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.

2018 Year in Review (5-Year Plan Revisited)

Two years ago for the IWSG December post, I talked about my 5-year plan as a writer. Last year I touched base as to my current progress on those goals, and today I'll look at them again. Remember, these are 5-year goals, so even if I haven't met them yet, I still have 3 more years to go. At least that's what I keep telling myself.

Who knows what the new year will bring?

FIVE YEAR GOALS (2 years in)

Write 3-5 books.
-Nothing to add for this one, unfortunately. I tinkered on a few books, but didn't come close to finishing anything. Total: 2 revised/rewritten books, but 0 new books.

Submit at least 3 books to agents/publishers.
-Ditto. At least I didn't submit any NEW books. I did submit the one I wrote last year a few times, but my total still stands at 1.

Self-publish 2-3 (full length) books.
-Nope. Total: 0.

Self-publish at least 1 Werebear vs Landopus story per year.
-This was not in the original 5-year plan, but I added it last year, and I succeeded with it again this year. The WvL stories are each well over 10K words long, so they're significant enough blocks of work, but nowhere near a full-length novel. Total: 2 for 2!

Write at least 2 short stories per year and submit them to anthologies/magazines.
-Here's one category where I actually met and surpassed my goals. Two of the stories I submitted last year were published (in Tick Tock: A Stitch in Crime and Strangely Funny V). I also wrote 5 new stories this year, submitted two of them for publication (one of which was accepted - see below), and had a third enter (and win!) a small online writing competition (I'll have details on that one later). There's also another story I wrote last year that I'm still trying to find a home for.

Collect at least 100 rejections.
-I received only 5 rejections I believe this year, as compared to about 15 last year. That's just due to quantity; my submission rate has slowed along with my writing, and while I submitted a greater number of different stories this year, I had the same story rejected like 13 times last year. So my lifetime total stands at somewhere around 40 rejections, not including non-responses. I'm going to have to pick up the pace a little bit to make sure I hit that 100 rejections mark in the next 3 years.

Some News To Celebrate:

For the third year in a row, one of my stories will be appearing in Mystery & Horror's STRANGELY FUNNY anthology series. I just got the word last week that STRANGELY FUNNY VI will feature my story "Eyewear of the Damned" when it's released this April. The last two volumes have featured some weird, creepy and hilarious comic horror stories, so it's always an honour to be part of this collection. I'll have more details when they're available.

I hope everyone is having a safe and happy holiday season, and that the New Year is wonderful to you all.

Happy New Year!

I don't have anything else to say. I just needed to post something today to officially break my record for most posts in one year. This is number 72, breaking 2015's previous record of 71!

Happy New Year everyone! All the best I you and yours in 2018!

My 2016 Year-in-Review

I know most people are already looking forward to 2017, but I'm always late with these things...

2016 was a year, huh?

I don't necessarily subscribe to the narrative that we've had more celebrity deaths this year (I think it's just a case of celebrities being relevant longer thanks to our more connected society), nor do I think the deaths of celebrities are any more valuable than the many, many people regular everyday people who lost their lives for stupid or heartbreaking reasons. That being said, the world really did seem to lose its collective fucking mind in the last twelve months.

But I'm not here to talk about politics or celebrity gossip. I'm just going to stick to my own life, and a few highs and lows of my own year. In no particular order:

1. Kids are awesome. My son, who turns 5 in January, started Junior Kindergarten and continues to astound with his rapidly-advancing skills. He's so sweet and caring and attuned to the emotions and feelings of others (he gets that from his mother, sure as hell not from me). He's also building 500-piece Lego kits with only minimal supervision (I'll take credit for that one). He saw Star Wars for the first time over the holidays and it BLEW HIS MIND. He was making "pew pew" blaster sounds in his sleep that night.

My daughter, who won't turn 2 until March, is amazing. Her vocabulary and motor skills are way ahead of where my son was at that age (she can pick up my wife's iPhone, unlock it, open Netflix and scroll to a specific cartoon). I don't know if it's the difference between girls and boys or what, but she seems like a freakin' genius.

Or I dunno, maybe I'm just easily impressed.

2. In July, I self-published my second novel, Hell Comes to Hogtown. It was a long process that was much longer and more challenging than I was expecting, but I'm quite pleased with the final product. Reception of the book has also not been as strong as I would have hoped, but it's early and I'm looking ahead long-term.

3. Submitted a few stories to magazines and anthologies, getting a head-start on my five year plan I mentioned at the beginning of December. I've gotten one rejection so far but I'm still waiting to hear back from two more, so we'll see how the New Year starts.

4. I actually have several writing projects completed or near-completed that I will be shopping around and/or releasing in the upcoming year. I would love to share some of those with you but after taking like 9 months longer than I planned to release Hell Comes to Hogtown, I'm not counting anything until it hatches anymore. Or talking about it online, whatever. You know what I mean.

5. I wrote another silly kids book for my kids and all my nieces (I have seven altogether) for Christmas. They all loved it because they're in it. That's my daughter on the cover. It features more of my terrible artwork, and I've had several arguments with one of my older nieces about it because of changes I made to her Pokemon in the story. I just keep trying to explain "parody" and "intellectual property" to her but it's hard with an 8-year old.

6. I gained like 20 pounds this year so I had assumed my exercise must have been way off, but after checking my run-keeper app-thingie I realized my routine has been pretty much on the same schedule as it has for the last three years. I guess that just means I've been eating staggering amounts of shit this year. Something to look into in the new year...

7. Life was all over the place otherwise, with two car accidents, my wife starting a new business, ups and downs at work, several illnesses and injuries, and a big trip half-way across the country with the kids and the dog to visit my parents. We're all still here and we're all still breathing so we'll keep plugging along. Life is a series of many steps, some hard, some easy, and there will be trips and falls along the way. There is no ultimate destination though (well, there is, but honestly you're not going to like it) so the best you can do is just enjoy the stops along the way.

Here's to hoping World War III doesn't start in 2017! At least try to hold it off until 2018...

Drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra.

Okay, I admit I took David Bowie a bit hard, and I'm still processing Carrie Fisher...

2015 - A Great Year

I'm a few days late with this - my holidays were a whirlwind of doing nothing so I'm still recovering and putting things back together. At this point most people are looking forward to the new year (or slogging through their first day back to work) but I didn't want to miss the opportunity to look back at last year, even if it's a few days late.

In all seriousness, 2015 was a huge year for me so I wanted to take a moment and be thankful for all the great things that came along since I last did an update like this. I called 2014 a "pretty good year," but in all honesty this one has been many times better. Let's discuss, shall we?

1. First off, on March 13th (Friday the 13th no less!) we welcomed my daughter Evangeline into the world. She is beautiful and healthy and doing wonderful and the best little girl in the whole world. All you other parents out there with daughters will just have deal with it. She also makes these terrible growling sounds like a cross between Gollum and a Gremlin while smiling the whole time, and I'm afraid one of these days I'm going to wake up in the morning with her chewing on my face.

2. In addition the best little goblin girl, we have an amazing son named Benjamin who is just about to turn 4. It is utterly mindboggling to watch his continued growth from a baby to a boy, and I'm so proud of him. He's so smart and sensitive and perceptive and full of life. He's also massively stubborn and hard-headed, but knowing who is parents are it's hard to fault him for that.

Also, my wife refused to name our son Luke when he was born because she didn't want her kid named after a Star Wars character. Now, almost four-years later, he has retroactively become named after Han Solo's son. Score!

3. I self-published my first novel, Ten Thousand Days, on May 6, my birthday. For some people publishing their first book is the final step in a long struggle of many years. They work and tinker and query and write and rewrite and so on and so on. While I have done all of that, it wasn't with Ten Thousand Days. Ten Thousand Days was my test-run to see how publishing (particularly self-publishing) was going to go. It was the first step in what I plan to be a long journey. The things I've learned in this process is going to go into my next, better book, and the even better book after that one. I'm optimistic that 2016 is going to be a very big year for me, writing-wise, as I continue to develop and find my voice and pace.

Of course all that said, you can still buy Ten Thousand Days right here. Or here. Or here.

4. I had the steadiest blogging year ever since I started writing online. My overall hit count is no where near as high as last year (because I haven't written much at Rule of the Dice, which always generates good traffic), but I have more than doubled the hits on my personal web page, which is probably better in the long run. Better people come find me and get to know me at my own site than read funny Dungeons & Dragons stories from the faceless guy, right?

5. Also on the topic of writing, I released a short story on Halloween, Tentacles Under a Full-Moon. It was written as a joke but I liked the way it turned out so I made it available first for free and then as a $1 download at Amazon and other places. I've gotten quite a few downloads on that one and I think some people have even read it!

I also have a couple of other books and projects in progress that will likely see the light of day in 2016, first and foremost my spectacularly-failed crowdfunded novel. You'll hear more about that one very soon.

6. Improved on my running in all aspects - better times, longer distances, more work-outs - despite having a new baby, no energy and a messed-up schedule. In spite of the increased activity though, somehow I've actually gained 10 pounds from this point last year. Getting older sucks.

7. I did my first narration as I recorded an "audio book" version of Will Bly's touching (and crude) holiday tale "F*ck You Santa: A Christmas Story." It's available for free here from the fine folks at the Grim Tidings Podcast.



8. Speaking of which, I've greatly expanded my circle of friends and acquaintances online, talking to and getting to know lots of people in the writing, podcasting and gaming world. I've never been much of a social person so it's weird to have people I talk to even semi-regularly, especially since I've never met any of them face-to-face. I know most people first went through this experience like 15 years ago, but I'm just catching up now.

9. I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I've been waiting 30 years for that movie. That's all I have to say about it right now.

So that was my year in a nutshell. How was yours? What are you looking forward to in 2016?