Well. That was a year, all right. Twelve months that went by either ridiculously fast or as slow as possible...often at the same time.
As with any measure of time as utterly bananapants as 2021, my world had both incredible wins and some devastating lows. I know I'm not alone in that, and that the changing of a calendar doesn't make everything shiny and bright again - it's still a mess out there. I hope you're taking time to breathe, to give yourself time for both mourning and celebration.
I gave myself a few days to hibernate, and now am back into action. My aggressive calendar doesn't write for me, alas.
As I dig in though, it's nice to look back at what I accomplished last year. Gotta harness that competitive streak for good instead of evil, you know? And despite so many things (including several writing droughts that one of my brilliant friends tagged exactly right as "malaise"), it was a pretty productive year!
Kacey and I finished Ally, and a lot of readers enjoyed/are enjoying it! It feels wonderful to have closed the main ark for our friendly ("friendly?") neighborhood catsassins, and to have done well by their story. Plus it's always an incredibly good time to write with Kacey. Am I already looking forward to the next time we get to write together?
I really enjoyed writing those 4 short stories as well.
In the Wings gave a close look at Veska, introduced in Night Song, and what she got up to between books.
In We Dare: No Man's Land, my story kicks off the anthology, and features Vern, a badass who's left her glory days behind, considers herself too old for this shit, and is dragged back into the wrong kind of adventure despite her best efforts.
Starflight: Tales from the Starport Lounge is my first video game tie-in, and in mine you have a motley crew (of course) who have to decide how deep they want to get into the mess around them.
It takes all Kinds has a motley crew in the Salvage Universe, kicking around various systems starting bar brawls to cover their heists...with maybe some other trouble brewing around them
All of those anthologies are full of wildly entertaining tales from some of my favorite authors, and it's such a delight to get to hang out with them in these collections (and sometimes, in real life!).
In addition to the covers above, I wrote 4 other short stories, all of which will be coming your way at some point between now and the end of 2023. They include:
the tale of a girl and her tank
the tale of a decidedly non-magical bookseller in a decidedly magical world
the tale of a boy in a Fallen World
the tale of a medical examiner with a taste for her work
and I can't wait to tell you more about them all soon!
8 short stories, a novel, and a bunch of pieces of other stories isn't a bad haul for a bonkers year. I also took some time to read - I'd say maybe too much at some parts of the year, but 1) I firmly believe there's no such thing and 2) as many authors have said before, often a key piece of staying inspired/getting better/continuing on as a writer is to read.
I read more than my goodreads reflects - I do not usually remember to add books I read in paper form to the list - and yet my TBR list only got bigger and bigger. I'd say it's out of control, but thankfully a genius on the internet shared this:
Which means now I can just tell myself a healthy to be read pile is classy and refined and also necessary. There are so many fabulous books to read, and I hope to contribute some to your gigantic TBR piles for years to come.
Which means, I suppose, I should get back to it for today. Happy 2022, y'all!
