Annual Writing Report - 2021

 As the end of another pandemic year approaches, I am finding myself grateful for my writing, which has been central to keeping me sane and productive for almost two years now. 

I've just looked back at last year's "Annual Writing Report" and see that December found me looking forward to the publication of my book, Spiritual Insights from the New Science: Complex Systems and Life. I spent much of January and February finishing the manuscript, which then went through copy-editing, layout and final publication - in May, several months ahead of schedule. It has now appeared in hardcover, paperback and e-book formats. You can get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, through your local bookstore (see BookShop.org) or directly from the publisher, World Scientific Publishing.

This book was nearly three decades in the making, so reaching this publication goal was truly the dream of a lifetime. It seems to have sold well, and was the #1 best seller on Amazon for new releases in Chaos Theory and Chaos & Systems for weeks on end. Very exciting!

I also had a few short pieces published this year: a humorous short story, "The Interview," published by Funny Pearls; another funny piece, "Assembly Instructions for a Love Triangle," published by Janus Literary; a short science fiction story, "Big Blue Marble," published by Utopia Science Fiction; and a short nonfiction piece, "Bedtime Stories," published by Washington Independent Review of Books.

In addition to all this publishing, I wrote a lot of new pieces. I finished a draft of a scifi novel and have started shopping it around to publishers and agents. I also finished another novel draft, but this one is still in first-draft stage and not likely to be done until at least sometime next year. 

I also wrote scads of short stories, flash fiction pieces and poems and have submitted them more than 70 times this year. So, I'm also happy to report that I've received many rejections...and, yes, I am happy about that, because it means I'm finishing things and sending them out.

Finally, I participated in NaNoWriMo for the eighth time this year, working on a story that involves one of the secondary characters in my earlier novel, Belle o' the Waters. This story, about Maggie McPhee, is likely to become a novella, if I can tighten it up and get it down to something closer to novella length. If I succeed, this would be my first novella, but hopefully not my last!