2021 Retrospective
It's that time of year when people traditionally look back over what they did in the past twelve months, and this blog is no exception. This is what I said I wanted to achieve back in January -
- Publish Racing the Storm and Other Stories. I did this in November. I thought it was almost finished back in January, and then ended up writing five more stories (there are thirteen in total).
- Publish Command Authority. I thought it was going to be a novella, which was nearly finished, but when I wrote "The End", I realised the ending was too open. So I carried on, and now it's more than twice as long as it was, and it's still not finished.
- Publish a new episode of my Doctor Fung serial. I didn't publish anything in the main storyline, but published a couple of short stories outside it. These are The Case of the Missing Submariners and The Case of the Missing Schedule. You can read them (and the two previous Doctor Fung stories) for free on Wattpad.
- Start a new novel. I didn't do this, partly because Command Authority has been going on much longer than I expected. (It was originally meant to be a short story!) All I did here was write a couple of pages of high-level notes.
The main reason I didn't do as much writing as I would've liked, apart from the pandemic dragging on through its second year, is that my mother died in February. I'm gradually adjusting to not hearing her voice when I phone home, but I know the grief will never fade completely.
As usual, I did a few things that weren't on the list -
- I was one of the guest presenters on an episode of The Weekend Write-In podcast, reading extracts from Doctor Fung and other Earth-F stories.
- Our town council organised a virtual literary festival. I was one of the guests on this, talking about how I beat writer's block and reading from Command Authority.
- In-person events resumed in our town on a small scale, and our writers' group took part in some of them, including a quiz, which we won. (I wouldn't normally mention these in a year-end roundup, but after a year like this, I'll take whatever small victories I can find.)
I think I can take some pride in what I've achieved, but overall, 2021 has been another year I'll be glad to see the back of. Come back in a few days for a dose of optimism about what I'll do in the next twelve months!
- Publish Racing the Storm and Other Stories. I did this in November. I thought it was almost finished back in January, and then ended up writing five more stories (there are thirteen in total).
- Publish Command Authority. I thought it was going to be a novella, which was nearly finished, but when I wrote "The End", I realised the ending was too open. So I carried on, and now it's more than twice as long as it was, and it's still not finished.
- Publish a new episode of my Doctor Fung serial. I didn't publish anything in the main storyline, but published a couple of short stories outside it. These are The Case of the Missing Submariners and The Case of the Missing Schedule. You can read them (and the two previous Doctor Fung stories) for free on Wattpad.
- Start a new novel. I didn't do this, partly because Command Authority has been going on much longer than I expected. (It was originally meant to be a short story!) All I did here was write a couple of pages of high-level notes.
The main reason I didn't do as much writing as I would've liked, apart from the pandemic dragging on through its second year, is that my mother died in February. I'm gradually adjusting to not hearing her voice when I phone home, but I know the grief will never fade completely.
As usual, I did a few things that weren't on the list -
- I was one of the guest presenters on an episode of The Weekend Write-In podcast, reading extracts from Doctor Fung and other Earth-F stories.
- Our town council organised a virtual literary festival. I was one of the guests on this, talking about how I beat writer's block and reading from Command Authority.
- In-person events resumed in our town on a small scale, and our writers' group took part in some of them, including a quiz, which we won. (I wouldn't normally mention these in a year-end roundup, but after a year like this, I'll take whatever small victories I can find.)
I think I can take some pride in what I've achieved, but overall, 2021 has been another year I'll be glad to see the back of. Come back in a few days for a dose of optimism about what I'll do in the next twelve months!
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