Well, I was going to do a detailed rundown of my year, just like my buddies Greg, Jason, and Jim did, but I'm short on time. As always, the year has gone by way too fast, and I'm still playing catch-up. I guess it's become a tradition.

I've had a good year, writing-wise. It's been slightly turbulent in other areas, as I did some job-jumping, got stressed out about finances, had some rough times here and there, but luckily Elizabeth helped me get through those (though I'm sure she would've liked to throttle me at times).

I feel that I grew a lot as writer, thanks to the Oregon workshop and the constant practice I got from writing regularly. I put together some fine stories, and did a lot of work on the Wannoshay novel, which is starting to turn out to be a fine novel after all. I also learned about romance novels and got the first section of one written. And I wrote a dozen stories, and even got a couple stories accepted at the first place I sent 'em, which was cool. I feel like I'm close to hitting my stride as a writer.

As for my goals for 2002, well, I didn't accomplish ALL of them. They were pretty idealistic goals, but I like to push myself... Anyhow, I didn't get in shape (surprise, surprise), I definitely met my goal of writing at least 10 hours a week (easily), I didn't finish Ghetto Dwellers (put that on hold, marketing it as a novella right now), ALMOST finished The Wannoshay Cycle, wrote twelve stories (seven more than I'd planned!), didn't start reseach on The All-Nations Team (but I did buy some baseball books and got some baseball DVDs for xmas!), didn't find an agent, just barely read a novel a month (if you count Year's Best anthos, of which I read 2), didn't revise any old novels (other than the first 3 chapters of Prodigal Sons, and definitely didn't dedicate myself to the Day Job!

Oh well. It was still a good year.

Here's what I've written this past year:

• 3/4 of The Wannoshay Cycle, an SF novel
• 1/4 of Heart's Revenge, a romance novel
• "Gunning for the Buddha," an SF/Fantasy story
• "Redemption, Drawing Near," an SF story
• "Wantaviewer," an SF story (published in Strange Horizons)
• "Skin and Blood," an SF story
• "Dispensed, with Extreme Rapture," a majorly flawed SF story
• "Top of the Stacks," a horror/SF story
• "Repeat Performance," an um, "sexy-sexy" story
• "Goddamn Redneck Surfer Zombies," a horror story (published in The Book of More Flesh)
• "Remainders," an SF/adventure story
• "Back to the Old Neighborhood," an SF story
• "Never, Incorporated," a surreal horror story (to be published in Flytrap
• "No Crying Over Spilled Ink," a fantasy/satire/holiday story

I also achieved my goal of Active HWA status to go along with my Active SFWA status, though you wouldn't have guess that from the number of SF stories on this list! A lot of the SF stories were pulled from the Wannoshay novel, which consumed most of my energies this year. But I think that's gonna pay off in 2003...

And here's the numbers, if you're really interested:

Story submissions -- 126
Story acceptances -- 10: 6 Pro, 1 semi-pro, 1 non-paying, 1 royalty-paying reprint, 1 non-paying reprint
Total money made: $1,583 ($57 less than last year -- argh!)
New short stories written -- 12.5 (one collab)
Short submissions currently out -- 19
Short stories on hand (for the nonce?) -- 1
Short stories in progress -- 10
Novel submissions currently out -- 3
Novels in progress -- 2
Novels in serious need of revising -- 2
Novels existing only in notes and outlines -- 4
Novels existing solely in my brain -- 2
Total words written -- 150,000

Whew. And that's it, for 2002. See ya next year!