Cafe in the Woods

So, um...stuff happened in 2014. Lots of stuff. Some good. Some bad. Probably the worst of it was during December. Don't worry. The boy is fine. Hubby is fine. I, physically, am fine. My mental health...still in recovery mode. 

It's why it appeared that I dropped from social media, particularly Twitter and Facebook, during November and December of last year. Too much for me to deal at that point. There's a few people who knew what's going on and been walking with me and my family through it (to use a Christianese term). At some point, there will be a blog post going up that goes more into it, but it's still a little raw right now. Sorry for the vagueblogging.

That said, I'm doing better. Not great, mind, but better.

So then, how did 2014 fare for my writing?

Well, that year saw my most popular story to date, 21 Steps to Enlightenment (Minus One). Seriously, I had no idea how many people would love this story. So much so, it made 3rd place in the Strange Horizons 2014 Readers Poll. How crazy is that? I wasn't expecting that to happen--I was just having fun with spiral staircases.

Interestingly, a month after 21 Steps came out, my other short story, Sun-Touched, was also published. That one dropped like a stone in water. I'm still puzzling over it, because I would consider that one the more ambitious story. I was trying hard to push myself out of the fantasy box and stretch my imagination. But ah well. Ultimately, I have no real control whether a story is liked or not. The only thing I can do is to keep writing and putting stories out there for people to read. 

That grew more challenging in 2014 when I moved to full-time work. Writing during a set time period dwindled to writing in short bursts. I've already written about that, so I'm not going to rehash it. Nowadays, I'm taking the advice of Jeff VanderMeer in his awesome book Wonderbook: write whenever I can, however I can, using the least obstacles to get my words to the page. (And here's a plug--if you're a writer, get Wonderbook. Get it now. Omigosh it's so AWESOME.) Currently, my writing media is 8x5 notepads. Not as daunting as full spiral notebooks and easier to carry. I write at home. I write at church. I write during breaks at work, when I'm waiting on the phone, when I'm cooking dinner (I'm simmering chicken korma curry as I write this up at hand). Evenings I enter my handwritten work into Scrivener, rinse, repeat.

I grant you, it's slow--work has gotten extremely busy for me, and there are days when all I can get down is ten words. But I've made it a rule now that I write something--anything--every day. It may be only a tidbit, but get enough of those going and...well, in September, I was able to finish the first draft of a new short story, which was something I didn't think I could do. Right now, I'm working on the second draft of another story. And I'm still working on Willow. 

So, writing wise, 2014 was a year of changes, even for my writing. I'm hoping they're good changes though, in that it's forcing me to write tighter and better. We'll see how it goes this year. And, just to remind you, 21 Steps to Enlightenment (Minus One) is eligible for awards. Let's see how far this baby goes!