Now, on Jan 4, 2012, looking ahead to what I plan to accomplish this year with my fiction, here’s what the year will look like.

1. Publish my second short story, titled “Too Old To Play”. The story is written. I’ve  edited it for typos, plot, language usage, etc. It’s ready to publish, in my view. I e-mailed it to my critique group mailing list and to another trusted reviewer, so far with no response. I’m not really worried about  receiving critiques. If I get some, I’ll see what I need to do. If I don’t get any, I’ll publish as is. My schedule is to eSP this in January. Since it’s a sequel to my previously published short story, “Mom’s Letter”, I hope they will feed sales to each other. I’ve already “commissioned” creation of the cover.
2. Publish my novel Doctor Luke’s Assistant. I finished what I consider the last round of edits a month or so ago. Publishers have told me it’s a good idea, but they won’t publish such a long work in a difficult genre from an unknown author. I figure it won’t have great sales, but what’s the downside in self-publishing it? Only the cost of a cover (already commissioned). If it doesn’t sell much, then the editors will be proved right in their judgment of it. If I make anything on it, that’s more than my prospects through commercial publishers. Right now I’m planning for an e-book. It’s so long I’m afraid a POD print book will be too expensive. I’m targeting this for February, which is very do-able
3. Publish my novel In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. The book is written, and partially edited. I sent it out to about twelve beta readers in October, and have heard back from three. The copy they read had many typos, as I had not proof-read it. I have a few plot issues to address, and must make a judgment on the amount of dialog vs. narrative. I think I can have all this done by the end of February, making production of an e-book in March fairly firm.
4. Publish another short story in the Danny Tompkins series. I hadn’t thought of adding another story to this series until recently. Heck, the second one didn’t even come to me until three months ago. I haven’t seen myself as a short story writer. So I’m still testing the waters. A plot for another one (actually two) has run through my mind, so I might as well schedule it to be written and published. I’m guessing this will be somewhere around June, but I’m still in the early stages of this.
5. Begin work on my third novel. I could go several ways with this. I could work on a sequel to In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. I hadn’t planned on that, but my friend Gary pointed out to me how the things I left hanging at the end of the book could segue very well into a sequel. I’m thinking my espionage book, China Tour, is most likely to be next, since it has had the longest gestation period. But a series of cozy mysteries has been brewing, and the first of those might be next. Given the uncertainty of what I’ll be working on, I’d say completion of the next novel in 2012 is unlikely, and I’m not putting completion in my plan.

So, there are my fiction writing plans for 2012. In a vacuum (i.e. with no non-fiction), it would be an easy schedule. Covers may be the hold up for maintaining my publication schedule.