A Round Up

Because otherwise we forget

December 06, 2024

I tend to be quite critical of myself and how little I’ve achieved each year. In part, this is because wiritign is a slow process with little reward. Especially if you’re writing and editing novels, it can be difficult to have a concrete idea of how much you’ve actually done.

So anyway, the annual, wtf has cat done with their time post.

Breaking it down a bit:

Short Stories

  • Completed eleven shorts this year, rannging from 1k - 14k in length

  • Unfinished - about…four, I think. I may or may not come back to them

I had stories or nonfic appear in the following venues:

I’ve sold two others that haven’t come out yet, so we’ll see how next year goes.

Novels

I didn’t write any novels this year, mainly because I was so depressed about being on sub and getting nowhere, so I elected to concentrate on short fiction this year (and have actually put together the bones of a themed collection. o.0)

And then, er, well, my excellent agent Caro Clarke made magic happen - first by selling the audio of my BFSA shortlisted novel Cast Long Shadows (originally in print from Luna Press, one of the hardest working and finest small genre presses in the UK.)

Then they sold my Monsters books in another two-book deal!, so I’ve been grafting on editorial revisions most of latter part of the year with no brain to even think about a new book.

I told myself I wasn’t even allowed to think about a new book until all my edits were done.

So naturally, I have begun a new book, which I am totally not calling Spy vs Bug. I also massively enjoy writing the worst people in the world, as you can see.

‘So good to see you,’ Julian says as he throws the last crumb to the swans, as though it’s by pure chance that Ivo has ended up here.

Ivo sighs. ‘You shouldn’t feed them bread,’ he points to a nearby small sign, expressly forbidding the feeding of waterfowl, ‘It’s not good for them.’

‘We all have our vices,’ Julian says mildly. ‘Mine, in my old age, is to ignore the signs telling me what I may or may not do.’

‘Of course it is.’

‘And the swans, they too have vices. These charming little ruffians will eat the things they shouldn’t.’ He shrugs, dusts his hands and folds his waxed fabric wrap into a neat square. Somewhere, in some domestic suburban bliss, is a tidy, drab woman who, presumably, makes her husband sandwiches which he feeds to swans. ‘If they die, they die.’

Other Writing Related

I attended a couple of cons this year, including mmoderating and being a panelist on a few panels - I was at Cymera, WorldCon, and FantasyCon, and I plan to be at next year’s Cymera (always in Edinburgh), EasterCon in Dublin, and World Fantasy Con in Brighton.

This was also a great year for freinds having books out, so I got to attend launches and events for Gallus, and Nova Scotia Vol. 2 anthologies.