2016 was a game-changing year for my writing career. An editor who’d bought two of my previous short stories asked if I’d be interested in writing a novel or series of novels in a shared universe. I started the year as a published short story writer who wanted to write a novel, and I’m ending the year as a novelist under contract to deliver the first novel on January 1, 2017.

I’m also under a non-disclosure agreement, so I’m not free to give details, which is a big challenge when I can’t talk about what I’m thinking about all day!

Because my focus has been on novels, I’ve written fewer short stories this year. My first novel isn’t coming out until some time in 2018, and the meat of my payment will be from royalties, meaning it’s over a year until I actually see money for the majority of the work I’ve done. The good news on the money front is that I’m getting royalties from novelettes published this year and previous years, and I received some nice cheques from short story markets that pay pro rates. Overall, though, I still need my part-time job, and I’m very fortunate to not be the only income-earner in my household.

I’ve also had some interesting insights about living the dream.

I’m no longer as free to write whatever takes my fancy. I can’t spend so much time crafting a random idea into a short story and then look for a home for it, because I’m obligated to turn in a novel-length manuscript on a certain topic by a certain date.

Writers under contract still have to do laundry. I thought the entertainment industry would be more glamorous.

There’s a certain gratification that I don’t have to wonder about whether what I’m writing is ever going to find a publisher. I’ve got a folder of unsold short stories that represent several cumulative months of work for, as of yet, zero financial return. Of course, I also have a folder of sold short stories, but sometimes I’m surprised that stories I think are really strong are still in the zero folder, and I also have a “I got HOW MUCH for THAT?!” story on hand. With the novel, I have a signed contract saying that what I write is definitely going to be published (on the assumption that it meets the publisher’s standards). On the other hand, it’s in my best interests to deliver the best manuscript I can, not just something “good enough to publish.” This book is going to be a lot of readers’ first exposure to my work, and if I want them to buy Book 2, I will make Book 1 as good as I can possibly make it.

I had a big shock one day when I felt sore and tired and just wanted to rot my brain watching cartoons all day, but my common sense told me, “Hey, you have a novel deadline. You know you can’t do good work last-minute (since high school I’ve envied people who can). You better go write a thousand words BEFORE you put that DVD in.”

And my lizard brain snarled, “I hate having a book contract.”

WTF?! my consciousness said. You’ve wanted this for twenty years, and now that you have it, you hate it?

No, I don’t really hate it. I might have hated doing the responsible thing rather than the thing which would provide me with instant gratification, but I don’t regret my choice, because having a book contract is worth it.

On the other hand, for those aspiring writers out there: Do you know the feeling of knowing you have a project, an essay, a big term paper, a graduate thesis due? It’s going to feel like that for the rest of my life. Or at least as long as I have books under contract.

It’s strangely familiar. And it’s worth it.

Frog Jones Year-in-Review

December 2, 2016

Frog Jones

OK, they tell me I have a single blog post to recap one of the biggest years in my writing career. So, here we go.

1. January

January was actually relatively calm. We will think of this as the quiet before the storm.

2. February

February kicked off with my first time attending the Superstars Writing Seminar. Despite spending a third of the conference in bed due to altitude sickness, thereby becoming the black sheep of the seminar, I made a lot of great connections and met a lot of good people. Also, I was introduced to this group of authors who call themselves the Fictorians–you may have heard of them.

But wait, there’s more.

February also saw the release of Book 3 of the urban fantasy series I co-author with my wife. We launched the book live at RadCon in Pasco, Washington; the good folks at that con and the Central Washington Authors Guild helped to insure our best launch ever, putting us briefly in the top 40 list on Amazon’s Urban Fantasy category.

3. March

March saw the release of Horseshoes, Hand Grenades, and Magic. This is an anthology we were really happy to be a part of. The entire anthology is filled with stories in which close is good enough. Our story, “Some Kind of Way Out Of Here,” involves a thief who steals a number of magic wands–only to need to use their random effects in his botched escape attempt.

March saw us attending Norwescon, the largest of the regional conventions at which I’m a regular. The picture’s a little fuzzy, but the bowler stands out). In addition to being a big, awesome con that gives its authors free booze in the evenings (no joke there, just awesomeness), Norwescon is the home of the Fairwood Writers Workshop, which is a really amazing chance for me to give back to new authors in exactly the way I got my own start.

4. April

I’m going to cheat a little bit, here; while at Norwescon we recorded the first episode of 3 Unwise Men, the comedy genre fiction podcast I record alongside two other nimrods. Season 2 released in April, though; it was a six-episode season, beginning with the Livecast from Norwescon.

5. May

In May, I attended Miscon as a professional. Miscon was an amazing experience; I did dinner with Jim Butcher, drank beer with Kevin J. Anderson, and ended up in a sweet game of Fiasco with Christopher Paolini. In addition, with the help of the Fairwood Press table, we had our greatest single day of physical book sales ever. Possibly the most heady con experience I’ve ever had. There was a moment at Miscon where a fan walked up to the WordFire Press table, where my wife Esther volunteered, and asked Kevin J Anderson where he could find our book. That’s something that makes you really feel like you’ve arrived.

6. June

June is a time for getting things done. CampCon happens in June, a small gathering of professionals in the woods surrounding Mt. Hood in Oregon. We bring our laptops. We place them on picnic tables. And we throw down word count. Esther and I finished the draft of the first novel in our new series, Black Powder Goddess. When is it coming out? Well, that’s up to whoever buys it. But CampCon is an amazing experience, where the creative juices are flowing and nobody has an internet connection to distract them. That’s the group pic we took; there’s several new authors that come, but we also have Phyllis Irene Radford, Bob Brown, Sanan Kolva, Joyce Reynolds-Ward, and Blaze and Leah from Knotted Road Press.

7. July

In July, we did Westercon! Westercon was the first con at which Esther and I appeared at a table featuring our own books. We shared that table space with the great David Boop and Peter Wacks, and broke all of our sales records. Also, the Unwise Men made an appearance at Westercon. It was the last panel of the day for me, and you can tell that all three of the UWM were shocked to see us not only invited back to a convention, but actively advertised by that convention.

But wait there’s more.

During July, we also appeared at Capital Indie Book Con in Olympia. We had a table here, as well, and had decent sales as well as a couple of unexpected guests.

8. August

During August, we took deep breaths and dove headfirst into revising Black Powder Goddess. In addition, we began drafting Graceless, book 4 in the Gift of Grace series. Normally in August we attend Spocon, the convention which gave us our start back in 2011. This year, Spocon took a year off after putting on Sasquan in 2015.

9. September

Easily the best-selling anthology to date for us is the great How Beer Saved the World. Keeping a copy of this book on the table at any given con is difficult at best, and the online sales for it have been fabulous.

In September, Esther and I were proud to be a part of the launch of the second volume of How Beer Saved the World. Having two of these books on our table from here on our is really going to be quite something, because we cannot stop people from buying the first one. Here’s a quick marketing tip: if you want to sell an anthology, make it about booze. Half the people at a convention are already thinking about it.

10. October

October…sucked.

The editor of our first three novels, Sue Bolich, lost her fight with cancer in early October. Sue has been with Esther and I from the beginning of our careers, and losing her was a serious blow. I would not be the author I am today if it were not for Sue flaying me alive at every step. Sue, we loved you, and we are far better writers with far better books for having known you. Nothing we do in the industry would have been possible had you not ever-so-politely laid the skin from our flesh every time we looked at you. She was a great author and an amazing editor, and I still feel directionless in this industry without her.

11. November

November began with the release of Dragon Writers. a charity anthology put out by WordFire Press. If you’re reading the Fictorians regularly, there’s fair odds you’re going to see this mentioned a lot this month. Frank, Jace, and Kristin (and maybe some others I missed, sorry guys) appear alongside Brandon Sanderson, Jodi Lynn Nye, David Farland, and Todd McCaffery in this anthology of stories featuring (1) dragons, and (2) creativity.

In addition, Esther and I made yet another con appearance, this time at OryCon in Portland.

12. December

It is December 2nd as of this post. Who knows what the next 24 days will bring?

That’s me for the year. It was a huge year with our biggest releases, our most effective con appearances, and some of our best networking. For Esther and I, 2016 is going to be looked back on as the year we started going full-bore as professional authors.

Welcome to December – 2016 in Review

December 1, 2016

Kevin Ikenberry

Author's Perspective Dealing With Personal Calamities Genres Life Philosophies Making Progress as a Writer Self-Motivation Successes The Writing Life Work-Life Balance Write Whenever You Can Your Writing Career No Comments

This month, the Fictorians and a slew of guest authors are going to share their successes, failures, lessons learned, and insights to the writing journey that we’ve experienced this year. December is usually a time of reflection for everyone as the calendar winds down. Looking back on our year is often a measurement of how far we’ve come as writers and human beings. To that end, this month’s theme is “2016 in Review.”

Each of us will share memorable events from the last twelve months and maybe a few lessons learned. A lot can happen in a year, even one that passes as quickly as 2016 seems to have gone. For me, 2016 has been a watershed year and as it comes to a close, I’m a bit humbled by what’s happened and, if possible, more excited about my journey as a writer than I’ve ever been. A tremendous amount of wonderful things have happened this year for me, and yet as I write this I’m slogging through a work in progress that I don’t want to write, but must finish (damn you, Heinlein!). As a firm believer in perspective, especially at the end of the calendar year, I wanted to coordinate this month for my fellow Fictorians and get all of thinking about the good, the bad, and even the ugly from the last twelve months.

I’ve already talked about my ugly, but I’ll define it. I’m working on an alternate history novel that’s kicking me in the pants every day. I have a solid story, a great outline, and good characters, but I’m constantly chickening out of actually writing the damned thing. I’m 20,000 words in (90,000 projected) and it’s tough to just write. Granted, I’ve started a new job and been taking care of my spouse after a complicated food surgery (which involves the care, feeding, and parenting of two munchkins), but I’m way behind where I wanted to be on this book. And it’s due in February. Sigh. I’d feel terrible about this except that I know I can write fast, and especially write clean and fast. I think I’ll make my deadline, but I’ve got to settle a few other things in my head. Among all that stuff is dealing with the good things that have happened so I can celebrate but not rest on my laurels.

Before I retired from the Army, there was a wide-reaching movement for leaders to consider their “work/life balance.” If anything, mine’s way skewed to the work side right now and not unlike it was when I wrote the first drafts of SLEEPER PROTOCOL in 2012-2013. I was still able to write then, and I can now, it just takes a little self-discipline and determination. When I need that extra motivation, all I have to do is turn my head to the right and a shelf over my desk. This year is framed beautifully by that image and it’s been the kind of year we dream of having.

SLEEPER PROTOCOL was published in January, was reviewed by Publisher’s Weekly, and has sold way more copies than I would have imagined. Just a week later, another publisher released my military science fiction novel RUNS IN THE FAMILY. That book also sold incredibly well, but the small press who published it shuttered just last week. I have a couple of options working right now to get it back into publication (though the audiobook is still available!). I also had short fiction published in several different venues including the DRAGON WRITERS anthology alongside Brandon Sanderson, Jody Lynn Nye, Todd McCaffrey, and David Farland to name a few. I qualified as an Active Member in the Science Fiction Writers of America. The sequel to SLEEPER PROTOCOL is in the final stages of content editing right now. It’s been an incredible year, but I’ll share my own personal highlight at the end of the month.

The stories you’ll see this month will highlight the good, the bad, and the ugly. This is what we writers deal with on a daily basis. Sometimes our efforts culminate in great years, and others not so much. The key is perseverance and determination – we’re sharing our successes and challenges in the hopes they’ll help you and each other out. I hope this month’s posts do exactly that for all of us.

Thanks For Being Adaptable

November 30, 2016

Gregory D. Little

Gregory D. Little Guest Posts No Comments

Another November is in the books, a weirdly warm one where I live, with leaves still on many trees. It’s been a great month of posts here at Fictorians. When I selected the theme, I didn’t come close to guessing the variety of topics on display. But that’s always the case when you work with such a great group of writers! My thanks to everyone who contributed posts. In particular, I want to thank our guest posters for the month: Ken Hoover, R.R. Virdi, Gama Ray Martinez, Ramón Terrell and Aubrie Nixon. I hope to see each of you back providing more great content for us in a future month!

I’d also like to single out outgoing Fictorians President Kristin Luna for praise and thanks as she finishes out her term of office and returns to the ranks of the membership. She’s done a fantastic job steering a course for us this year, keeping us on-track and growing as a blog. Anytime I needed someone to bounce an idea off of or a piece of advice, she was there to lend an ear.

Lastly and most importantly, I want to thank all the readers who dropped by for a visit each day, particularly with so many other matters clamoring for your attention this month, such as NaNoWriMo and, well, other things.

Now I’ll turn matters over to Kevin Ikenberry, who will be taking the reins in December for his Year in Review. Happy December, all!