Like many people, as the year draws to a close, I pause to reflect on the past year and look to the future one. This has been a year of struggles with my writing, both as a writer and with publishers. Though I produced a lot, much of it sits waiting on agents/editors. My main publisher has stepped back and I find myself once again knocking at submission doors as I try to get in with new ones. It is a frustrating process, but I also know I am at least a step ahead of complete neophytes since I do have something of a track record. This past year I managed to finish four full-length novels, a half-dozen novellas/short stories, multiple articles for newsletters and magazines and the occasional blog. Next year, I hope to do at least the same.

I’ve also found myself becoming more known for my skills as a reviewer and now have authors writing me to ask for personal reviews. While I love this and love to promote authors I enjoy, it does cut into my own writing time. Plus my backlog continues to grow at an alarming rate. But I will not refuse a book – it just may take me a while to get to it! This past year alone, I did nearly 70 reviews. That’s more than a book a week, though admittedly, some of them were short. 🙂 I hope to at least match that in the coming year if not top it.

Though I, and several of my friends, continue to wonder why we put ourselves through this angst of submission/rejection/acceptance/edits and so on, we all can agree on one thing – we can’t stop writing. There’s always a story to be told, a tale to be written. And if it never gets picked up, at least we have the satisfaction of knowing we accomplished something that many people never will. So here’s to the new year to come and new stories to be told. May it be the best one yet.