I’ve been pretty quiet for the last few weeks, so I thought I’d crawl out of my cave and say hi. I’ve been sick a few times, got to know more of the folks working the local ER. I missed holidays with my family because I’ve been afraid to travel; having to start from scratch to break in a new ER staff, convince a bunch of strange doctors that I know what’s going on and how to treat it, when at times I have to argue with the local ER staff who have my history in their records, just feels like too high a hurdle when I’m already feeling lousy. All together, my give-a-damn broke down about halfway through November, and I didn’t feel like getting it fixed. I’ve read a few million words, played a lot of solitaire, and generally vegged for a while. I’m actually feeling eager to get back to the writing, so I guess the downtime did me some good.
My 2013 writing goal was 250,000 words. Even taking the last seven weeks or so of the year off, I managed 304,169, which feels pretty awesome. It’s the most I’ve ever done since I started keeping track, and I’m pretty sure it’s the most words of fiction I’ve ever written in a year. I had two novels come out this year — Captive Magic and The Executive Lounge — and one short story in an anthology that paid pro rates, another first for me that I felt pretty good about. I finished eight other short stories, which are making the rounds on the pro-pay side. All together, I’m pretty happy with 2013.
My 2014 writing goal is 300,000 words. It’s obviously not a stretch goal, but I know myself; if I push too far and fall behind at some point, I’ll get depressed and it’ll be twice as hard to catch up. Almost a third of a million words is still pretty decent, and if I pass it, that’s a bonus.
I’m looking forward to the coming year, and I hope everyone else is too.
Angie
