Novel words written: 270,146

Let's see. I took last January off. And most of July, though I was revising for part of that. And most of October. And a good chunk of November and December. (And you people tell me I never take time off. Look at all these blank days on my spreadsheet. You're all nuts.)

Carnival draft: 97,674 words minus 1,916 words written in 2004 = 95,758

Carnival revision: 5,102 new words (so far, not counting fiddling)

Whiskey and Water draft: 156,138 words minus 10,019 words written in 2004 = 146,119

Whiskey and Water revision: 2,478 new words (which doesn't count about 20K cut and added and cut and added)

Undertow: 5,102 words

All the Windwracked Stars rewrite from scratch: 12,387

Untitled A Companion to Wolves sequel: 3,200 words

Best day: 5,094 words (on some Matthew-and-Lily character development stuff that will never see print unless I do in fact publish the EBear Scrapbook when I'm eighty.)

Worst day: (not counting days off) 10 words (on Paddareen)

Novels completed: Carnival and Whiskey and Water

Novels revised: Carnival (3x), Blood and Iron (2x), A Companion to Wolves (2x), Whiskey and Water (3x), The Stratford Man (1x), The Dead Shepherd (1x)

Copy-Edited Manuscripts and page proofs groveled through: four or five. Five. Right, five.

Novels published: 3 (Hammered (technically a January 2005 title), Scardown, Worldwired)

Novel and novel-length manuscript submissions: 14

Novels sold: 4, and one collection

Novels rejected: 6

Other responses: One still pending from 2004, one still pending from 2005. Two withdrawn. One rewrite request that isn't going to happen that way, so that counts as another rejection.

Short story words written: 56,271

"The Something Dreaming Game" 5,240
"The Cold Blacksmith" 3,590
"Tideline" 4,290
"Lucifugous" 25,000
"The Inevitable Heat Death of the Universe" 1,544
"Babylon" 257 (incomplete)
"Sonny Liston Takes the Fall" 3,500
"Ile of Dogges" 2,600
"Paddareen"1,000 (incomplete)
"Sounding" 3,500
"Long Cold Day" 5,750

Notes, outline, and synopsis words written: Oh, who keeps track of that? call it ten thousand or so.

Blog words written: Um, see above. Call it 150,000 words and move on.

Non fiction articles for publication: Three or four--an appreciation for the ED SF project, two articles for Reflection's Edge, and a 500 word book report for Suubterranean. Um. 4,000 words. More or less.

Total new words written (not counting LJ, which--as papersky says--doesn't count anyway): circa 350,000. This is actually my lowest wordcount since 2001, when I started writing again seriously. In 2002, 2003, and 2004 I racked up about a half million words of fiction apiece.

The bad news is, I don't write fast. But I write a lot of hours a day, so this year, my average output amounts to a rather sucktastic 960 words per day.

In previous years, I was running closer to 1,750 words a day. Which is more like a professional rate of output, but see above, the amount of time I took off.


New stories written: 9

Existing stories revised: all of those, and one or two more.

Short story submissions sent: 44

Responses received: 45

Acceptances: 8

Rejections: 33

Other responses: 4 withdrawals

Awaiting response: 5

Short stories published: "Wax," "Long Cold Day," "House of the Rising Sun," "And the Deep Blue Sea," "One-Eyed Jack and the Suicide King," "Botticelli," "Two Dreams on Trains," and "Follow Me Light."

Best thing about this year's publications: I was just told that "Botticelli," maybe my favorite story of mine ever (though I've rewritten the ending slightly for the collection, because I was leaving people at the seven furlong pole) which is metafanfiction and slash and Ben Rosenbaum's fault (I blame "The Death Trap of Dr. Nefario" for that story, just to have it on the record) and which none of the major markets would touch, has a couple of Nebula ballot recommendations.

So consider this my Nebula campaign for that story (in its entirety). "If you were a SFWA type and you liked it and wanted to nominate it, it would tickle me absolutely pink to see it on the long list. (Not that I really expect it to happen.)"

There, isn't that better than getting a chapbook in the mail from somebody you've never met?

Poems written: 0

Poems submitted:  0

Major award nominations: 1

Minor award nominations: 0

Awards won: 1

Novel editing hours: Oh, for the love of Mike. How the hell would you track that???

Goals for 2006: Write Undertow. Sell The Stratford Man, The Dead Shepherd, A Companion to Wolves, and The Cobbler's Boy. Pry a berloody response out of The New Yorker for "Sounding." Shop around the proposal for All the Windwracked Stars. Finish the 15 short stories and ideas I have floating around on my to-do lists.



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