Then, Now, and Later: reflections on yesteryear and hopes for 2016

Welcome back! Man, feels like the last time I saw you guys was last year! Har har har. Dad jokes.

Today is a special day because it’s exactly one year, to the date, since I posted my debut blog entry. Happy blogiversary to me!

January is a time of gazing adventurously at horizons to come, but it’s also a time for reflecting on the last 12 months. I’m in the mood to get reflecty. Whaddaya say?

Writing progress made in 2015:

• Started this blog!
• Went to my first writer’s conference.
• Got feedback on my first 10 pages from two lit agents at said conference. One thought the story was complete drivel, ha, but the other liked it enough to request the full manuscript! She ultimately declined, but, you know… Still!
• Started sending out query letters and amassing a pretty fine rejection collection if I do say so myself.
• After months of No’s, a thoroughly unexpected Maybe came from a big-time fancypants probably-leaves-glitter-where-she-walks-her-pants-are-so-fancy lit agent. I am BLINDSIDED that she requested my full manuscript. She’ll probably decline. BUT THAT’S OKAY! The request alone is enough.
• After a long and debilitating bout of writer’s block on my 2nd novel, I finally, FINALLY, FIIIINNAAALLLLYYYY found my groove again and have been chugging along since. I’ve made a ton of progress and am now at 84k words.
• Got my very first short story publication!! In April, The Houseplant in Love with a Girl went up at Vandercave Quarterly!
• My second publication, Fingers, came out at Jersey Devil Press in October!
• In December, I got two more story acceptances! Ahh! And one of them is already up: The Selkie’s Husband.

And now, some ambitions for 2016:

• Finish my 2nd novel! It’s hard to estimate when that’ll be, since I’d originally anticipated 90k yet am nowhere even close to the end. The goal is to be typing “Fini” before spring, buuuuut we’ll see, since there is a giant gaping hole in my outline that I’m going to pretend isn’t coming until I’m teetering on the edge of it, haha.
• Then, of course, revise that sucker. My list of things to change or add is currently 6 pages long. Ack.
• Publish a certain short story that I’d been shopping around for most of 2015. Oof.
• Write new shorts!
• Get an agent for my 1st book????? That’d be cool. We’ll see if that happens.
• I’m also doing a Dewey Decimal Discovery project with the lovely Lorena Black! Every month we’ll each read a nonfiction from that month’s DD# section. (Jan is the 000’s, Feb the 100’s, etc). Here’s the kicker: we can only pick books that we discover spontaneously while strolling our libraries’ aisles. 🙂

What about you guys? I’d love to hear what progress you made last year and your hopes for this one!

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