This year was the year of short fiction for me. In October 2010 I sent out my first short story. I sold it on January 3, 2011, and I spent the rest of 2011 devoted to writing shorts, all while telling myself I was just taking a month off from my novel.
It’s been a good year. I’ve written enough stories that I currently have a backlog waiting for revision. Two years ago my siblings and parents gave me a little netbook for writing (after absorbing my fear that the Frankenputer sitting on my desk would finally die for good, and all would be lost). I’ve managed to fill it up nicely.
(I should put in a plug for W1S1 here. While I’m something of a ghost member, it’s a wonderful place to find encouragement to write.)
But this coming year needs to be all about novels. I’ve got this series, see, that I promised myself I would finish as part of my writing education. I’m achingly close to being done. I have to get back to that world and complete what needs completing, so I can earn my homemade graduation tassel.
At least that’s what I tell myself today.