Okay.  We’re closing in on the end of the year.  Which is the first year I’ve had this blog.  Which I started in large part because I wanted a place to be able to talk about my writing (and my garden).  You’ve seen my garden, so now, the least I can do is tell you how my writing’s gone this year.

The short answer is: Not as great as I was hoping.

But, I didn’t do nothing.  So, I’ll give you the round-up of what I did do.  First, though, let me orient you (very vaguely) in the world-space of Anna’s writing projects.  It’s nearly all fiction (betcha can guess the non-fiction), and even though I do write some short(ish)-stories, I group those into larger associations, so this world-space (currently) only has five realms.

Realm the first: Big Story #1

Sorry, no titles for this one right now, because nothing’s ready (I’m not ready) to publish yet. 

I will say: It is a fantasy, with an Evil Queen, and with no horses (because just because it’s a fantasy doesn’t mean there has to be horses; fantasy means options).  I will also say that this project includes my first go at novel-length fiction, first started when I was in grad-school, so it has been a very long work-in-progress.

• Completed so far –   2 books & 3 ancillary short stories
• Still needs – final book & 1-2 more ancillary short stories
• Progress in 2023 –   None.  I’ve been focused on a different project this year (Big Story #2).

Next Realm: Big Story #2

Yep.  No titles for this one either, because in this case I don’t even have anything complete, let alone ready to publish.  (Nor, I am sorry, do I have an icon image ready for this one yet.)

For this one I will say:  It’s another fantasy, this time with trolls (or at least my take on them).  And this time the books (if there ever are multiple) will actually be mostly stand-alone(-able).

• Completed so far –   first book currently in-progress
• Still needs – hopefully/probably another book also after that
• Progress in 2023 –   34,000 words as of this posting.  I was really hoping for rather more than that.  But, it’s actually more than twice what I managed last year, so…progress?

Considering I’ve been writing so slowly these past couple of years (though, note, I am *always* slow, this has just been *particularly* slow), one should consider the idea that maybe this project just isn’t the right one.  Except, when I go over what I have so far, I find that I’m still really excited about it and really want to make this story happen.  Nor am I actually stuck about what should happen next.  I’m just dang slow.

Next Realm: Small-stories Assortment #1

(You weren’t hoping for titles, were you?  Once again, nothing yet (Anna’s not) ready to publish.)  (Also, no icon-image for any of these yet, because I am just not on the ball.)

This is Small-stories Assortment #1 because it includes my first real attempt at writing fiction at all, a short story I started in college and then finally managed to finish rather after college.  Each of the stories in this assortment uses a (different) flower as one of the key ingredients, because I really like flowers, and because when I first started trying to write short stories at all I was having a really hard time coming up with any ideas suitable for short form.  Flowers, as an organizing theme, have the benefit of providing a lot of variety, while also being something that, for me, is really evocative across multiple senses.

• Completed so far –   3 completely independent short stories, ranging in length from 3600 – 14,000 words.
• Still needs – However many more stories I manage to get to.  I have a number of possible ideas, though there are 3 that have been particularly looming in my brain at one point or another.  I hope I manage to get to at least one of them before too very long.
• Progress in 2023 –   None.  Been trying to work on Big Story #2, not short stories this year.

Next Realm: Small-stories Assortment #2 – Serial Stream-of-Consciousness Stories

At last! a set of stories you may have actually heard of, because I published the first one, ‘Because the Desert is a Great, Broad Beast of Memory’, on my blog this year.

• Completed so far –   2 completely independent short stories made up of serialized installments
• Published so far – First one published this year on my blog!
• Still needs – 1 more serialized short story almost ready to go, hopefully many more to come.
• Progress in 2023 –   As of this posting, wrote 15 installments (adding up to somewhat over 10,000 words)

These stories, first and foremost, are meant as a way for me to relax and just play with writing.  So they don’t get as much polish as the stuff in my other writing realms (knowing I had to polish would defeat the purpose), and they can definitely all be classed as weird.  That also gives the word-count a different meaning than for my other fiction projects, which is why for ‘progress’ I’m more interested in the number of installments than the flat word-count.

That being said, this year’s is a much lower installment count than I usually manage, and I’m kinda bummed.  All around, this has been a weird, difficult writing year for me.

Final Realm: Blog Posts

Yep, of course you knew what the non-fiction writing realm was going to be.  And I have to include it, because this is my first year with a blog, and writing posts for it definitely added a load to my writing docket that I’m still learning to understand and balance.  I’ve wanted to start this blog for a really long time, and I’m glad that I finally did, but it’s definitely one of the things that has cut into my fiction-writing wordcount this year.  (And in that way, I’m really just curious to see how next year will go.)

• Progress in 2023 –   As of (and including) this post, 25 regular-post posts (adding up to 27,000 words) + 48 weekly garden posts (for an additional 8000 words).

Grand-Total Net Word-count for 2023

Combining fiction and non-fiction, long-form and short-form: 79,000 words. 

Which, honestly, if it were all on my long-form project, I would be very happy with.  Too bad I’m no good at just sticking to one thing at a time (and also that word-count really doesn’t transfer as easy as that from one type of writing to another).

So, not my best year.  But hardly nothing.  I think I’m still allowed to pat myself on the back.  Go me.  I wrote words.