Writing Life Updates: End of 2022

Life update: I’ve taken a bit of a bread break over the past couple of months as life has been hectic, and my focus has changed. I still love bread; just don’t have much of the same time as I did. Hoping to bring it back next year. I did make some red velvet cinnamon roll guts for Halloween that were amazing!

Author Life News

Monthly check-ins are easy to do, but year-end wrap-ups are hard. I write and publish a lot in various places, so it’s not as though I don’t have links to share. It’s just that when I look back over my year, the amount of stories I’ve sold and how much I’ve published is only a small part of my writing career. More happens behind the scenes than I think I will ever fully share.

Have I learned anything? Have I grown? Am I writing stories that are different than the stories I wrote a year ago? Do I feel successful and right in my intentions?

Those are the questions and topics I tend to think about when looking back.

Yes, I’ve learned things, so many things my brain swims and my fingers fly. I’ve learned I can write over 3,000 words in an hour. I can write a book in a week. I can juggle being an editor and writer for multiple publications and companies without losing my burning spark for writing and stories. I’ve learned there’s really nothing I’d rather do than write stories.

Recently, I’ve been finding success and some small recognition, but what I really feel is a control and confidence in my craft I’ve never felt.

While I spent a bunch of time reading as both a reviewer, editor, and lover of books who is in 2 book clubs, there is still a huge part of me that feels I haven’t read enough. Some of the books that have stuck out for me, though, are:

This was the first year my stories have ended up on award-recommended reading lists. Both The Black and White and To Carve Home in Your Bones ended up on the reading list. Who knows if they’ll end up on the finalist list. I sure hope so, but also, it’s a big dream. Even a bunch of the stories I had the pleasure of editing ended up on a few recommended lists.

2022 has felt like my first full year as an editor at a prominent magazine, even though I actually started in 2021 with Fireside and Apparition Literary. It’s been really fulfilling to work with the writers I’ve had a chance to! I care a lot about story and writing and to be able to work with some wildly talented speculative fiction writers has shown me things that still have me grinning.

You can check out my 2022 intentions and goals to see how I faired at everything I sat out to do this year. TLDR: I accomplished everything I wanted to! Happy to see 2022 off as another great year where I feel like I didn’t just spin my wheels but I progressed in my career, skills, and community.

While I wanted to have an agent and book deal by 2021, I’m sad to say I’m ending 2022 with no such agent and no such book deal. But! I got a full-request from a dream publisher a couple weeks back and have a few more queries and submissions out with publishers and agents. I’m hoping it turns into something, but even if it doesn’t the two books I’ve written and sent out on query are still really important to me.

The feedback I’ve gotten from agents, editors, and readers gives me faith in my projects. If no one takes a bite out of my books, my plan is to revisit them in the coming years, while working on new book projects. I’ll either publish them in a series of post on this site or try and send them back out on query with my second row of agents I haven’t queried after revising the manuscripts.

I sat out to edit through my stories from the past couple of years and am astounded how well that worked. I sold about 6 stories this year and each of them was a story I edited and revamped this year. With little stories left in my edit folder, I’ll start writing new stories next year while working on rewrites of bigger editing projects.

Full List of All My 2022 Published Work

I wanted to give space to both my writing and editing work, so I split the list into two. If you only have time to read some stories, I suggest checking out those authors and stories! I also included links to my blog posts on my writing site, At Home Pro Writers. All and all, I’ve worked on 82 stories!