This Year In My Words

Well, I wrote a lot more in 2008, and not just on this blog - 89 posts (including this one) compared to 49 last year. My most popular post - and I use the adjective advisedly - was Don't Look Back in Awe. This was picked up by io9 and a slew of other blogs... and as a result my hits shot through the roof. Overlooked Classics also did quite well as it was posted on reddit.com. The other posts which received higher than average hits were the "list" ones: Overlooked Classics Part 2, 20 British SF Novels You Should Read and Top Ten Obscure SF Films. Perhaps I'll knock together a few more lists in 2009. Um, maybe I should conflate Don't Look Back in Awe with a list post, something like 20 SF Classics Which Are Actually Crap, for example... Top of that list would be Asimov's Foundation trilogy, I think. Then again, perhaps I won't...

I also wrote more fiction, and even sold some. The actual stats look like this:

Completed: 6
Submitted: 28
Rejected: 19
Waiting for response: 5

Sold
'Thicker Than Water' to Jupiter
'Killing the Dead' to Postscripts
'The Amber Room' to Pantechnicon

I'll post to this blog when the stories are actually published, so you can rush out and buy copies of the magazines. Many copies.

I also wrote two book reviews for Interzone - Template by Matthew Hughes in IZ 218, and Lexicon Urthus, Second Edition by Michael Andre-Druissi in IZ 219.

And six DVD reviews for VideoVista.net - Zombies! Zombies! Zombies!, Vexille, Jacqueline Hyde, Psycho Beach Party, Sordid Lives and Lost in Austen.

All in all, not an unproductive year. I'd have liked it to have been more productive, though. But I'm determined to do even more in 2009 - two novels to complete, more short fiction, more poetry, a bunch of other projects, plus the reviews...

It only remains for me to wish everyone a Happy New Year, and all the best in 2009. And, as they say, keep watching the skies.