Skip to main content

2022 - Year in Review

 


A challenging year, but I'm proud of the work I managed to create. On the publishing front I saw my work appear in fifteen published anthologies. That's one more than last year, which is actually more impressive than it sounds because for the last seven months of this year I also took a day job (because, as fun as it's been to write full time, it's not generating a liveable income just yet – I need to get some full books out there). Casual day work (mostly at night), but that's still anywhere between twelve and fifty hours a week not in front of a computer. Instead standing on my feet, destroying my arches, and making it hard to sit at a computer to write, needing days to recover from the pain. So, with limited time, I still got done what I did, and I'm proud of that.

I'm still pumping out short stories because it helps flesh out my worlds. With each new short, I discover something new about that world. It's a journey of discovery. With each new story, I'm also brought a little closer to having sufficient material to put out my own anthologies eventually. I have five anthologies for my fantasy world building up lists of published stories (six, if you include a flash fiction one). The first is probably ready to go, aside from waiting for the contractual exclusivity to expire. There's also a sci-fi one, but I think I've got a few more stories to tell there before that one's ready. Then there'll be a second era, and so on. There will eventually be straight horror anthology at some point, that's slowly filling its list. There's a steampunk one… one day. There are only three stories written so far in that world, only two of which are published. Also, there are two fairy tale stories that will populate an anthology of its own down the line. Of course, being the creative lunatic I am, I have completed the cover art for all these anthologies, and it burns my soul to not be sharing those images at this point. But it's far too comically soon for those cover reveals.

I have also been working on novels which I need to find a home for once I'm satisfied with them. (Again, I have totally done the covers because I don't do things in the right order)

Focusing on what did come out this year, I have released stories through; Dragon Soul Press, Cloaked Press, Zasra Press, Fiction Atlas Press, Black Hare Press, Iron Faerie Publishing, SFWG, and Crimson Pinnacle Press. I also have stories that have been accepted for publication that will come out next year. So, a huge thankyou to everyone who read my stories and decided they wanted them in their books.

So, thanks for the support over 2021.

-Barend3


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

EMBRACE OF THE SPIDER QUEEN and a Dwarven novel

 Greetings once more. Excited to announce that my fantasy/horror story 'Embrace of the Spider Queen' will be included in the anthology 'Beautiful Darkness' from Dragon Soul Press, due for release around Halloween. It is a distant sequel to 'Solyn the Scavenger' [All Dark Places 2] and 'Solyn the Slayer' [All Dark Places 3] set decades later and following a different perspective. I have also just finished the first draft of a novel that takes places just north of the very setting in which the three stories mentioned above take place, but on the other side of the obsidian wall. A subterranean dwarven story. This project got interrupted by another book I'm writing (which was finished but then started getting expanded after a beta read - still some chapters to be written there) so it's good to see it done and, as a discovery writer, finally know the plot. That's how it works for we gardener/pantser types. The first draft is what we use as our out...
Post a Comment
Read more

Horrorween

Halloween's becoming a lot like Christmas. It's starts creeping in a month or so early. Give Oktoberfest so breathing room, people. No doubt we'll see Christmas stuff up Nov 1, and Hotcross buns out on Boxing Day. Thus is the cycle of life. Perhaps we need to embrace more religious holidays to fill the rest of the year out with treats and costumes. But I do love this time of year. I'm currently working as a security officer at a fun park as day (evening) job. They're doing a Halloween thing for a couple weeks, so I'm often standing on a deck watching Silent Hill nurses cavort and convulse in the bloody uniforms and bandaged heads, to terrorise folk as they enter the park.  It's an agonising job as I stand for hours on feet that aren't built for it (collapsed arches, a heel issue, etc). It's literal torture, motivating me to get as many books out into the world and sell a million copies of each. It's like a reverse cop show/movie trope: after year...
Post a Comment
Read more

A MAN CALLED BOY

Hello again. Long time no see... I haven't updated this place in a while (not since March). I've been incredibly busy, working both hard on writing and working very long hours in a day job required to facilitate my crippling addiction to food and shelter.  There's been more than a few short stories accepted and published in the last several months since I last posted, and I've updated the page where they're all listed with links. But also, Cloaked Press have picked up my fist novel 'A Man Called Boy' (Fantasy). Needless to say I've very excited about this, but so far a contract has been signed, and all that happens between contract and release will have to unfold in whatever timeframe it does.  In other firsts news, my short story 'Beyond the Ensuite' from the Manor Of Frights anthology is available to listen to in an episode of Horror.Net's podcast: LISTEN HERE   It's a great podcast, and I've enjoyed listening to the other stories f...
Post a Comment
Read more