2023 was a pretty good year for me. I know it was tough for a lot of people, so I acknowledge that if all you did in 2023 was survive, then I am glad for it and I am proud of you.

I submitted a lot of manuscripts in 2023: 100 total, in fact. Three of my stories were accepted for publication: “The Apocalypses of Cheryl Dean” appeared in Inner Worlds; “Flash Drive” was accepted by the Thirteen podcast for a Patreon-only release; and “Trying to Stay Dead”, a reprint, was picked up by Tales to Terrify, another podcast. I have no idea when the second two stories will come out or be available.

I wrote a few new short stories, but they will need some polish before I’m comfortable sending them out. I also worked on a pair of novels: And the Devil Will Drag You Under and Witness to the Scourge. Neither is ready for submission; I have a lot of revision notes for the former, and the first draft of the latter isn’t even finished yet. Still, I’m pretty pleased with the progress I made and I plan on finishing up Devil and sending it out to agents by the middle of the year. We’ll see what comes of that.

I also did a decent job of being less “precious” about my writing; that is, I didn’t take as much offense when stories were rejected by markets, and I think I responded better to critiques of my stories than I have. This is a thing I’ve been working on and improving on for years.

For 2024, I plan to: write a short story a week; work on daily pages for M. Todd Gallowglas’s Journalist Project; and finish up those two novels. I have other novel ideas brewing, including reviving an idea that I had a few years ago that I gave up on. Remember when I kept talking about a Big Secret Project? Well, that’s back on the table.

Oh! And I have a mailing list, which you can subscribe to above. I plan to post at least once a month.

So yeah. Those are my writing goals for the coming year.

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, as I’ve mentioned before. But since New Year’s Eve is my birthday, and I’m a sucker for milestones like that, I do like to examine my focus and priorities and see what needs adjusting. I have written about this before, so I won’t rehash it all in this post. And I’ve already written about my writing plans and ambitions above.

Other areas of my life that deserve more attention include Health and Fitness (of course), Community Involvement, Family and Friends, Gaming, Reading, and, of course, Daikaijuzine. I imagine that I’ll be posting more about each of those in the coming year.

One of my favorite quotes in the world is this:

For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you.

—Neil DeGrasse Tyson

I’ve tried to let that be my guiding philosophy for some time now, and I’ll continue to do so.

Anyway. That’s all for now. I hope you all have a good, safe, creative, and prosperous 2024.

Today’s recommendation is the Broken Earth Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin. It’s an amazing series, featuring world-building that blew my tiny little brain when I read it, deep and rich characterizations, and an amazing writing style. Buy it or check it out of the library. Point is, you should read this series.

‘Tis the season for Holidailies, which is almost at an end. Happy New Year!