2013 Recap

30 Dec 2013

If you have been listening, you will know that this blog has been silent for most of the year. Sorry about that. The primary reason is that 2013 was my first full year as a father, which has been an all-around wonderful experience but one that has taken a large chunk out of my free time. Fair warning, 2014 will likely follow a similar path, although I do hope to spend a bit more time on the blog. Enough about that, what have I been doing besides parenting?

I read less than I did in 2012, but not by too much, according to goodreads I read 103 books this year. I did do a couple of interesting things on the reading front, however. First of all, I made a goal of finishing as many series as possible, having started many and left them hanging. These included the Virga series, the Magister trilogy, the Family Trade series, the Wheel of Time, and probably others that don’t come to mind at the moment. The second thing I did that I plan on repeating was to read nothing but short stories in the month of May (which is Short Story Appreciation Month). I read and listened to a whole lot of stuff, some of which was good some of which wasn’t. If you are a writer, you should give this a shot, as I had more story ideas during that month than during any other (a couple of which I may even get around to writing in 2014, more on that later). It was refreshing. Below is a list of the books which I have given five stars on goodreads this year, I would recommend all of them, but keep in mind that a few might fall in the middle of a series.

• A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
• The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
• The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson
• Antiagon Fire by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.
• Who Owns the Future by Jaron Lanier
• City of Thieves by David Benioff
• The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson
• The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
• Mind of the Raven by Bernd Heinrich
• Colors of Chaos by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.
• The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson
• Sleepless by Charlie Huston
• Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
• Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson
• Imager’s Battalion by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
• Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green
• Concrete Planet by Robert Courland
• The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
• Princeps by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.
• The One World Schoolhouse by Salman Khan
• Gun Machine by Warren Ellis

If my reading didn’t suffer much from parenthood, my writing can’t say the same. I don’t keep meticulous track of what and how much I write, but I did finish several short stories, none of which have been published, yet. I also managed to get some of my older stuff up on Amazon and Smashwords. Also, I succeeded in completely neglecting this blog.

So what do I have planned for 2014? First of all, I hope to get a post (even a short one) up at least once a month, hopefully more frequently. Second, I want to clear off my physical to-read shelf at home, as I have promised myself that I will not buy any more physical books unless I can fit them on it. I plan on revisiting my short story reading in May. Finally, I wrote a short story, There Are No Words, which has yet to find a home despite positive feedback from several editors. I have been convinced to turn it into a novel by writing more stories in the world that form an overarching plot. We’ll see if I succeed or not. I will begin with that as soon as I finish the rough draft of the Broken Shores story I’m working on (I think that I’ve finally figured it out, so it should go quickly from here, I hope). I also hope to write at least one other story that I came up with the idea for last May.

In any case, it has been a fantastic year and I can only hope that yours has equaled or surpassed it. Happy 2014!