I’m not big on New Year resolutions, but I do think it’s a good idea at this time of year to reflect back on the previous year, assess my writing performance, and see where I can improve. Well, shit, now that I put it that way, it sounds an awful like making New Year resolutions. Well, whatever it may be, I reread my blog post from this time last year and was reminded by how frustrated I was with my 2009 writing performance. 2010 turned out to be a much better year. I finally finished the first draft of Dreamwielder, and after sending out a couple batches of query letters, I’ve gotten a rewrite request from a big league agent. That rewrite is about ¾ of the way done as of right now and I hope to have the finalized rewrite sent off to the agent by the end of the month.
In addition to Dreamwielder, I had some good fortune with other books I wrote. After fans and friends helped my novella “The Key Ring” win the Predators & Editors Reader’s Poll award for Best Horror Short Story in 2009, the novella was published as a trade paperback and e-book along with “The Shadow” in Umbral Visions, from Gyspy Shadow Press. On top of that, The Roads to Baldairn Motte, the historic fantasy novel I co-wrote with Craig Comer and Ahimsa Kerp got picked up from L&L Dreamspell Publishing. The novel will be coming out in a few short months as a trade paperback. My other big project, This Book is Sh*t! has continued to come along, as well. I’ve accumulated a dozen more great non-fiction stories and essays about shit, and the book is on track to be finalized this Spring.
With so much of my focus on book projects, I didn’t writ much in the way of short stories this year, but the few that I did write are some of my best. “Foreclosure,” the most recent story I’ve written, already came out in the anthology Toe Tags II. The rest of work I did this year seemed to be business related, either freelance editing and ghost writing projects or personal marketing stuff like putting together a website, making a trailer for Umbral Visions, and trying to procure some readings/signings.
So, what’s in store for 2011? The aforementioned Baldairn Motte will be coming out soon, Dreamwielder and This Book is Sh*t! will hopefully net some book contracts, and I’m contemplating self-publishing a collection of all my short stories. The new band I’m in, Wheel House, is also ready to play a lot of gigs in 2011. We had our first show in December, which went great, and once we finish writing a few new songs, we should be ready to start booking shows. So yeah, I guess that’s enough reflection. I better get cracking. Here’s to a fortune-filled 2011 for everyone.
-Garrett Calcaterra
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