2017 has been an eventful year for me. It had ups and downs in my personal and professional life. Successes, failures, victories, and hardships. It wasn’t an easy year, but it was an important year.
In my professional career was I was forced out of my PhD program in ABD status. While that was not a choice that I wanted to make and it was something that I took very hard, it did have an upside: it gave me time to focus on my writing instead.
During this year I updated and re-released a couple of non-fiction guidebooks that I had originally published in 2010, and then I added a third book to that series. I’ve been mulling it over all year and I will probably not continue writing those guidebooks in the future.
I wrote a fun little stand-alone novel: Skin Deep, that’s a mystery-thriller-horror book. It was my first attempt at this kind of book and I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out. I will release a special edition later that includes maps of some of the locations. I had them done when I wrote the book, but I ran out of time to include them. There’s a lot going on thematically and philosophically with this book that I’ll discuss more in an interview in 2018.
Because I’m taking my writing seriously, I set up my online presence. I have Facebook pages set up. I bought some web hosting. I built this website, and a few others. I’ve been setting up ways to connect directly with my readers.
I finished my first crime fiction novel, The Fall, which is the first book in a new series that I’m collectively calling The Uranium Lily Casefiles. I have several more books outlined that I’m excited to work on in the future.
I’ve planned a few new projects for 2018, including a brand-new Scifi series called Celtia Nova, and a new untitled scifi book that I’m co-writing with my friend, Greg.
The professional writing achievement that I’m personally most proud of this year was the release of Starsong Chronicles: Exodus, which is the first book in the Exodus Arc. I’ve been planning this series since 2006 and actively writing that book since 2008. In March, I finally decided that 9 years was long enough and published the book. To my delight, people have decided that it’s “not awful” (as my writer-friend Scott likes to say when he likes something). I’m happy about this because I have a lot of stuff planned for this series – at least 17 books. I’ve built http://www.starsongchronicles.com and I’ve been working on building a custom wiki on this universe. I’m even in talks with another author who is interested in writing in this universe as well.
I had a goal to publish 5 books this year, which I did. I wrote my non-fiction book. Then I published Exodus, after a lot of editing and re-editing. Then I published Skin Deep, and just recently The Fall. The fifth book this year, Question of the Day was the most humbling project I’ve ever been a part of. An aspiring writer friend of mine passed away suddenly and unexpectedly from Sickle Cell Anemia. In the wake of his passing 21 authors contributed scifi short stories in his honor and my friend Tom helped me to arrange and publish them all. We’ve also all agreed to donate 100% of the proceeds to Andre’s family. The anthology was a lot more work than I expected, but I’m extremely pleased with the result and happy to have been able to do something for Andre’s family.
2017 has been an eventful year. Looking back, I’m happy that I decided to take the plunge and get back to writing. Looking ahead, 2018 is going to be fun. Starsong Chronicles: Planetside (Exodus Arc Book 2) will be released. The Ambassador (Book 2 of the Uranium Lily Casefiles) will be released. My collaborative work with Greg will probably be released. As will The Cauldron, the first book in the Celtia Nova series. I have a few other books that are in the works that may come out too, but these books are definitely planned for 2018 releases.
However your 2017 has turned out, I sincerely hope that your 2018 will be amazing. Thanks for stopping by.