I didn’t have much published this year, but here are my award-eligible works from 2017, one short story and four poems:
Short story:
07/2017 “Don’t Look a Wish Horse in the Mouth” in Cosmos Pen, the English special issue of Finnish SFF magazine Kosmoskynä. Short story, 2065 words.
— This is a bit hard to get hold of since it’s in a Finnish print magazine, but I’m happy to provide anyone who asks with a digital copy of my story.
Poetry:
01/2017 “The Queen, After” in Through the Gate.
08/2017 “Sunharvest Triptych” in the anthology Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk & Eco-Speculation, edited by Phoebe Wagner and Brontë Wieland.
10/2017 “Artemis–” in Issue 1 of Blossomry.
10/2017 “When They Belittle Your Nature” in Issue 1 of Blossomry.
The poems are all eligible for the short poem category of the Rhysling Award.
***
YEAR IN REVIEW
My writing goals for 2017 were:
- Finish revising novel; get everything in shape for submission and start submitting it to literary agents.
- Get back to the poetry collection thing; revise the collection, try to get the ms in shape and submitted.
- Write more short stories.
- Get back into the poetry habit.
- Submit more poetry and stories.
- Look over previous Nanowrimo novels, make plans for the potentials (rework as novel / condense into novella or novelette).
- Have fun with writing. Play with it too.
- Don’t compare yourself to other writers in the bad way. We all have different paths.
Well. Ambitious goals, considering I’m also working on a PhD, and this year was difficult in many other ways too. I obviously didn’t succeed with all of my writing goals, thus.
However: the novel is almost entirely revised to be the best I can make it. I’ve worked on it a lot this year: most of my writing hours were spent on it, which is partly why I’ve not succeeded so well at the other goals. Writing a novel is a long slog, and takes a lot of energy and time. But the time I’ve spent on the novel has paid off: the novel is at the polishing stage, and – importantly – I still love it. I’m looking forward to finishing it in early 2018.
I did not have the energy/time to start submitting the novel to agents, or even to properly start doing my agent research. But that is something that I don’t want to rush: the novel has to be good first.
Re the poetry collection mentioned in my goals: I did basically nothing to it because the novel gobbled up my time/energy. I will eventually try to do stuff to it, though.
I didn’t write many short stories – again, because of the novel. BUT I did complete one new short story, wrote part of another (should get back to it!), and am almost done with a third.
I did not get back into the poetry habit, sadly. I wrote 13 poems, most of which are just short things and not too many of them good. I’d like to get more poetry written: should do some poetry exercises in the new year.
I didn’t submit that much stuff in 2017. 17 poetry subs (14 rejections, 2 acceptances, 1 pending), and 12 story subs (11 rejections, 1 joyous acceptance to Fireside). I have no stories out on sub right now: should try to fix that soon. And also write more stories!
I did not have time to do anything about my previous Nanowrimo novels – but I wrote a new one instead in November. It’s not very good, but it’s proof that I can still plonk out 50,000 words in a month.
As for my final goals for 2017: I haven’t played around as much with writing as I’d have wanted, mostly – again – because I’ve been busy with the novel. But I have managed to compare myself less with other writers. I’ve been so damn busy with work and other life things that it’s a wonder I managed to get through 2017.
Every creative word written is a win, especially when you’re working on a PhD. Really, I’ve done a lot this year even though the brainweasels tell me it’s not enough. My novel is almost submittable – I’ve done some other creative writing on the side – and even though I haven’t submitted much stuff, I submitted something. I kept going, kept writing.
***
My writing goals for 2018, then:
- Finish novel revisions; send it out to agents. Revise again as needed.
- Do something about the poetry collection.
- Look over previous Nanowrimo novels, make plans for the potentials (rework as novel / condense into novella or novelette).
- Write for yourself – write amazingly self-indulgent things that make your heart sing.
- Make time for writing. Don’t shuffle writing to the bottom of the priority list.
- But also: be gentle to yourself and accept that your pace will be slower because of all your other commitments.
Happy New Year, dear readers. I hope it’s a better year, a happier year, a more hopeful year. No matter what, I will keep writing words of hope and kindness in the face of hardship.
Such Wanderings | Sara Norja 