A New Year of Writing, Reading, and Blogging

Hello again, everybody! It's been a long, wonderful holiday vacation with my family, but I'm ready to get back to work on a lot of exciting plans, goals, and dreams for 2013. (Which reminds me, congratulations to everyone who survived the end of the world on the 21st. We should all get t-shirts: "I survived the end of the world!")
So I thought for my first post of the new year, I'd share a basic rundown of my plans and goals. Most of you have been hanging around the Writer's Lair long enough to know that there are three things that make me tick as a writer, reader, and blogger: Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Steampunk. (Not necessarily in that order.) And that's exactly what is (Lord willing) in store for 2013.

In the Science Fiction department: I'm setting a goal to have at least the first draft of my novel Empathia's Hope, a spinoff/expansion of the stories I've been publishing on Avenir Eclectia, finished by spring. How long it will take to edit, tweak, and polish, I have no idea, but I'm going to try to take things one step at a time. The character arcs and relationships in this story are really taking off and surprising me with how they're developing, and I'm really excited to get it finished.

In the Fantasy department: Once the first draft of Empathia's Hope is done, work begins on A Traitor's Prayer, the sequel to Son of the Shield. I'm not setting any kind of official goal date for that yet, but I'd like to at least be started on it by summer. ATP is another story that's been continually surprising me with the twists and turns it's taken as I've been developing it in my head. After working on SotS for five years, getting away from the series for a while has been wonderful, but I'm more than ready now to return to the world of Reyem and the wonderful characters who live there, for more of the exciting adventures that made SotS such a joy to write!
Also in the Fantasy department of plans for this year is the hope of securing a publishing contract for Son of the Shield. Of course, whether or not that comes to pass is ultimately out of my hands, but as I said, here's hoping.

In the Steampunk Department: Those of you who have read Falls the Shadow over at The Lost Scribes will be happy to know that the sequel, Burns the Fire, is set to go live April 1st, 2013. That's just three months away! My co-authors and I have been hard at work (and having a ball) with developing new ideas and starting work on chapter drafts! ; ) Honestly, we were kind of surprised at the enthusiasm with which Falls the Shadow was received, considering how new and relatively obscure the steampunk genre of fiction still is, but we're having a blast rolling with it! Keep an eye on the Lost Scribes blog for teasers, sneak peeks, and more cool stuff in the meantime. For now just let me say that the characters, relationships, action, drama, intrigue, and steampunk awesomeness that you loved in Falls the Shadow are being taken to a whole new level in Burns the Fire. That's all I'll say. That, and a promise that I will try to make sure that the chapter that goes live on April 1st this time around is a for-real chapter, not one of my co-authors' cruel and maniacal April Fools concoctions designed to freak out and torture readers. (Not that that was directed at anyone, Elynn!) : P
We're also starting to talk about getting the first draft of Falls the Shadow edited, polished, and expanded a little bit in the hopes of getting it published officially - as in, in print, available to own and read on paper! We'll see what God has in store for us on that front.

And of course, I have a huge list of books I plan to read in 2013, and lots of other dreams, some small, some big, that I would love to see come to pass this year. But we'll have to wait and see. As my friend LoriAnn told me in an email just a few days ago:

It's going to be a great year!