Happy new year! Woohoo! We made it! It’s 2024!

And welcome back!

Wow. My head is spinning a little. With the holidays, family, work, squeezing in as much writing as I can, reflecting on the old year, looking forward to what I want to accomplish in the new, I don’t even know where to begin.

I know I said this last week, but thank you! Thank you for being here, reading my stuff, and supporting me. This space is small now, but it will grow.

Now, to start off the New Year (and maybe to start a tradition, we’ll see), I’d like to review 2023, share some of my thoughts about what did (and didn’t) happen, and then share what I hope to accomplish in 2024. And then next week we can get onto the usual in reviews, discussions, and writing updates.

So let’s get started!

2023 in Review

Maybe it’s the Asperger’s, maybe it’s just my Y-chromosome, but my brain likes to put things in boxes. After writing out everything I wanted to share, it felt better to organize it by topic. A lot of these things mixed and meshed together a lot more than it might feel when I present them separately, rather than as a whole timeline… well, that’s how my brain works.

Time doesn’t exist.

The Blog

Speaking of time, I’m somewhat flabbergasted that I’ve been posting to this blog for as long as I have. I started in 2022 with this post, basically just an announcement for my plans with The Failed Technomancer. (Since I started this blog in October of 2022 and didn’t do a year-review, I don’t think it hurts to add the end of 2022 to this 2023 review.)

I still often feel like I’m stumbling my way through a dark room filled with obstacles, but I felt particularly directionless then. (This also applies to every other part of my author journey, actually.) I think my blog was a little too narrowly focused on me in the beginning, and—while I do hope to eventually have a large audience genuinely enthused about my upcoming projects—I needed more to give people a reason to stop by and subscribe, so I made a big change early: put the reviews and other fun content before my writing updates most of the time, and generally try to include fun content more often and meaningfully. A lot of these changes were inspired by reading Newsletter Ninja. (As an aside, I don’t consider this blog a “true” newsletter, but I also don’t want to attempt a “true” newsletter yet. I don’t think I have the time. And I’d need to reread Newsletter Ninja first. Which would mean figuring out where the book ended up in storage while I’m still halfway through a move.)

I’m still figuring this blog out, and I’m confident that re-focusing will happen again in the future, but I’m happy with how things evolved in 2023.

I’m also happy about more than just the posts, particularly the Stuff to Read page going live. There, I started posting The Failed Technomancer chapters, a short story (Regular 9–5), a placeholder for Inner Demon, an article (advice on making and using fictional languages in writing), and “sketch” stuff. I really want this page in particular to grow a lot, hopefully enough that I need to hire someone to help me code a better web page for hosting everything there. (And hopefully by that point I can afford hiring help.) We’ll see what the future holds.

Education

Partway through the year I discovered an indie publishing class, taught by Sarra Cannon, called Heart Breathings. I learned so much—this class was exactly what I was looking for. I learned about branding, setting up a DBA, taxes, what websites to self-publish on and how to meet their requirements to actually self-publish, tips on advertising, etc. I need to apply and practice more of the lessons I learned in this class! As it is, my big fight is just to make sure I have enough time to write meaningfully, but I’ve still got my notes, I’ve still got access to the videos, and I will make greater use of this knowledge when the time is right.

(Which isn’t to say that I’m not doing what I can—I have a DBA, I have plans on how I will handle advertising in the future, etc.)

In addition to Heart Breathings, one of my biggest educational experiences last year was the college of actually doing it. I worked with editors and an artist, I made accounts on various self-publishing sites and uploaded my stuff, I figured out how to advertise on a budget of about $0, I recorded an audiobook, and more, and it taught me so much about the time and effort it takes to be a self-published author. Honestly, it was a lot more than I expected, and there were many moments where I wished I could just focus on the writing and let someone else take care of the business stuff—but it was good for me! It opened my eyes to the wider industry and gave me ideas on what I want to do with future novels.

Actually Publishing

2023 is the year I became a debut author, as announced in my March 27th update! This was a lot later than I had initially hoped—February was my goal, so I was about a month late. That didn’t stop me from feeling… amazing. Having The Failed Technomancer published was a shot of adrenaline directly into my heart. And the feeling only improved when I finally had a physical copy in my hands. (Ebooks are convenient, but I’ll always prefer physical copies.)

I initially was only able to get the ebook live in a few places, but as time went on the ebook was posted to most stores, the paperbacks became available through print-on-demand, and I got an audiobook out in most places as well. (Everywhere Findaway Voices distributes to, anyway.) I discovered that my manuscript PDF was half an inch too small for the hardcover print-on-demand options offered by all the vendors I was aware of, and I wasn’t about to shell out my wallet’s contents for a new PDF manuscript of the same book that I was already over budget on (another learning experience), so I had to give up on my desires for a hardcover option. It probably ultimately ended up for the best—hardcovers are even pricier than paperbacks, especially for print-on-demand.

Experimentation

I took a lot of time in 2023 to experiment, something I plan to continue doing going forward. Part of that experimentation led to several projects that were later dropped—Grand Odyssey being one example, and The Precious Burden of Joy being another example. Both of these are projects that I was very excited about, and that I still plan on making use of in some way, but the growth I received from attempting those stories is more valuable to me in my current development as an author than I think forcing out published versions of those books would have been. (Working on those stories was also very good for my world building in these books’ respective worlds.)

I experimented a bit with short stories. I started several that just didn’t work, and I revised a few older short stories in an attempt to improve them. Most of those I didn’t feel worth the word count to mention, but Regular 9–5, an older short story that I cleaned up, did make its way onto Stuff to Read; I also made some promises about Old Lace and Hairballs that I wasn’t able to fulfill, as I can’t seem to make that story’s conclusion work no matter how hard I try, and I still find it aggravating.

I didn’t just experiment with writing genres or styles. Self-publishing The Failed Technomancer was an experiment that I learned a lot from. I decided to continue experimenting with different avenues of publishing by submitting Inner Demon (a dark fantasy novel) to Baen Publishing. If they accept my work, then I will have had experience publishing myself in the “traditional” indie way, and experience with working with a mid-sized publisher. (I’ve submitted hundreds of query letters to agents of larger publishers and received no manuscript requests, so I doubt I will ever have direct experience with that sector of the industry, at least not any time soon—but given the general downward spiral of most of traditional publishing, I think that’s for the best.)

And finally, I wrote and revised the short story The Courage in a Small Heart, which kickstarted a fascination with “mouse fantasy” and led me to develop an extensive world filled with intelligent mice (and other critters), elements of fantasy and science fiction, and elements of post-apocalypse. I submitted that short story to the Writers of the Future contest, another experiment in different avenues to get my name out there.

If my experimentation pays off, Inner Demon will be published through Baen in 2023, The Courage in a Small Heart will win the Writers of the Future contest and get published in their anthology, and I’ll have a lot more World of Murid work to delve deeply into. (I am working on the next World of Murid novel already, in fact, but that spoils my looking forward thoughts a bit.)

Connection

And finally, to round things off, I’m slowly meeting people and making connections in the author community.

Easily the strongest relationship I’ve made so far is with Colton Iverson over at Narrative Ink. I met Colton at a Dragonsteel Mini-Con, we started talking books and writing, and I learned that he’s building a YouTube channel focused on helping authors improve their craft. He’s also working on self-publishing his debut novel next year, and he runs a workshop course where he works with authors one-on-one. It’s been a pleasure getting to know Colton, meeting him in-person at a second conference, and discussing potential future collaborations. (If you’re looking for a small-but-growing writing community with a lot of advice, here’s Narrative Ink’s YouTube channel. I’m just sharing this because I like Colton—he didn’t ask me to do this.)

I haven’t met the following individual in person, nor have I had much in conversation with her, but I need to give a shout out to Lezlie over at The Nerdy Narrative. I attempted to advertise The Failed Technomancer by reaching out to booktubers and asking if they would review my debut novel. I sent out around a hundred emails, heard back from a fraction of that list, and of the handful of booktubers who promised to read the book and post a review, Lezlie alone pulled through. Lezlie… you’re amazing! Thank you for your honest thoughts. (As with Colton, I’m sharing the above link because I like Lezlie and The Nerdy Narrative, not because I was asked to.)

This list would be incomplete without mentioning the amazing people at LooseLeaf who helped edit my manuscripts, Kristy, Kristie, and Faralee. You three are AMAZING, and I hope to work with you again in the future. (LooseLeaf wasn’t accepting new submissions while they were busy working on Sanderson’s Secret Projects, but if they are open to new submissions, and if you are a fantasy/sci-fi author, I’d recommend them.)

And finally, to my ongoing writing group—Erica, Tanner, Robert, Alex—and to all my friends and family who read, commented, and otherwise interacted with my work, thank you all so much. I couldn’t have done it without you.

2024 and… THE FUTURE

And now… what can you expect for 2024?

I, unfortunately, still have a limited writing schedule. Feeding, and otherwise nurturing, a family takes a lot of time and effort. But I plan to spend at least as much time writing, and doing writing-supporting work, in 2024. That means writing for at least thirty minutes a day (an hour or more whenever possible), and finding time to do world building, planning, and research, as well as taking care of the business aspects of being an author.

I have the goal of publishing at least one book a year, and next year I hope for that book to be Inner Demon. I don’t have any control over whether Baen will accept my submission, and I don’t have control over their publishing schedule if they do, but if they don’t accept my book then I can guarantee Inner Demon‘s publication next year by self-publication. So the only way that book won’t be published is if Baen accepts it but for some reason takes more than a year to publish it.

In addition to publishing a book a year, I would like to post at least one short story to the blog per year, and write a blog post most weeks. I would like to write another article for the blog next year, which may or may not be done in partnership with Narrative Ink—we’re talking about a few things, but I worry whether or not my schedule will make those partnerships possible.

I don’t have a lot of control over parts of this goal, but I hope that The Courage in a Small Heart will win the Writers of the Future contest. If it does, then I will go through the editing process with them and wait with excitement for publication in their anthology. Whether or not I win Writers of the Future, I retain all rights to my short story, so it will be posted on my website eventually, and I plan on it featuring prominently in… another goal I have.

And that final goal is this: I want to run a successful Kickstarter in 2024.

I’ve self-published the “normal” way. I hope, next year, to publish with Baen and get that experience. I would also like to publish a book initially using Kickstarter, and I plan on doing that with the current novel I’m working on, Hazel Halfwhisker. I already have two partners in talks—one an artist, the other a friend who has run successful Kickstarters before—who will commit to work with me on the Kickstarter after I finish the manuscript and they get a chance to read it. If this works out the way I envision, the Kickstarter will allow me to create a beautiful specialty edition of the book, full of amazing color art, and also provide the funds to make normal print copies and ebook versions of the novel, and make an audiobook possible—maybe even to hire a voice actor other than myself. But I don’t want to go too deep into all that right now, at least not before I get much closer. And I don’t predict that Hazel Halfwhisker will be in anyone’s hands in 2024, just that the manuscript will be 90–100% done, that a few chapters will be shared as part of the Kickstarter, and that the Kickstarter will make the rest of that project possible.

That’s a lot of stuff, but I’m confident it can be done!

Send-Off

What are you looking forward to this year? Do you have any goals you’re willing to share?