In 2011 I spent a lot of time on my fiction. At the beginning of the year I polished and published a short story, “Mom’s Letter”. I wrote this somewhere around 2005-06, first for a contest and then expanded and reworked. I published that at Kindle in February, at Smashwords in July. Sales are brisk, with a total of 9 copies sold (No; that’s not a typo).

When I attended the Write-to-Publish Conference in June, I pitched my second novel, In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, and an agent was interested. I hadn’t looked at it for a couple of years, and was surprised to see, when I prepared to submit the partial manuscript after the conference, that I had less than 15,000 words written. I thought I was over 20,000.

So I got busy. From mid-July to early October I completed the novel, ending at about 87,000 words. I sent it out to beta readers in October, and have received a trickle of comments back.

At that point in time, after a brief break, I read my first novel, Doctor Luke’s Assistant, which as been “in the drawer” for about three years, looking for “about 60 typos” a beta reader said I had but didn’t identify, and fixing a few minor plot problems or references. My goal is to e-self-publish it around February 2012. I made the typos and think it’s ready to go, cover permitting.

I then decided to work on another short story, to help me get another book on my self-publishing bookshelf. So I dashed off a sequel to “Mom’s Letter”, titled “Too Old To Play”. I’ve distributed that by e-mail to my critique group, but so far have had no responses. In my mind it’s ready to upload to Kindle, though I’m open to edits.

Beyond this, I dreamed a lot. I know which novel I’ll work on after that. I have at three series identified and at least five novels in each (by title). I have only outlined, at least in part, one. So this is work for the rest of my life.