Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Another Year, Another Review

Better late than never! (Backdating this so it gets filed under 2013.) Yes! Here it comes! Dragon's Year in Review!

From a writing standpoint, it was a mixed bag. I did not submit enough, but I did win second place in the Tucson Weekly Erotic Fiction Contest and have a flash fiction forthcoming in Cheap Pop. I convinced two agents to look at one of my novels, one of whom passed with little commentary except to say that "the voice did not jibe" with him and there was no accounting for taste; he didn't like The New Yorker's taste in fiction either. The second still hasn't made up her mind. I've spent most of the year working on a monstrous novel, which is closing in on 800 pages and will need to be completely written when I reach the end.

My biggest coup was throwing caution to the wind and giving notice at my lucrative and reasonably reliable copywriting job. The real world was crushing me, and while I may starve, at least I shall starve as an artist. More news on that front is forthcoming.

Of course, I also got married; visited Death Valley, Sedona New York, LA, San Francisco, and Santa Fe, and took my mother-in-law on a 3-day road trip from Manhattan, Kansas to Tucson, Arizona that involved spending the night on a Mennonite farm in Oklahoma, visiting the Very Large Array in New Mexico, drinking margaritas in Albuquerque, and eating Pie in Pie Town; finally bought a beautiful wooden desk where I can work like a grown-up; organized all my nonfiction books by LOC designation, all my fiction books by the author's last name, and all my office supplies in such a way that I know exactly where everything is, but no one else can find it; made a not insignificant amount of art; read some good books, but not as many as I wanted to; and wrote some decent prose, but not as much as I wanted to.

In short, life happened. And now...

Dragon's 2013 Year in Review

Picture Books: 18
YA/Middle Grade Novels: 25
Adult novels: 12
Fairy Tale Collections: 1
Graphic Novels: 20
Nonfiction: 5
Memoir/Biography: 6
Plays: 1
Not Easily Categorized: 2

Total: 90

Could be better; could be worse. The intention for 2014 is to boost my number of reviews, both here and at Best Children's Books. Among other things.

Anyway, you know, keep reading. Happy New Year!




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