As is common, I’m using this blog post to look back on the year that is past, and then writing another blog post looking forward to the year which is to come.

Firstly, let’s see what I achieved in 2015:

1. NaNoWriMo. I ‘won’ NaNo again – my 11^th win in 12 attempts, writing over 56,000 words of a political conspiracy thriller. This year, I used a slightly different method of planning the book. I had the whole novel planned out in broad terms in advance, then detailed plans were drawn up a few days in advance of me writing them, changing the specifics of the plan according to how the narrative changed as I actually wrote it. If that makes sense to anyone else. And it seemed to work really well. I’m going to be using this planning method as a basis for a ‘How To Write That Novel’ ebook, sometime in 2016. Probably.

2. Literary Roadhouse. I began as a co-host to the Literary Roadhouse podcast, where we read one literary short story a week, and then come together via a Google hangout to discuss it. After a change of host around halfway through, we now have a settled group – Maya (whose idea it all was to begin with), Anais, Rammy, and myself. If you have an interest in reading, writing, or expanding your understanding of the written word, it’s worth popping in and giving us a listen. Links are available at http://www.literaryroadhouse.com/

3. Literary Roadhouse Book Club. Along with the weekly podcast, Anais has started a monthly novel book club, with associated podcast. So far, we’ve recorded one discussion – of Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Heart Goes Last’. I was surprised at how different the podcast felt compared to the weekly short story version. If you’re more into longford writing, give us a listen, or just use us as a book club. We don’t mind. But if you do, you might as well listen to the podcast.

4. Word count. I wrote over 150,000 words during the year, across a whole variety of projects. Somewhat crucially, I wasn’t able to complete anything except the NaNoWriMo project, although after completing the ‘novel’ (draft zero), I then moved back to something else I had started but hadn’t finished, and moved closer to completion on that project. So this is a movement towards a ‘Complete Something’ state of mind that I want to encourage.

5. Writing groups. I began attending two local writing groups – one a more traditional writing group, with challenges and a ‘good news’ portion of the meeting; the other was a critique group, aimed specifically at novel writers. Two great local groups, with a strong core of members.

6. Pub book club. I continued my membership of the Pub Book Club (I know, a book club that meets in a pub – what could be better?) Members suggest books that the club might consider, and the leader of the group speaks to the local library, and between them, they choose books which are available through the local library network. The members are split roughly 50-50, between the Kindle readers and the tree book readers, and all mature adults. What’s that about ebook reading dropping?

So, all in all, it was a busy year, creative fiction-wise – a real mix of different projects. Emotionally, I’m both pleased and disappointed with the year. Pleased that so many new things have been achieved; disappointed that I didn’t get any more of my writing into the outside world.

I don’t do resolutions. The dictionary definition of “resolve”: to come to a definite or earnest decision about.

I have intentions – things I would like to do, to achieve, but if I don’t, I wont feel bad or upset with myself.

Anyway, here they are:

1. Do 100k in 100 days.
2. Write 500 words before looking at Facebook
3. Do River of Stones in Jan 2012.
4. Write at least one piece of short fiction each week.
5. Produce 3 novel-length pieces of work – 100k100days, finish something else, and NaNoWriMo in November

All these are achievable. I’m not going to make empty promises about losing weight, exercising more, or any of that nonsense.

Let’s see if, by this time next year (2012), I’ll have kept to these. What are the chances?

Authors write stories because we have stories to tell. The story is there, inside us, It burns us, gnaws away at our stomachs, until it is written.

So here we are, early in 2011, and the ebook revolution is well under way. Previously unpublished authors are selling thousands – no, tens of thousands, of books per month. Previously published authors are raking over their back catalogue, putting out novels that are either out of print, or novels that their publisher didn’t want.

And then we check the results. Under the old publishing models, we had little or no access to our sales numbers. We wrote the book, the publisher put it out there, and we checked our royalties when the publishers informed us. Now, we have unprecedented access to our sales figures and our royalties several times a day – heck several times an hour even, if we so want.

We discuss why our books aren’t doing as well as we had hoped; we trade information, we swap links, tell our stories, offer help; we read of marketing strategies; we agonise whether $0.99 or $2.99 os the “sweet spot”, the right price, the best way of maximising revenue or gaining readership.

But hang on a second. Why do we write? We write because we’re authors, and we need to tell the story, yes? Isn’t there a danger we’re becoming sales and marketing executives, public relations personnel, publishing technicians and industry gurus?

There’s more than enough evidence to show that the more publications we have out there, the more copies we sell. But it’s not a linear relationship. Just because you sell ten copies a month of book A, it doesn’t mean that adding book B will add ten more copies a month to your sales. It’s not linear, it’s exponential. You’re dealing with buyer psychology here. They see your solitary book, they wonder if you’re a ‘proper’ author. They see three, four books, they think “accomplished writer”.

So why aren’t you writing? Come to think of it, why am I not writing?

Okay, as indie or self-published writers, we’re all over the positive news stories. “Konrath makes $22,000 in a month”; “Hocking sells over 100,000 books in a month”; “Michael J. Sullivan makes $34,820 in a month”, and they give us inspiration. Few of us will match these astounding figures, but there’s no harm in trying, and even a little fraction of that performance would please most of us.

But what is it about writing that I like? Is it purely the ability to create a story that I find entertaining, and meeting the challenge of completing the work? Is it the hope that I can have many thousands of dollars entering my bank account?

Well, yes and no to both. The main reason I’m writing nowadays (rather than taking an easy retirement from a lifetime of hard, non-writing work) is because people like to read what I’ve written.

Yes, I’ve been an avid follower of Joe Konrath for some years, and when he started talking about how his experiments with self-publishing were going, I’m afraid I got excited. I had dollar signs in my eyes – and I can convert US dollars into my native UK pounds in a blink of one of those eyes. But since self-pubbing two collections of my short fiction, I’ve discovered something.

I’ve discovered that warm, cosy, wonderful feeling you get when someone contacts you and says “hey, I downloaded your book. You know what? I loved it. Where can I read some more?” For me, that says it all. It’s not about the money, it’s not about the mental challenge – it’s about the entertainment, it’s about a person saying nice things about something you’ve spent many hours creating. I don’t think there’s any feeling like it.

So this morning, I followed a link from a friend on Facebook to a good news story. A debut novel has been picked up by Bloomsbury, and the author signed up. She’s over the moon. And quite rightly. Read about it .: here :. But, reading the story, something shocked me.

Bloomsbury will publish her debut novel ‘The Night Rainbow’ in the spring of 2013

Come again? Bloomsbury will launch her book in over 2 years’ time.

Now, I’m of an age where I don’t know if I’m going to be alive in 2 years’ time. Statistically, I should be. But who knows what the publishing world is going to look like in 2 years? Ebook sales are rising dramatically, although still less than 10% – 15% of total book sales. But with Amazon being predicted as possibly selling 12 millions Kindles in 2011 alone .: story here :. and Apple reportedly placing orders for 65 million iPad displays for 2011 .: story here :. there is no doubt the traditional model of book publishing is being changed, rapidly.

I wish Claire King all the best, and it’s no mean feat to break through in the way she did. Having read some of what she’s written, I would say it’s truly deserved. She’s a damned good writer.

But I just wouldn’t want to wait more than two years before my readers could enjoy my work. And that is why I self-publish.

Well, it’s the start of a New Year – as if that wasn’t obvious by the huge plethora of NY resolutions threads floating around.

To me, a NYR is a waste of time. Why should you start to do something at the new year, particularly? If you want to start a new regime, lose some weight, write more, send out more submissions, whatever, start it as soon as you think of it. Making it a NYR means that there’s more pressure to continue doing it when your heart just isn’t in it, or whether other aspects of your life make it difficult.

And then, of course, there’s the added aspect of many NYRs being made whilst under the influence of alcoholic substances. Made with the best of intentions, sure, but in the cold, hard, headache-filled light of day, you begin to realise that your resolutions were overly ambitious, at best, and perhaps darned impossible at worst.

I prefer to look forward to this time next year – what will I have achieved over the year? Will it have been a good year, a bad year, a sad year, a disastrous year? A year filled with euphoria, or with abject misery, or something in between?

As I get older, simply being around this time next year will be a great thing, and some achievement. Some things I wanted to achieve will have been, and no doubt some won’t have been. But the secret to a happy life is to go forward, achieving some ‘smart targets’, with some preparation and expectation of not achieving all of them.

I hope everyone I care for has a safe year, at least, and that there are at least some aspects of it that can be considered enjoyable. Everything else is a bonus!