Reflections on the Year 2024
Looking back at my accomplishments
NOTE: This email may get cut off due to its length. If so, just click HERE to read it online.
Dear Reader,
Before I can think about 2025 I want to have a clean slate. That means taking some time to reflect on everything I’ve done this year. It allows me to enter into a state of goals and resolutions in a happier place. I know I’ve produced a lot of writing, specifically fiction, but sometimes it can seem like I haven’t done enough. Self-doubt creeps into my mind and I feel like I hardly did anything. Perhaps this is a result of the season? Winter usually brings about sadness in some people just because of the longer hours of darkness. Either way, I use this time of reflection as a way to remind myself that I did alright this year. So, without further ado, let’s see what I was up to in 20241:
580 Emails in total!
Non-Fiction Emails
27 News and Updates
25 Notes from a Writer
6 Killer Series
33 Murder Pen Society
33 Community Writing
1 Stardate
1 Notes from a Gamer
Fiction Emails
366 100 Word Stories
28 Short Stories
60 Fiction Universe Episodes
I was reminded by my wife during on of our many car rides home from dropping our son off at school that I need to allow myself some grace and give myself a round of applause for all that I have accomplished this year. Just on emails alone I could easily consider what I’ve done to be a resounding success! Then I look at what I’ve done outside of the emails I’ve sent on this newsletter and it’s not too shabby a list of accomplishments either:
Publishing Highlights
4 books in the 100 Word Story Series!!
Top in Fiction
Started the first week of July and in that time:
25 Weekly + 6 Monthly Issues highlighting 300+ fiction writers from the Substack community.
MicroZine
Also started in July out of a desire to highlight great micro fiction writers who I know.
6 Monthly Issues that featured five different micro fiction stories.
The first MicroZine DIY issue with a second coming mid-January 2025.
12 MicroLight interviews with micro fiction writers from the community.
Micro Monday image prompts twice a month to inspire and motivate micro fiction writing within the community.
The Serial Hour
A side-project I started with
. On a whim I asked her if she’d like to start a podcast that would surround our respective serials. But after some slight tweaking, it’s instead become a podcast where we create a joint serial from the ground up and let you in on the journey.Next month I’ll share my plans for 2025. I must warn you that it will be drastically different from this year. I’m scaling back so that I can focus on writing short stories, my co-writing serial project, and my 100 word stories. But most of all, I want to release two short story collections. My first time ever releasing them in a collection and that excites me. But more on that come January 1st.
In the meantime, how did your 2024 go? According to plan? Better than you thought? Share in the comments.
Some of these numbers include posts that will release in the month of December.
Holy smokes! And you actually found time to eat and sleep? You're amazingly prolific.
In 2024 my debut chapbook was traditionally published by a small press in London. Its first print run was sold out within three months!
My book launch party was a great success.
I have started reading at open mic events. This culminated in August with a reading at the World Science Fiction Convention.
We drove across Northern Europe to a wedding in Oslo- a slow voyage of discovery.
All in all a good year