Well, I look back and see that I haven’t been a diligent about posting here as I should have. Sorry. I’ll try to do better in 2015.
It’s been a good year, writing-wise. Sales of 1635: Music and Murder and 1636: The Devil’s Opera, which were both published around October 1, 2013, continued strong into 2014, according to the royalty statements from Baen. The mass market paperback edition of 1636: The Devil’s Opera was released in October 2014.
Also in 2014, Eric Flint and I completed The Span of Empire, the third book in Eric’s Jao Empire series, and submitted it to Baen in September. I was asked to step in and help complete the book after Eric’s original collaborator, K. D. (Kathy) Wentworth passed away in April 2012 due to complications from cancer and surgery. I only met Kathy a couple of times, but she was a good writer, a good friend to almost everyone who met her, and through her work in the Writer’s of the Future annual contest she touched and influenced the lives and careers of a lot of new writers. She also had a major place in science fiction fandom, particularly in the Tulsa SF community. Her death left a big hole in the lives of a lot of people, and she was, is, and will continue to be missed. She also left some big shoes to fill in writing the first draft of The Span of Empire, and I was very aware of that when I accepted the invitation from Eric to come on board the project to help finish the first draft. It was an interesting project in a lot of ways, but I’ll leave that for another post. I am very thankful to Eric Flint for offering me the opportunity and to Toni Weisskopf, publisher at Baen, for supporting that decision. The result is a story that I think fans of the series will enjoy. I haven’t heard yet if it has been slotted into Baen’s publishing schedule.
I posted a few articles at Fictorians.com during the year, the latest of which went up three days ago and can be found at http://www.fictorians.com/2014/12/26/goal-setting-another-perspective/.
And I’m not sitting on my mostly-non-existent-laurels. I have two different fantasy novels under way, at the moment. I hope to have the first one completed within the next six months. And I’m also exploring some opportunities for publishing some short fiction.
So 2014 was a good year, and I’m looking forward to 2015.
D