Annual Writerly Recap: 2016 Edition

I end the year not having achieved exactly what I set out to do, but accomplishing quite a bit regardless.

I did not reach my thirty-two book goal, but I did hit thirty (counting Serdar Yegulalp's Flight of the Vajra for two book slots, because, well, check out its word count).

Not on Fire But Burning by Greg HrbekDr. Bloodmoney by Philip K. DickThe Jewel-Hinged Jaw by Samuel R. DelaneyWe Are the Ants by Shaun David HutchinsonBetter Living Through Criticism by A.O. ScottA Year Owed by Ryan LinkStation Eleven by Emily St. John MandelThe Master and Margarita by Mikhail BulgakovIron Council by China MiévilleArt and Idea in the Novels of China Miéville by Carl FreedmanThe Half-Made World by Felix GilmanFlight of the Vajra by Serdar YegulalpTwenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules VerneThe Game-Players of Titan by Philip K. DickRadiance by Catherynne M. ValentePlanet of Exile by Ursula K. Le GuinThe Simulacra by Philip K. DickFrankenstein by Mary ShelleyJourney to the Center of the Earth by Jules VerneThe War of the Worlds by H.G. WellsFoundation by Isaac AsimovHyperion by Dan SimmonsThe Cyberiad by Stanislaw LemThe Crack in Space by Philip K. DickCity of Illusions by Ursula K. Le GuinThe Form of the Book by Jan TschicholdKraken by China MiévilleThe Elements of Typographic Style by Robert BringhurstThe Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism by Daniel Bell

I am currently in the middle of The Last Man by Mary Shelley, but that novel will have to count for 2017.

Numbers 3-8, 10, 26, 28, and 29 on that list were all last minute additions that usurped the slots of other titles I intended to read. And about three months of time sits between slots eight and nine. There are a couple of reasons for that.

The first was a bizarre experience I had while reading Iron Council. I was somewhere around page eighty or so, barely before anything in the novel had started to come together and make sense, when ideas for a new story of my own started forming in my head. I put down Iron Council and promptly began writing the draft that would eventually become Adventurers of Opytt.

Secondly, after I finished my final draft of Opytt, personal issues kept me away from writing and reading for a number of months. I returned to Iron Council in the summer and picked up where I left off.

My favorite "contemporary" novel (defined as being published in the current decade) of the year was Radiance, while The Cyberiad wins out as my favorite from previous decades. The War of the Worlds is a close second.

In terms of writing, I also accomplished a lot. I wrote a short story, Revelation, which will appear in print next year. I also wrote two novellas, the aforementioned Adventurers of Opytt and Our Algorithm Who Art Perfection. This time last year, I thought that my project for the year would be Dessyit, but that project is now indefinitely suspended.

My writing projects currently are a novel called A Year in a Day and a yet untitled project that I think will be novella-length. I won't bother with any pretense that those projects are destined to arrive at completion. Who knows, I could return to Dessyit.

Despite not achieving exactly what I set out to, I accomplished a lot. I also think that I made structural changes to my life and attitudinal changes to my outlook that will help me accomplish even more going forward.