Writing in 2021 Roundup and Photos from a Mountaintop

riting recap!



Before I get to my goals for this year, let's see if I can buoy myself up by looking over my writing in 2021:

January: The 2020 roundup

February: A walk in Montreal, which sort of links to my short story "One to Another" in the Dark Matter anthology (see May)

March: Poetry Day guest post by Beste Barki

I have a story going up to the moon! I still can't wrap my head around the fact that this is happening. What a fun world!

April: CampNaNoWriMo!

May: Release of Dark Matter: Artificial -- An Insecure Writer’s Support Group Anthology!

I have a poem published in Sauti:Poems of Healing!

June: I hosted the monthly writer's exercise on thelitforum! Actually, looking back, I completed the exercise every month except for in February, March, and June. Fun!

I collated all my book reviews to date!

July: CampNaNoWriMo!

August: I wrote a new short story!

September: I submitted the new short story to the Surrey International Writers' Conference!

October: I finished tweaking Captive of the Sea and sent it to a couple of beta readers

November: New book news -- Druid's Moon is coming next year!

I got over 20k words during NaNoWriMo!

December: Now it can be revealed, I was in preliminary bout 11 of WRiTE Club! Some pretty on-the-nose comments that would have been hard to take if I were closer to the story; but I'm at the right time now to hear them! I just need to get cracking on editing this opening...

It was also the anniversary of the publication of Summer Fire!

And now...

Overall goal list and my 2022 goals for A Round of Words in 80 Days:

Keep up with blogging and thelitforum (plus the reading, knitting, baking, etc.!): I'm keeping up!

Check all "writing to do" and type up all notes on paper and collate all story ideas and ideas from dreams, and all story drafts and research and Save to Scrivener notes in my emails, ideally into my lovely new Kate Davies journal... Organize all Scrivener files: Er, this is moving very slowly, but I'm happy to report that it is moving. My gmail labels are getting more organized by the day!

Figure out what to do with the orts, such as the CampNaNoWriMo2015 story The Heathen in the Hold, and others, including items such as this post-apocalyptic story idea I wrote in 2010, based on a dream, the idea mentioned in my 2016 recap, and all other such half-formed notions: This is not moving at all, except for The Heathen in the Hold, to which I add a few thousand words a year during CampNaNo

Here are overall goals by story, taking up the list of Works Completed and In Progress from the bottom of this blog (the last few are all ideas, except for the two completed romances; other ideas and completed short stories and early novels should be added to this list eventually, for the sake of completeness – collating all of this stuff is another ongoing project!):

Works Completed and In Progress (most of them!): find homes for these!

• Blackbird’s Song (short story, WWII, George and Alice, written 2018)***: submit somewhere
• Summer Blaze (short story, travel romance, Valentina and Justin, written 2018)***: re-edit and submit somewhere
• The Tattoo (short story, dystopian, Geneva, Marie-Anne and Michel, written 2017)***
• Little Upon the Earth, but Exceeding Wise (short story, murder mystery on board ship, 1493, Rosa and Baha)***
• Where There's Life (short story, magical realism, library card for Alexandria, written 2014)***
• He Ain’t Heavy (short story, 1910s Montreal, Charles and Oliver)***
• Eyes of the Sky (vignette)***
• Late Night, Maudlin Street (vignette, working title)***

• The Future in Time (contemporary mystery, Christianne and Rory (third sequel), written NaNoWriMo 2021): finish drafting
• The Antipodean Time (contemporary new adult romance, Kimberley and Simon, written NaNoWriMo 2019): edit on paper
• A Stitch in Time (contemporary new adult romance, Amelie and Angus, written NaNoWriMo 2018): edit on paper
• The Handful of Time (Christianne and Rory (sequel), written NaNoWriMo 2017): finish second round of edits on screen
• The Charm of Time (contemporary romantic mystery/suspense, Christianne and Rory, written NaNoWriMo 2016): re-edit opening and keeping sending queries!
• Mystery at Bertram's Hotel (working title, mystery suspense romance set in WWII Switzerland and France, Phillippe and Milly, written NaNoWriMo 2015): find title! Edit on paper!
• Peter and Penelope (no title yet, romantic suspense, WWII, Gallipoli, written NaNoWriMo 2014): type up! (on backburner)
• Larksong (historical romance, c. 1914 Montreal, Alice and George, written NaNoWriMo2013): keep editing (on backburner)
• Captive of the Sea (historical romance, 1471 England, Magdalena and Santiago, written NaNoWriMo 2012, typed up 2013): review beta notes and submit!
• Rome, Rhymes and Risk/Verse, Venice, and Viziers (historical romance, 1493 Mediterranean Sea, Ayten and Devran): keep editing (on backburner)
• Out of the Water (historical romance, 1492 Spain and Constantinople, Rosa and Baha): keep querying (on backburner)
• The Face of A Lion (historical young adult, time travel, Austin and Kedi): keep editing (on backburner)
• An Arnavutkoy Spring (historical romance, 1910 Istanbul, Klara and Sevran): keep editing (on backburner)

• untitled (two new ideas for modern dystopian stories): there are actually more than two. All these half-baked ideas need to be collated
• untitled (new adult romance about Spanish couple)
• A Fredericton Story (long-term small town romance set in New Brunswick, plot bunny during NaNoWriMo 2016)
• untitled (another story featuring Brother Arcturus and Austin and Kedi, set c. 1520)
• The Heathen in the Hold (working title, featuring Brother Arcturus and Austin and Kedi, set on board ship c. 1496, CampNaNoWriMo 2015 and 2016 and 2021)
• Coliseum (working title; sequel to The Face of A Lion)
• Radio Nowhere (working title; new idea for Scholastic's Dear Canada series, 1930s)
• Indexing Outlander series (volunteer project started by members of OutlanderGathering Yahoo group)
• Bizim Anadolu www.bizimanadolu.com (travel column and book reviews)
• The Trickster in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (journal article)
• Don't Stand So Close To Me (screenplay)
• A Short Album About Love (screenplay)
• Crash! Boom! Bang! (romance, completed)
• Never Is A Long Time (romance, completed)

I also have an ongoing blog post idea that may become an essay: Can you love the art but not the artist?


Here's a great way to organize goals: Make 9. I may take it up next time I revamp my daily schedule. For now, the main thing I'm doing is finishing the draft of my NaNoWriMo story. Also thinking about this: Being somebody.

Photos after the wall of text! This was on a snowy mountaintop a few weeks ago:

What sorts of goals do you have for this year?