I am very pleased with how well things are going at Forward Motion right now. With the new year in full swing, and having survived all the holidays, people there seem to be more than ready to turn as much of their attention as they can to the art of writing. We have new people joining every day, and all of them are looking for (and mostly finding) material that will help them become better writers. And they find people who are willing to answer their questions, give them advice, and make suggestions. We're working on a system to get a lot of the quieter boards moving again as well, and I think that's already showing some promise, though it is a bit too early to tell.

We seem to have attracted a few more professional writers again, too, which is neat. Sometimes, wandering through the boards and threads, I am amazed at the questions, answers, and degree of help that people are willing to give to each other at the site. There is never a question of whether you are good enough to receive that advice. It is just given in the hopes that it will help. Even in chat people have been remarkably civil lately, with only a couple outbreaks of childishness that have gotten people kicked from the site. But you have to expect that in so large a group. There will always be people with the kinds of egos that make it impossible for them to accept that someone's advice is not an attack, and that others are not always going to act on what they think is best either.

When I look over the site, I can see Forward Motion's direction has turned back to what Holly had originally started -- a writing site. Not a site where there is nothing but writing, but one where writing takes precedence. I've noticed that even the Rants board has had fewer posts lately. And when I started the novel writing class a good many people who had been members for a long time but mostly lurked came out of the shadows to join in.

I think that, more than anything else, is a sign that the site is giving people more of what they want. I have over 170 people signed up for the novel class, and while I have no doubt that many of them are going to drop out of it for one reason or another, that is still an incredible number of people who have signed up, looking for writing related instruction.

And that makes me very happy. It makes me feel that this is the way the site should be, that the direction is right for us. Not for anyone else, but for Forward Motion.

I think it's going to be a good year.

We are having cold weather tonight -- sub zero temps, wind chills that are far below that. My office is nicely warm because Russ got the lovely little stand up heater to work again, and it's enough for this room.

And that pretty much means I hate to leave this room, of course.

I've done well in FM work today, not so well in writing. I'm going to take some paper into the bathtub with me and do some work on the short story... it shouldn't be too long, and I think it might be fun to work out the last of it tonight.

Beyond that, my day has been pretty calm and quiet. Site stuff, writing, more site stuff, more site stuff... a few things that are not site stuff, but are Internet related, and ... well, not enough writing. (grin)

However, I have found that my new daily schedule is helping make sure I don't leave too much stuff behind each day. I have a couple more things to handle tonight, and I think after a bath that should be easy to handle.

Beyond that, it's really a pretty quiet sort of few days. I see that my new SF novel, Singer & St. Jude: The Lost Cause has made it up to #15 on the Fictionwise SF list. Looks like a good deal to me...

While wandering through weblogs for the last few days, I have seen that some people have listed both their achievements for 2003 and their goals for 2004. Well, why not? Why not take an honest look at what I've done and what I want to do.

A look back at 2003:

Last year was a good writing year, obviously, but my sales were down. Part of that was due to a run of incredibly bad months, starting with my niece's death and ending (more or less) several months later with me in the hospital. During that time, several other things went wrong, from the deaths of friends to medical problems. As always, I kept writing... but quite often anything outside of losing myself in a new story was impossible. That meant serious editing was out. I managed to put out my two submissions a month, but I'm not surprised I made so few sales from them.

But still... I wrote eight new novels (my first drafts are often quite short but they all reached more than the SFWA guidelines for novel), two novellas, six novelettes and fourteen short stories. I also wrote eight outlines of at least 3000 words, and a couple of them quite longer. Seven of the outlines correspond to the books I wrote in 2003, but one is for the book that I am working on now. I wrote over one million words in 2003, so I have nothing to complain about there.

I sold seven pieces, placed two in non-paying markets, had thirteen rejects, and an additional four pieces that were dropped because the publishers closed. I still have six pieces out (and a couple of those I had better check on).

The novels I wrote were:

Gathering (Book 7, Dark Staff) (fantasy)
Hope in Hell (Book 8, Dark Staff) (fantasy)
Glory (Near future post apocalyptic fantasy)
Ruins (Contemporary mystery/adventure)
Badlands (SF)
Ada Nish Pura 2 (SF)
Mirrors (Urban fantasy)
Journey to Winter (Fantasy)

You know, now that I've listed them out and can see the titles, I realize that isn't a bad set of novels at all. The first two are already sold. When I finished Ada Nish Pura 2, I decided that rather than work at making it considerably longer, I would meld it into Ada Nish Pura 1 and make one novel. I read through it a few months ago and was very pleased. Mirrors and Journey to Winter are the novels I wrote for NaNoWriMo in 2003, and I like both of them.

All of these works are in the rewrite/edit queue now, and I can't say when I'll get to any of them, except that I hope to do the work on Glory early in 2004.

The shorter material I wrote in 2003 ranged all over the place as well. I had hoped to write one short story a week last year, but that possibility disappeared when everything went to hell. I would like to try it this year... but I just have way too much other stuff going on.

Looking at the list of novels, I'm very pleased. There's not one of them that I would consign to the files and never look at again. In fact, that has given me more hope for edit/rewrite and submission this year than I had before I looked at the list.

A look ahead at 2004:

This is a year of change for me. With the work at Forward Motion, and the other non-writing projects that I have, I realized that I needed to cut back on my word count. This year I plan on doing about 500,000 words. I'm not entirely certain how that will work out in the number of items I produce, though. I had hoped to write more short stories this year, but I know that I will also write several novels -- at least three or four that are already scheduled...

I am already working on my first novel of the year -- Farstep Station -- and my first short story -- At the Edge. I have already posted a Vision Issue for this year, and I have started the novel writing program.

I've also started editing my mystery novel, Muse. I wrote it a couple years ago, and I think I'm finally getting a handle on the problems that need to be addressed.

I intend to do more editing this year than I have in the past, as well as submitting of novels. I've already edited one short story, and I'm looking for a place to send it off. I am working slowly through Muse, but once I get into the swing of things, I think it's going to go faster.

Really, none of this looks overwhelming. I'm going to enjoy this year. But then... as far as writing goes, I always do. (grin)

Long day. Way too much stuff to get done and not nearly enough writing done again!

But I am starting to get caught up with all my other work, and I think if I start on the writing earlier instead of messing around for most of the day I'll do better. I'm going to take some paper and actually write out a few scenes tonight and type them in tomorrow. I won't know how I do on the word count until then, but I just need to get away from this computer for a while and rest. I can do that in the tub and write at the same time.

Russ will be home late tonight, which is good. It's supposed to snow, but not much. Just the same, he's not going to stay too late and have to drive home in the dark in snow. That wouldn't be good on the small, back roads of Nebraska, and really going by the Interstate would not only add a lot of distance, but also isn't all that much safer with the crazy drivers.

I'm really a bit worn out tonight, and I hope that get past this tired stuff soon. It's been an annoying day for that reason, although I have actually gotten more done than I expected to.

The odd thing about the new novel is that I can see it clearly, but every time I sit down to do the actual work I either get called aside for other things, or I end up staring at it and not getting nearly as much done as I would like to. I think I'm just driving myself nuts this time.

Anyway, time to post and move on. I have writing to do. (grin)

Russ's uncle died on New Year's Eve. He had been ill so it wasn't a shock, but still...

Today Russ has a class to teach in Omaha. It's an all day class so he's already on his way, and we're supposed to get snow tonight. So rather than driving back up here (over 100 miles) to get me, and then drive back down there and then about 60 miles to the east, he's just going to stay in Omaha tonight and then drive on to the two towns where they are holding services tomorrow -- one at 10 am and another at 2 pm.

Since his sister is flying in from Tennessee and his brother is coming down from northeast Nebraska (even farther than Russ has to go -- this is a long state), I'm sure he's going to stay there for a while on Saturday to spend time with them. The problem is that it's supposed to snow all day Saturday. I hope the weather isn't too bad when he's driving back.

In the mean time, class stuff has started at FM and I've begun my first novel of the year and my first editing. I am having some bad back problems, though, which is keeping me from spending as much time at the computer as I would like to right now.

And sleep might be a good plan, too -- but the bed is horribly uncomfortable for me. In fact, I think I'm going to go take some pills that will knock me out for a good amount of the daylight hours. Not a problem from my POV.

LOL. Point of view. I've become way too much of a writer.

Anyway, here it is about 7 am. I think I should stop working on the edits for Muse and just crawl off to bed like I said.

Not off to a great start for the year. I hope things get better soon.