The Score for 2024
December 27, 2024

As is traditional for many writers, I've decided to set down 
an end-of-year recap of what all happened, writing-wise, during
the past year.

The honest answer is "not much." Or rather, "not as much as
I wished I had done." I started out the year working on the 
re-write of my latest novel manuscript. I realized and accepted 
that by focusing on the novel, my short fiction production and 
submissions would go down. But I wanted to get this damned
novel done and out the door.

In the first third of the year, there was a death in the
family, which took a couple of weeks time to deal with.
When I returned from that, my work on the novel rapidly
decelerated.

I went from five-to-ten pages of rewrite per day to just
one or two pages. And then came occasional days of not 
working on it at all. My original plan had been to finish 
the re-write by the middle of the year. I decided to shift 
that deadline to the end of the year.

By summer, the minutiae of living had begun to accumulate. I 
had piles of unread books, clothes in the closet that needed
to be sorted through. The house was messier than I liked it.
The clutter weighed on my mind.

Throughout my writing career, I've taken one or two
"down tools" weeks during each year to deal with times
when non-writing things have piled up. Normally, it's just a week 
away and then back to writing. But this time, I decided I 
really wanted to take the bull by the horns, clear the decks, 
in order to have plenty of time to write. So I decided to take a 
"down tools month."

That didn't work out. After a month away from writing, I felt
so rusty that it was hard for me to get back into the swing 
of editing. After weeks of struggle, I ended back at the 
"page or two every couple of days" place where I'd been 
before I took my month off.

I haven't really recovered from that. I ended up doing some 
more editing, but mostly working on a couple of short stories, 
which have only started collecting rejection slips in the last 
couple of months of the year. The novel that I thought would be
completely edited and finished by the end of the year is now 
barely half-done. 

So the score for 2024 is: a half-finished novel, a handful of
short stories currently collecting rejection slips, no publications,
and just slightly less clutter than when the year began.

At least I have hope for 2025 to be better.

(c)2024 Andrew Gudgel
email: contact [at] andrewgudgel[dot]com