Like having a post for Christmas is probably cliche, having one looking back on the previous year is probably even moreso. And yet, I have to do it, because 2013 was probably the biggest year for me… ever??
2013 began right after 2012 ended, a week or so after we all survived the 2012 apocalypse. It was also a couple weeks or so after I’d finished my final semester of college, so 2013 began the first year that I was totally done with school. Then I had about seven or so months of doing nothing as I was unable to find a job. Woo.
Except I was doing far from nothing, because 2013 was the year I finally released my first book, Slubes. After starting it in 2009 and having gaps where I worked on other things (like school), I finally got to the point where I just needed feedback from fellow writers; I edited it based on this, then spent a week or two going through and proofreading for grammar and typos. (That actually took longer than I expected, and packed a lot of work into it to finish when I had been expecting.)
On April 7th, 2013, a week before my 23rd birthday, I declared my first novel, Slubes, finished. A couple months later (which were spent trying to figure out Createspace and proper formatting), I released it on June 4th. Did a small online video shindig where I read from the book and stuff. It’s on Youtube. Next time I know to find some sort of lamp to shine light on me so I’m visible??
Sales have been… modest? Yeah, let’s go with that. This year, I also began revising the next novel, Darmenzi, in February, and finished the short story Tough as Blades on April 14th, which I released six months later. Along with that I started a couple other short stories and finished one. The final writing-related thing I did this year was begin my third novel for National Novel Writing Month; I didn’t finish the first draft, but I did blow the NaNoWriMo goal out of the water despite holding down a full-time job too.
Which brings me to the second reason 2013 is the biggest year for me: my first freakin’ job! It’s not even like I’ve held part-time jobs in the past. This is the first job I’ve ever had ever. It was rocky the first couple months, through training to the first month or so of actually being on the job, and it was technically a temp job, but it started easing out in November and in mid-December I was hired full time. Soon after things got crazy and there was super overtime time. I had a 71-hour workweek.
Of course, along with it being my first job, it’s also a first for everyone because we’re a call center selling an ACA Marketplace plan. You know, the Affordable Care Act? That thing? That was passed? … Uh, Obamacare? Yeah, that. So basically for the first month or two, things changed every day and we never really knew what we could or couldn’t do. It was kind of chaotic. It’s still a little chaotic, but things have calmed down and are normalizing.
And of course it’s weird that I’m at a call center because all my life I’ve been terrible at talking to people. I guess this is good practice for when I become a famous writer and talk to people regularly?? Oh wait no I can’t be a loose cannon on the phone. Oh well.
So now that 2013 is over, what does the next year hold for the Cloudy Cuckoo Cosmos? I hope to finish the next draft of Darmenzi this month, and then get some peer review for it. After revising based on that I’ll proofread it, and eventually my plan is to release Darmenzi in early June–around, if not on, the date one year after I released Slubes.
I’ll also have at least one short story for this year, and I’ll be working on my third novel throughout. That will be something to look for in 2015, though. As for 2014: the demon is out.
Duth Olec's Cuckoo Cosmos 