This is my Year-in-review post. As Ed Latimore says, “Only compare yourself to past versions of yourself. If you’re in the same place in your life as you were one year ago, it’s been a wasted year.”

Well, then, my year has not been wasted.

Writing and Editing: I published two books this year. Writing the Entertaining Story and The Best of Abyss & Apex Volume 3. Entertaining Story shared everything I had learned about helping new writers as the long-time editor of Abyss & Apex. A&A’s third anthology showcased many of our newest rising stars.

I also am halfway through writing Wolves Masquerade: a non-fiction book about how aspects of dysfunction pretend to be Christian virtues (self-imposed deadline release this spring). I also made significant progress on my SF novel, Mime. (For those who care, Mime is the prequel to my finished-but-not-published novel, The Sands of Mime.) I also made progress on the third book in the series–Mime Shaft–and have outlined more of the concluding novel (Mime Stream). They are coming in at about 60-70K words per book and so the series will probably be published as two duologies.

This is the year I set up a recording studio and started experimenting with doing audiobooks. I’ve recorded my poetry chapbook and am currently editing it. Recording an audiobook Confession of a Female Safety Engineer is next.

As far as short fiction etc. are concerned, this year I sold some poetry and quite a few reprints but only one new story. One of my shorts was featured in my first podcast. I wrote no new shorts, but I did a lot of rewrites.

I was asked by two places to set up an online writing course and am working on a curriculum. I’ve also been editing more novels and enjoying that work very much.

A word about my health. Early in 2019 I underwent a pacemaker installation and it changed my life for the better in ways I’m still discovering. Short version: I love it. My heart was beating 1/3 slower without the pacemaker and my blood was not oxygenating properly. I am daily regaining strength and endurance; my sons tell me I’m more like they remember me 20-25 years ago. That can only mean 2020 will be an even better year!