the last ten years I moved to a new city, bought a house, started a new career, had two kids, published my first books and stories - it's been a momentous time in my life.

A few years ago for Insecure Writers Support Group day, we were supposed to describe where we saw ourselves in five years. I instead wrote a pretty specific list of goals I wanted to accomplished in those years, and every 12 months since I've been revisiting that list to see how I'm doing on it. It's always good to finish any sort of calendar milestone by judging ourselves, right?

FIVE YEAR GOALS (3 years in)

Write 3-5 books.

Here's my big one for this year, which was a secret until now: In the past twelve months I've actually written two new books. (Okay, as of this writing the second one still needs another chapter or two, but I'm pretty damn close). That's huge for me, since I haven't completed a full-length manuscript since Hell Comes to Hogtown came out in 2016. It's not that I haven't tried; I've started probably a dozen novels in the last three years, some of them I've even got 20-30K words deep, but for various reason none of them ever made it to the end. That changed this year.

Now, one of the books was a fun, silly (and illustrated!) middle-grade book I wrote for my kids and nieces which will probably never see the light of day for anyone else, but I'm still counting that as a win. The other one, though, I'm really hoping to do something with in the near future...

Total: 2 revised/rewritten books, and 2 new books. I'm actually doing pretty good.


Submit at least 3 books to agents/publishers.

Because I'm behind on my new books, still have not submitted any NEW books to a publisher, so unless I have a flurry of productivity in the next two years there's no way I'm going to meet this goal. I did submit the book I revised last year to a few places, and while I received a little interest, nothing really materialized. Total: 1 books submitted so far.


Self-publish 2-3 (full length) books.

None this year, but it looks good to have at least one out in the coming year (fingers crossed!). That will still only be 1 in the last 3 years, but hey, that's better than the 35 years previous.


Self-publish at least 1 Werebear vs Landopus story per year.

Missed this one this year. Wrote a lot of words, but unfortunately none of them made it into a Werebear vs Landopus story. I've got ideas for another few stories in this series and more set in the same world, but it's just a matter of moving them up the list of dozens of other things I'm working on. Total: 2 for 3!


Write at least 2 short stories per year and submit them to anthologies/magazines.

This continues to be my most successful area. I had two stories published this year (that were submitted last year) in Masquerade: Oddly Suited and Strangely Funny VI, and I wrote and submitted 3 more. I also just received word a few days ago that one of those stories were accepted and will be appearing in the coming year! I'll have details on that in the coming weeks, and I'm sure you'll hear lots more about it then. Total: 3 for 3



Collect at least 100 rejections.

I had 19 rejections this year, which is a record for me. I also received one back 2 minutes from the time I sent the email! That brings my total to just over 50, which means I'm really going to have to submit some crap to as many places as possible in order to hit 100 in the next 24 months.

All I Want for Christmas is Surgery (#IWSG December 2017)

As I'm writing this, we are patiently waiting to hear from the hospital as to when my wife will be going in for spinal surgery.

It's scary, but we're looking at it as a good thing. My wife has been in severe pain and off work for four months. Surgery will (fingers crossed) fix the pain and give her a chance to get back to a semblance of a normal life. As I've hinted at repeatedly, life has been pretty hectic and crazy in our household these last few months, and my wife has been miserable.

Wish us luck. We asked Santa for a successful surgery for Christmas.

December 2017 Question

It's something about things I would have done differently this year if I could go back, but honestly, while this year majorly sucked, I did the best I could with what I had. I would much rather re-visit last year's question.

Last year for the December IWSG, we discussed where we saw ourselves in five years. I laid out a pretty detailed plan of what I wanted to accomplish in the next 60 months. With 12 of those months now behind us, I thought I would revisit the list to see where I'm at.

• Write 3-5 books. 

I finished a massive re-write of two old manuscripts this year, one of which was the revised edition of Ten Thousand Days. So while I haven't written a new book, I think I have made progress on this front. I also started three new books this year, but since I only made it to about 1/4 of the way through on all of them, I don't think they count. At least not yet.

• Submit at least 3 books to agents/publishers.

Fingers crossed, but I hope to have the other book I rewrote this year (see above) out to a publisher before December 31. They're having open manuscript submissions until the the end of the year, so I said, what the hell? I doubt anything will come of it but at least it will work on my rejection pile. 

• Self-publish 2-3 books. 

I released the revised edition of Ten Thousand Days and a new Werebear vs Landopus story, but I don't think either of these actually count. I will have to revise my goals, as I really intended this to be new, full-length novels. I'm also going to have to add a line for WvL stories, because I hope to keep doing them regularly, as well.

• Write at least 2 short stories per year and submit them to anthologies/magazines. 

Success! I wrote and submitted exactly 2 new stories. I also had one I submitted last year accepted and published in the Strangely Funny anthology. Good times all around.

• Collect at least 100 rejections.

I received 15 new rejections this year, which is a good start. If you add the 20 or so I received years ago when I first tried to get published I'm over a third of the way there. With two more stories and a book out for submissions going into the new year I'm sure to make a dent in this target in the next twelve months.

The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Writers post their thoughts on their blogs, talking about their doubts and the fears they have conquered. It's a chance for writers to commiserate and offer a word of encouragement to each other. Check out the group at http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/.

Five-Year Plan (#IWSG)

After a disappointing October, November started off well as I finished a couple of short stories, neared another to completion and made good progress on my special project. I knew that I wouldn't be able to carry the momentum into the holidays, so I tried to get done as much as I could while the going was good. Sure enough, everything came crashing down at the end of the month as my wife ended up bed ridden for almost two weeks and then everyone in the house started working through a nasty flu.

Now we're hurtling headlong into the holidays and we haven't even started cleaning, decorating and all that fun stuff, so the next few weeks are going to be crazy hectic. I'm not going to put down many words for the rest of the year (I nearly forgot about this post, too) but something about today's IWSG question set off a spark in me. So without further ado...

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December IWSG Question: 

In terms of your writing career, where do you see yourself five years from now, and what’s your plan to get there?

I had to think long and hard about this one, because I don't think about my writing as a "career." I've said before I'm not doing this to make money or achieve praise, nor do I ever expect to make it a full-time gig. A small second income would be nice, sure, but it's not a priority.

I've never had a long term goal or plan for my writing. For me it's more of a hobby. Usually I just go project to project, but lately I've thought a bit more about new things I want to try, and what I want to do next. If I had to make a list (and really, that's the point of this exercise) some things I want to accomplish in the next 5 years, it might look something like this:

• Write 3-5 books. That doesn't mean publish or even get to final polish, just a first draft would be acceptable. I just have to keep working on something and moving forward.
• Submit at least 3 books to agents/publishers, just for the hell of it. One of them is already mostly done, and the other two are heavily outlined (and will fall under those 3-5 I plan to write above). As I've said in the past I have no particular desire for the validation of a traditional publishing contract, but it's worth a shot just to see what happens. Even if none of them are picked up, that leads me to...
• Self-publish 2-3 books. This could be stuff that is not picked up traditionally or one or two ideas I have that I know would have to be self-published (including a sequel to one of my previous books). 
• Write at least 2 short stories per year and submit them to anthologies/magazines. I really like short stories and I've been working lately to get better at writing them. Two a year, even with my other goals above, should be reasonable, and even I will admit it would be cool to get a couple published and see my byline somewhere.
• Collect at least 100 rejections. Between the three books and 10+ short stories, that should be more than doable. I'm not even sure why I want to do this, as I don't care that much about the ultimate publication, but I feel like this is just supposed to be part of the author experience and I kinda want to say that I've done it.

So yeah, I don't know if this is "where" I see myself so much as a just a bunch of roadposts I want to hit along the way. Where exactly will I be in five years if I follow this plan? I have no idea, but at least I'll feel that I accomplished something along the way.

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The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Writers post their thoughts on their blogs, talking about their doubts and the fears they have conquered. It's a chance for writers to commiserate and offer a word of encouragement to each other. Check out the group here.