hello, 2013

2012 was a pretty good year for me. I published my first collection of stories, I wrote a lot, I developed better habits of work. We got our publishing company, Hammer & Birch, officially set up. And just after Thanksgiving, I published a novel and a novella under my pen name. In a sort of tilt-of-the-earth miracle, they wildly exceeded my expectations, both for sales and reviews.

So that’s cool. Really cool.

These successes have encouraged me to keep this “writing as a profession” thing going. Thus, I’ll be publishing more work in 2013. In fact, 2013 is the Year of Getting Shit Done.

What’s coming down the road?

First up is a new collection of fairy tales. Despite the first collection selling slowly, I still love the stories and the form. So I wrote more. Set in the same world of the Nine Kingdoms, these stories explore some other aspects of fairy tale fantasy, offering new spins on four more traditional tales. This time, I’m riffing on Tam Lin, the Twelve Dancing Princesses, Little Red Riding Hood, and Sleeping Beauty. That collection is coming in the spring.

I also cowrote a mystery novel featuring adorable woodland creatures with murder in their hearts. I’m hard at work on edits and rewrites now. The novel, Shady Hollow, will be published in September, and I’m pretty stoked about it. This isn’t a kid’s book, but it will feature some amazing illustrations.

Also this fall, a zombie fantasy will be shambling your way. It’s a rather different take on the usual zombie story, with much more emphasis on the magical element (on account of it's a fantasy). Also, there will be a lot of hacking and slashing. Not sure whether I’ll be releasing this serially or as a novel, but I am working hard on completing the draft and getting it to betareaders.

On the “traditional” front, I’m going to be submitting several short stories (mostly science fiction, but some fantasy as well) to journals and magazines. This will not be easy. So I’m going to throw myself a party every time I hit a rejection milestone (the milestones correspond to Patton Oswalt’s Acceptable Birthdays.)

My alter ego is going to be super busy, putting out (heh) some historical romance. A novella is coming (heh) in February, followed by a novel in June. Then, I’m writing a supercool historical with a gimmick that will surely strike a chord with the romance masses of a certain age. And finally, I’ll try to repeat my success of 2012 with another holiday-ish regency novella late in the fall. As these titles appear to be the bestsellers for me, I’ll be putting a lot of attention on this part of my writing in 2013.

The silent assassin of H&B is the one who is helping me make all this happen. He’s taken on the responsibility of the technical, pubby, and marketing side of things so that I can really focus on writing...which is pretty much a writer’s dream.

It’s still a daunting list, though. I’ll need a lot of tea to make this happen. Luckily, I received quite a lot of tea for the holidays. And I have mugs. Buddy, you’d better believe I got mugs.

2013, watch out!