Remember the book I was working on in November for NaNoWriMo? It was a middle grade fantasy novel — the first such book I’ve done. I rewrote it in December, and then started a final pass through to clean things up for my agent and beta readers.

Once I had the rewrite and had fixed most of the first draft problems, I also began reading the book to my son each night. We’d get through a chapter, occasionally two, before he went to bed. I lay there with manuscript in one hand and the pen in the other, making notes about word repetition and unclear sentences and bits that just didn’t work.

I loved it. Reading aloud meant I was catching a lot of things I might have otherwise missed. And my son was enjoying it. He laughed at most of the jokes, especially when a character’s iPad autocorrects “prophecy” to “privy.” He got mad at the villains. We’d finish up chapters and he would guess what was going to happen next, or yell at the protagonist, “Don’t do that, it’s a trap!” Toward the end, as everything came together for the big confrontation and climax, he was literally  bouncing at times.

I asked him afterward who his favorite characters were. He chose Gulk and Mac. Gulk is one of the goblins. (Note: this is not a continuation of the Jig the Goblin series…but these goblins have some similarities to Jig’s kinfolk.) I wasn’t too surprised there. I’m rather fond of my goblins too.

Mac is the protagonist’s 14-year-old brother. He’s autistic and nonverbal, and is one of three characters running around on this adventure and doing the whole “Save the World!” thing. I asked my son why he chose Mac as a favorite.

“Because he’s like me.”

I don’t know what will happen with this book, but I’m doubtful anything will top that experience. I’m sure my portrayal of Mac is flawed, but I wrote him well enough for my son to recognize him. Likewise, the book will certainly get edits to make it stronger, but it was strong enough to keep my son enthralled night after night. And he gets to be the first person to hear the story of Tamora and Mac Carter.

Some days, writing can be frustrating and discouraging. But thanks in part to experiences like this, I really, really love what I do.

I guess it’s that time again, eh? Here’s the stuff I wrote or was involved with in 2015 that’s eligible for various award-type nominations, if you’re into that kind of thing.

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Invisible 2: Personal Essays on Representation in SF/F, with an introduction by Aliette de Bodard, is eligible for the Hugo Award in the Best Related Work category.

• The first volume, Invisible, would have almost certainly made the ballot in this category last year, if not for various slate voting campaigns. I believe this year’s volume is just as strong, with even more content.
• Almost all of the essays started as 2015 guest blog posts, and are available to read for free online.

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Unbound and Fable: Blood of Heroes are both eligible for Best Novel nominations.

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In the Short Story category, my story “Girls in the Hood” came out last year in Chicks and Balances.

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And that’s it for me. If you only have the time or energy to consider one thing, I’d suggest Invisible 2. The contributors wrote some amazing and powerful essays, and I think the collection is both important and timely.

Whatever happens, if you’re eligible to nominate for various awards, I’d encourage you to do so.

Writing numbers and business-type neepery ahead.

I announced the publication of a story in the Magic ex Libris universe called “Chupacabra’s Song” a week ago, and was curious to take a look at sales channels and such. The short story is available for $.99 at the following outlets:

Amazon | B&N | iBooks | Kobo | Smashwords | Google Play

I haven’t done any channel-specific advertising or anything like that. After a week, the sales break down like so:

• Amazon: 250
• B&N: 19
• Smashwords: 9
• iBooks: 8
• Kobo: 6
• Google Play: 3

Here are the percentages, if you prefer to look at it that way:

That’s a total of 295 sales in a week, which isn’t bad at all. Given the different royalty rates, which range from roughly 35% to 50%, I’m guesstimating the story has earned a little over $100 in royalties. Not bad for a reprint, especially considering there will probably be some additional sales trickling in over the coming months and years. I’ve more than earned back the money I invested to prepare and publish the story.

Has it covered the time I invested? That’s a harder question, and depends on how I assign an hourly worth to my time. I’m leaning toward no, because I spent a fair amount of time prepping things, getting the files uploaded to various sites, and so on. But I’m okay with that. I’m happy about getting the story out there for more readers, and as a proof-of-concept, it certainly shows there’s a bit of demand.

Remember, this story was a reprint, so some folks had already seen it. A longer, original piece will likely do significantly better.

My thanks once again to everyone who picked up a copy. Especially those of you who posted a review at Amazon, Goodreads, and elsewhere. Very much appreciated.

Tune in next week for even more charts and data, as I pull together the 2015 writing income report.

Looking back at the past year of my life as a writer, the biggest event was leaving my full-time job with the State of Michigan at the end of August, and trying to make a go of it as a full-time writer. So far, I think it’s been going pretty well, though it doesn’t necessarily show in my wordcount spreadsheet and charts. But more about that a little later.

2015 saw the publication of my third Magic ex Libris book, as well as my very first tie-in novel.

• Unbound [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy]
• Fable: Blood of Heroes [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy]

I also edited a second collection of essays about diversity and representation in SF/F. There were a few bumpy spots in the process, but I’m quite proud with how it turned out.

• Invisible 2 [Amazon | B&N]

In shorter works, I had a fairy tale retelling and an essay about politics and story. I also self-published a tie-in story for my Magic ex Libris universe.

• “The Girls From the Hood” in Chicks and Balances.
• “The Politics of Comfort” in Uncanny, Issue #2. January 2015.
• “Chupacabra’s Song” [Amazon | B&N | iBooks]

As for what I actually wrote over the past year, I tried something a little new, making a spreadsheet with daily word counts and other notes so I could try to get a better sense of my productivity. The graph isn’t perfect, but it gives me a vague idea what I was able to do from month to month.

The first eight months were spent working on Revisionary. (With a one-day break to write an essay about the Hugo awards, some time in April/May to do Invisible 2, and a week or so in early March to write a short story for the Shadowed Souls anthology, which comes out next year.) I turned the manuscript for Revisionary in on August 9, and then started outlining and working on a YA novel.

I spent the first half of September doing final revisions for Revisionary, which isn’t included in the wordcount graph, and then went back to the YA novel, before giving up on that at the end of September. Neither the tone nor the plot were working for me, and I decided I needed some time away before trying to write that book.

October was the first time I felt like being a full-time writer was really making a difference. In addition to finishing three short stories, I spent the last week or so outlining and planning a middle grade novel to work on during NaNoWriMo. I finished the first draft of the novel in November, and as of today, I’m more than 90% through the first rewrite. I’ve still got some work to do, but if all goes well, I might be able to send this thing out in January.

Finally, I wrote up a couple of pitches, and we ended up sending a three-book proposal to my publisher. I’ll announce more once everything’s official, but things are looking very positive on that front.

When I wasn’t writing, I had the privilege of being guest of honor at RadCon, DemiCon, and ApolloCon,  and toastmaster at ICON in Iowa.

All in all, I’d say 2015 was a most excellent year from a writing perspective. I’ve got no idea if any of this will be interesting to anyone else, but I know it’s helpful for me to look back and see what I did (or didn’t) accomplish over the past year. It’s easy to get lost in the day-to-day and lose sight of the larger progress.

I hope you’ve had a good year, and I wish us all the best for 2016.

I’m not sure how to feel about the fact that about half of my most-visited blog posts for 2015 were related to the Sad/Rabid Puppies and the Hugo Awards mess. Mostly, I’d just like to see 2016 not be a repeat.

1. Puppies in Their Own Words. The most popular post I did this year was a long write-up of the evolution and goals of the Sad Puppies, sourced to their own blog posts and comments. I pretty much expected this one to end up in the top spot.
2. In Which John C. Wright Completely Loses his Shit over Legend of Korra. Mr. Wright was Very Unhappy that a cartoon that depicted war and murder and torture and suicide dared to betray its audience by suggesting two women were romantically interested in one another. Also, apparently “political correctness” really means “hating everything good and bright and decent and sane in life.” Wow.
3. The Tor Mess. Basically, Theo Beale pounced on something the Tor art director said on Facebook, tried to turn it into a crusade and organized boycott of Tor Books, and ultimately failed to have any impact.
4. Striking a Pose (Women and Fantasy Covers). Yes, the original cover pose blog post from January of 2012 is still making the top ten.
5. Rape, Abuse, and Marion Zimmer Bradley. A mid-2014 post about the revelations/discussions of Bradley shielding a child molester and molesting her own daughter and others, and the importance of acknowledging and talking about these things instead of sweeping them under the rug.
6. 10 Hugo Thoughts. More Hugo stuff. This post came out right after the final nominees were announced.
7. 2014 Writing Income. The annual writing income post. Yes, I’ll be doing one for 2015 in the next week or so.
8. Publishing 101. During 2015, John Scalzi signed a multi-book, multi-million dollar book deal. Certain pups tried very hard to paint this as proof of Scalzi’s failure as an author and human being. Rarely has the world seen such desperately twisted logic.
9. Choosing “Sides”. More puppies. This time, I was looking at the Sad Puppies’ efforts to invent an Us vs. Them war in the genre. With the puppies as the heroes, naturally. Sadly, the world isn’t as simplistic as certain folks were trying to make it out to be.
10. One-Star Wars. Apparently, some people were unhappy about Chuck Wendig’s Star Wars novel Aftermath because of a) the writing style, b) the decision that Expanded Universe works were non-canon, and c) Chuck included gay people in Star Wars. I mean, come on. Giant crime-boss slugs with fetishes for barely-clad humanoid females is one thing, but homosexuality? That’s a step too far, sir!
11. Depression. A collection of thoughts about depression.

Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting. I hope you’ve had a great year, and I wish you all an even happier 2016.

My thanks to everyone who commented on my post about self-publishing some shorter pieces in the universes of my various series. I’ve gone ahead and posted “Chupacabra’s Song” as a standalone short story for $.99. It’s about 5000 words, and tells the story of Nicola Pallas as a teenager just starting to discover her magic.

In the U.S., you should be able to pick up a copy at Amazon | B&N | iBooks | Kobo | Smashwords | Google Play.

It should also be available in other countries for the equivalent price, though there may be VAT and other tax/fee issues.

Not everyone said they’d be interested in a $.99 short story, and that’s fine. I may eventually do more short collections like I did with Goblin Tales. For now though, I think I’m going to try some novella/novelette length works. In between books and other contracted work, of course…