I have seen years before, and this was one. Yep.
I wrote seventeen stories this year. No complete novels but serious revisions on an earlier novel and serious progress toward the next one. My new agent (Kurestin Armada) and I found each other in January, and I have learned a lot about doing revisions from working with her–it’s shaping the new things I write, making them better pre-revision.
I’ve already sold nine of the seventeen stories; one of the unsold ones I just finished writing two days ago. I sold a total of thirteen stories this year, so one thing that I don’t notice when I’m in the middle of it is that my work is selling faster than it used to. Nor is this because editors are universally faster than they used to be, because several major publications have been quite slow this year. In any case, last year at the end of the year I had nothing in the “coming soon!” category, and this year is quite the opposite. Much of what I sold has not yet seen the light of day, which means there’s a great deal to look forward to in 2017.
I did two writing retreats, which were really great for me, both enjoyable and productive. That’s something new this year that I hope to continue whenever possible. I also did the big trip to Finland and Sweden, and the effects of that are still making themselves felt in the stories I’m writing–and not always in the ways I would have predicted, which is perfect, which is just what travel is supposed to do. I expected to get a lot of science fiction out of the trip, and I got a bit, but even more has been fantasy. Brains! Can’t beat ’em, might as well join ’em.
Here’s what did come out, in case you missed it:
The Dust Gate, The Sockdolager!, Fall 2016.
The Most Important Thing, Nature Futures, 20 October 2016.
Upside the Head, Science Fiction By Scientists, December 2016.
How Far Are We From Minneapolis? (essay), Reckoning Issue 1, winter Solstice 2016.