The end of the year is a good time to look back at everything you've done and all that you haven't. It seems for everything I have done there must be four or five things that I haven't.
Let's begin with writing novels. I always feel like I'm working on something at all times, though I always don't feel like I'm getting anywhere. As an example, I finished my own rewrite of Broken People and while I did send out a few queries but after being rejected, or in this case, ignored, I stopped. I had other things I needed to do so I stopped sending out queries on that book.
I did start a new rewrite, The Runaway, and have been working on that pretty much ever since finishing Broken People. I keep going back to the beginning as new ideas come to me. It's not advice that I would give out to others; the idea is to get through a draft first but in this case, it works for me. I had pretty much the same experience with every book I've written.
And I have officially given up on ever hearing from the guy who was supposed to edit Familiar Stranger. He very much flaked out on me and I'm closing the door permanently on him ever helping me again. Sometimes, you've got to cut bait and move on.
Looking forward, I need to query Broken People more and finish The Runaway. Those seem like pretty straight forward goals, so I'll stick with them.
As far as Powers Squared is concerned, I believe we did a lot: we had our first signing, attended our first convention, set up a mailing list, started a newsletter, started a weekly Podcast and ran a successful Kickstarter campaign. The only thing we overlooked was putting out new issues, though if you count the ones we sent out per the Kickstarter, issues #8 and #9 did get some distribution.
While I enjoy working on the newsletter and believe it is a necessary thing to do, I am happy that we've decided to cut it back from weekly to monthly. We'll still send out emails on a weekly basis, they just won't be a full-fledged newsletter, which takes time every weekend to write. I'm hoping that with a less frequent schedule we'll be able to make what we do send stand out more.
Our goal for 2020 is to distribute more consistently, so rather than releasing whole story arcs at a time, we're planning on releasing one issue at a time on a more regular basis. We want to do more signings and conventions. And most of all, we want to keep making Powers Squared, which means we need to find a new colorist since ours is leaving us.
As far as Trophy Unlocked goes, I ended up publishing 30 reviews this year. I really enjoy working on the blog and I'm already working on ones that may not show up for a year or so. (You got to do Christmas movies when you see them.)
Early in 2020, the blog will reach 1000 reviews, which is pretty exciting.
Well, that's about it for now. Keep writing and see you next week.
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