The clock has ticked over to 12:00am, 1 January, 2023. Or at least it has, for those of us in my timezone, or any of you who aren’t leaping all over this post the very moment it goes live. For those of you living in the past, fear not: 2023 will be upon you in no time. So, assuming you’re seeing this in 2023, happy new year! And if you still happen to be in the waning hours of 2022, consider it a preemptive wish. You can even come back after the clock ticks over if you’re really keen.
Or, in the immortal words of Wolfgang from the Sense8 finale, Happy fucking new year. If you have a little time off from your responsibilities over the break, you could do a lot worse than discovering the joys of that show — and not just as a means of ensuring 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s Up?” remains an earworm for a long time to come. But Sense8 isn’t why we’re here.
Much as it was this time last year, the site will be a little quiet in January. As I write this post, I’m winding down for the year and gearing up for Christmas. There will be no book reviews, there will be no short stories, there will be no writing updates. I’ll still post the Saturday Snippets and alert you to when my January newsletter is out, because break or not, I’m still shameless. I may even write an article, but that depends on whether I can resist the temptation to post before February.
And I will be back in February, with regularly scheduled programming kicking back in from the first of the month. I have a couple of book reviews lined up, and you can expect the first of these at the very beginning of the month. Over the course of the year, other than book reviews, you can expect some articles and short stories, but I won’t commit to any of this being available in February, because consistency has never been my strong suit.
When I recommence my writing—at some point in January, when I feel like I’ve taken enough of a sabbatical—I’ll be back at work on Till Death Do Us Party. And it is my sincere hope that I’ll have it out in the world (and hopefully in your hands) sometime in 2023. I won’t say I’m confident, but it is definitely approaching being something I’m happy with. Following that draft, I’ll get back to work on Luminary. It’s my sincere hope that I’ll have that out (and also hopefully in your hands) shortly after Till Death Do Us Party. But that’s not as close to being at a point where I’m happy with it, and I’m looking at a major rewrite for its next draft.
In 2022, I wrote two drafts for Till Death Do Us Party (drafts three and four), and one draft for Luminary (draft one, although it’s technically the second draft since I can’t in good conscience call that first scrawl a real draft). Otherwise, just about everything I wrote is here on this site. Running the numbers, I wrote:
- 80 book reviews!
- 25 pieces of news, updates and associated spam!
- 7 ramblings about stuff!
- 4 short stories!
I didn’t make the progress I was hoping to with the novel drafts, which leaves me feeling like the year wasn’t particularly productive. But those numbers above tell me that I kept myself busy, and managed to make it through a fair amount of writing. Looking at my tracking sheet (because if there’s one thing I’m anal about, it’s tracking my writing and editing), I wrote over 350,000 words and spent over 270 hours editing those words. Which, truth be told, isn’t a horrendous effort.
I have absolutely no clue what 2023 will bring. No doubt, the world will endure more of the same shit, whether it be more waves of the pandemic, more corruption and more Marvel movies. Hopefully, light shines through and brings a little extra hope and optimism for our world. On a personal note, I hope it brings about some successful writing, and I hope it’s a wonderful year for my friends and family.
And I hope it’s an auspicious year for you, too. I wish you success, and whatever your hopes and dreams are. I wish you happiness, and I wish you good fortune. Go out there and kick 2023’s butt; it’s my plan.
TTFN,
P.S. And if you’re looking for an earworm to kick off the new year, you can do a lot worse than “What’s Up?,” so I’ll leave you with this lovely Sense8 scene.
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