Hello, dreamers. A year has come and gone. One more trip around the sun. For my writing, this year felt special. It may have been my biggest since 2018. And though I didn’t finish the year with a newly-completed novel, I did a lot. So for my readers, here’s a look back at my milestones in 2024, and the work that’s still left to do.

When We Left Earth

The start of the year was rough. I’d just made the difficult decision to abandon Aquarius 1. It had been years since I’d really hit on a story that lept off the page, but it just wasn’t working. It felt canned, soulless. I was just going through the motions, paying lip-service to the characters and who they were. It just didn’t feel right, so after some tough soul-searching around this time last year, by early January I’d put the novel aside.

In search of a project, anything at all, I found my way back to my series of novellas, When We Left Earth. The stories were a mess, so I took my time setting things right, starting with the first installment, Endurance. I began to inject more feeling into the story, and it finally started to feel like what I was going for.

The biggest help here was the podcast “The Shit No One Tells You About Writing”, which became a truly invaluable resource. Their focus on interiority completely changed my work, as did something they spurred me into: comps research.

Comps Research

I’ve talked a lot over the past year about how bad writing advice online nearly destroyed my writing. And it was comps research for Pioneers that really drove that home. I’ve read a lot of the towering classics of science fiction: works by Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert. But, much to my discredit, I’d read little of contemporary sci-fi. Needing titles to comp my novel to if I wanted to query, I finally broke that trend. And the results were eye-opening.

In the end, the experience helped persuade me to be, well, me, when writing. I started letting myself get into my characters’ heads, see the story through their eyes. And everything changed. I started asking myself questions I’d previously told myself were trivial. What does a spacecraft smell like? How does someone in space for the first time deal with disorientation? The absence of a clear “up” and “down”?

I was making progress, but I still wasn’t sure I was ready to tackle a novel. So instead, I allowed myself to focus on short fiction. And there, I finally felt like I’d turned a corner.

Short Fiction

The final months of the year brought a flurry of activity. I started churning out short stories at a rate I hadn’t managed in years. What’s more, these were different. I managed to use all I’d learned over the past year to elevate my work, and it showed.

I completed a number of short stories. I submitted several of them to literary mags. They were all rejected, as others have been. But the last rejection letter, which I received just last week, was something completely new.

I knew it was different when it was addressed to me by name. Most rejections are clearly form letters, fired off after an editor has read my work and passed on it. But this one was clearly written personally by an editor. The editor complimented my writing style, and encouraged me to send my future short stories his way.

Looking back on this year, I might have felt discouraged in the past. I didn’t write an entire new novel, or even a large portion of one. I spent a lot of time editing. But I also wrote a lot. I read a lot, and allowed my reading to influence my writing. I found my new style flowed effortlessly, to the point where it was hard to remember a time when I hadn’t written this way.

And now, at last, it seems I’m getting noticed.

As I always say, the work of an aspiring writer is never done. I have a lot to do in the year ahead. I’m preparing to query Pioneers. I have a number of short stories to finish, and submit. Most, if not all, will likely be rejected. But for the first time, I’m actually allowing myself to believe that not all of them will. That someone will see something that jumps out at them, and want to publish it. That I can finally follow the advice of the Joker in The Dark Knight: “If you’re good at something, never do it for free.”

I did a lot this year. And I’m not done. So here’s to 2024, and to forward progress. I haven’t scored a touchdown yet. But I’d call this a first down. So keep reading, happy New Year, and dare to dream. – MK