Not a New Year's Post

A couple days into 2019, it's hard not to be a little introspective. I'm not going to make a list of last year's accomplishments, or come up with resolutions for the coming year. Those aren't really traditions I go in for, not least because I'm competitive as hell. The last thing I need is a string of posts I can find and compare myself to year after year, which will inevitably leave me feeling disappointed when I don't hit new milestones or write as many words as before or or or…

But I've got a lot of things right now that I'm grateful for:
* A day job I sincerely love, where I get to work with books every single day
* A supportive family who will always have my back
* Incredible, kind, talented, indescribable friends that make me feel lucky as hell
* Time and energy to keep writing, even when the query/submission process is overwhelmingly daunting

At the moment, I've got one manuscript in submission limbo. Took a while (not an unreasonable amount of time, just longer than my brain and heart wanted to wait) to hear back from my absolute top choice agent. The good news is, I got farther than I expected. She liked my query enough to request a partial manuscript. The bad news is, the partial didn't win her over. Obviously I'm going to try again… And obviously I'm going to sell this manuscript elsewhere… But rejection stings no matter what.

One thing I will say for this coming year: I have more stories than ever reverting to me after their contract terms expire. Historically, I've been slow as hell about revising-reformatting-rereleasing old stories. The very few I've done so far (Sage & Sand, Wonderly Wroth, Especially at Christmas) have taken me ages to get done. Not because they're long or especially challenging, but because every time it's like starting over with no knowledge of the process.

I'm going to try and stay more on top of this going forward. I already have covers designed for the next couple stories. That still leaves additional editing and then the dreaded formatting-to-publish (not to mention questions of what to do with two or three more stories I haven't touched yet). But I'm determined to stay on top of my back-catalog and get things wrangled so that nothing stays out of print too long.

And of course, there are things I'm writing right now. I can't wait to finish and share them with you, guys, they're going to be so good!

In the meantime: Happy New Year! May you find luck and safety and wonderful friends on your own forward path. Let's make 2019 excellent!