2012 writing year
Dec. 31st, 2012 11:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
julesjonesI will not be sad to see the back of 2012, for a number of reasons, including an exciting new repetitive strain injury. That little incident made it impossible to write new fiction wordage for some months. However, my various other medical issues were for once not such as to make it impossible to write, and I have been a lot more active as a writer than I had been for some years. In summary:
The existing fragments of the unfinished Syndicate story self-published on my website.
Short story A sparrow flies through accepted for The Mammoth Book of Erotic Quickies (forthcoming April 2012).
OOP short story And if I offered thee a bargain published by Musa Publishing.
First draft of co-authored novelette Circle of Glass finished.
Short story Naked re-released as a self-published ebook through SmashWords.
Some 15,000 words added to Taxman, the urban fantasy m/m romance novel, taking it to 40 kwords.
25,000 words on a new contemporary romance novel, Nice Tie.
I'd started writing again late in 2011, putting in some serious wordage and research reading for my urban fantasy romance "Taxman". I said on 12 December 2011, when I'd just finished reading Purkiss, "I suspect it's still going to take me at least a year to get a submission-quality draft though, even if I manage to keep up the pace I was hitting just before I stopped to sit down and re-read my research materials." Well, yes. I was rudely interrupted by the aforementioned RSI. And then I was distracted by various other writing projects. Nevertheless, I took the word count from 25 kwords at the start of the year to 28 kwords before the the RSI kicked in.
Alex and I abandoned all hope of ever finishing the Syndicate honeymoon story, so in January I put the completed first two chapters and our notes on the rest of the story on my website. They're not complete enough to make a story, but there's enough there that it was worth making them available to Syndicate fans.
By March I was having to use Dragon Naturally Speaking to be able to use a computer at all. I was also at home on sick leave, which left me with not a lot to do. So I spent some time poking at my unpublished and out of print stories with a view to finding new markets, which proved useful later in the year.
I managed to make it to Eastercon in spite of RSI and stress fracture, although only thanks to the good offices of kalypso_v, who went with me and did a splendid job of portering when necessary. I'm very glad I made it, as I was able to catch up with various writer friends and discuss WIPs, markets, and general writing business stuff.
Sent off a short story submission the day after I got back from eastercon, which has been accepted for the Mammoth Book of Erotic Quickies, to be published in April 2013 (and apparently with a title change to The Mammoth Book of Quick & Dirty Erotica (Mammoth Books)
, going by the cover and Amazon entry).
The following week I sent off another short story submission, this time to Musa and also successful. And if I offered thee a bargain was published later in the year.
Two more short story submissions before the end of the month, both unsuccessful, although one made it almost to final cut. But it was good to get them out to new markets.
Starting writing again at the end of May, by using Alex as a dictation device. As a result one of our unfinished stories, Circle of Glass, was finished in first draft a couple of weeks later, although it's going to need some heavy duty work to get it to second draft.
By July I was able to type for short periods, and started working on Taxman again, in between editing and promo tasks on Bargain. I spent some time experimenting with using Dragon to type up some material from my old story idea notebooks, so I at least have them in electronic form. I also experimented with using Dragon to write a very rough draft of the initial scene for a new story idea I'd had. It *was* rough, and I wouldn't care to do it on anything but a chunk of text I already had in my head, but it does indicate that I can at least jot down notes in Dragon if I have to.
The work on Taxman and Bargain continued up until October, when I finally carried out a project I'd had in mind for some time -- self-publish one of my old stories that was no longer in print. I picked Naked, which had been previously published in a print anthology, and then on a fundraiser ebsite and my own website. I put it out as a free read through Smashwords, largely as an experiment in putting together a self-published ebook.
I got Taxman to 40 Kwords, and what feels like the halfway point of the novel.
And then this story idea followed me home... Various things suddenly gelled into a complete story idea, just in time for PicoWrimo. I thought it felt like a novelette, which was just right for a project to try to write 300 words every day for a month. By the end of a month it had grown some more plot and was obviously a novel, but I'd written 20 kwords of contemporary m/m romance Nice Tie (and got in another 5 kwords by the end of the year).
And finally, the Loose Id anthology A Kiss At Midnight is being withdrawn from sale, but my novella First Footer will be re-released as a standalone ebook, with a shiny new cover.
The existing fragments of the unfinished Syndicate story self-published on my website.
Short story A sparrow flies through accepted for The Mammoth Book of Erotic Quickies (forthcoming April 2012).
OOP short story And if I offered thee a bargain published by Musa Publishing.
First draft of co-authored novelette Circle of Glass finished.
Short story Naked re-released as a self-published ebook through SmashWords.
Some 15,000 words added to Taxman, the urban fantasy m/m romance novel, taking it to 40 kwords.
25,000 words on a new contemporary romance novel, Nice Tie.
I'd started writing again late in 2011, putting in some serious wordage and research reading for my urban fantasy romance "Taxman". I said on 12 December 2011, when I'd just finished reading Purkiss, "I suspect it's still going to take me at least a year to get a submission-quality draft though, even if I manage to keep up the pace I was hitting just before I stopped to sit down and re-read my research materials." Well, yes. I was rudely interrupted by the aforementioned RSI. And then I was distracted by various other writing projects. Nevertheless, I took the word count from 25 kwords at the start of the year to 28 kwords before the the RSI kicked in.
Alex and I abandoned all hope of ever finishing the Syndicate honeymoon story, so in January I put the completed first two chapters and our notes on the rest of the story on my website. They're not complete enough to make a story, but there's enough there that it was worth making them available to Syndicate fans.
By March I was having to use Dragon Naturally Speaking to be able to use a computer at all. I was also at home on sick leave, which left me with not a lot to do. So I spent some time poking at my unpublished and out of print stories with a view to finding new markets, which proved useful later in the year.
I managed to make it to Eastercon in spite of RSI and stress fracture, although only thanks to the good offices of kalypso_v, who went with me and did a splendid job of portering when necessary. I'm very glad I made it, as I was able to catch up with various writer friends and discuss WIPs, markets, and general writing business stuff.
Sent off a short story submission the day after I got back from eastercon, which has been accepted for the Mammoth Book of Erotic Quickies, to be published in April 2013 (and apparently with a title change to The Mammoth Book of Quick & Dirty Erotica (Mammoth Books)
, going by the cover and Amazon entry).The following week I sent off another short story submission, this time to Musa and also successful. And if I offered thee a bargain was published later in the year.
Two more short story submissions before the end of the month, both unsuccessful, although one made it almost to final cut. But it was good to get them out to new markets.
Starting writing again at the end of May, by using Alex as a dictation device. As a result one of our unfinished stories, Circle of Glass, was finished in first draft a couple of weeks later, although it's going to need some heavy duty work to get it to second draft.
By July I was able to type for short periods, and started working on Taxman again, in between editing and promo tasks on Bargain. I spent some time experimenting with using Dragon to type up some material from my old story idea notebooks, so I at least have them in electronic form. I also experimented with using Dragon to write a very rough draft of the initial scene for a new story idea I'd had. It *was* rough, and I wouldn't care to do it on anything but a chunk of text I already had in my head, but it does indicate that I can at least jot down notes in Dragon if I have to.
The work on Taxman and Bargain continued up until October, when I finally carried out a project I'd had in mind for some time -- self-publish one of my old stories that was no longer in print. I picked Naked, which had been previously published in a print anthology, and then on a fundraiser ebsite and my own website. I put it out as a free read through Smashwords, largely as an experiment in putting together a self-published ebook.
I got Taxman to 40 Kwords, and what feels like the halfway point of the novel.
And then this story idea followed me home... Various things suddenly gelled into a complete story idea, just in time for PicoWrimo. I thought it felt like a novelette, which was just right for a project to try to write 300 words every day for a month. By the end of a month it had grown some more plot and was obviously a novel, but I'd written 20 kwords of contemporary m/m romance Nice Tie (and got in another 5 kwords by the end of the year).
And finally, the Loose Id anthology A Kiss At Midnight is being withdrawn from sale, but my novella First Footer will be re-released as a standalone ebook, with a shiny new cover.