I’ve been pretty good about doing one of these every year the past few years. 2023 was a banner year, with one of my highest words written count ever at over 537,000 words written, and 7 published works. I thought I wasn’t going to be able to replicate that in 2024.

I didn’t repeat them. No, I sorta crushed those word count numbers.

In 2024 I had 7 published works once again — two short story collections (Side Hustle: Vol 1 and Side Hustle: Vol 2), sold a story I wrote years ago to be reprinted at Baen Books (“Imperfect Mind,” which was featured in the Tomorrow’s Troopers anthology edited by Hank Davis & David Afsharirad), sold a novella which was published at Baen.com (“The Last Convoy Out Of River City“), and had three novels published as well. Those were Salvage Purgatory and Salvage Harbinger (both w/ Kevin Steverson & Nick Steverson), and one set in the Black Tide Rising universe — Mountain of Fire.

I’m still extremely proud of that book…

For word count, I am currently up to 580,000 words written for 2024. That’s up about 45,000 from last year. Almost an entire half of a novel. That’s the cool thing about collaborations: if you work well with them, you both write faster and better.

Interesting projects I worked on in 2024? Well, I knocked out the fifth Kin Wars book finally back in March (Winterborn) and am currently 35% of the way through the sixth and final book (Hammerfall). Not sure what’s going on with the series at the moment, though. Something I need to talk to the publisher about. I also finished the first draft of a secret project with Melissa Olthoff (that chonker of a novel came in at 133,000 words before we go back in to add stuff we skipped on the first draft). I began my first urban fantasy novel at long last (really enjoying this one) but that won’t be finished until February 2025 probably. That one is already at 40% done, but the infusion treatments have slowed down production somewhat. I’m hoping the pace will pick up again in January.

I signed three new contracts to edit anthologies (I said I’d never be an editor, yet here we are…). One will be coming out in 2025, and the other two look to be out in 2026. The 2025 anthology, Dancing with Destruction, has nine fantastic stories in it and will be coming out in July 2025. The second one, Chaos and Consequences, should see release in 2026. The final anthology I’ll be doing is going to be Monster Hunter Files 2, with Larry Correia, and that’s looking like 2026 as well.

I have verbal agreements in place, but no paperwork for… uh… 5 other novels? At least 5, but we’ll see. Nobody cares until a contract is signed, right?

What else is coming in 2025? Well, I plan on writing the second book in my collaboration with Melissa (I think we start in… April?), dive into the first two books of the Quintus Fox novels (finally, right?), and finish off Hammerfall. I’m also going to be ripping through books 2 and 3 of my urban fantasy series rather quickly. I plan on them being short-ish, maybe 100k words each. If they go to 110k, that’ll be fine, but I want to keep them between 100k and 110k, like I did with the Kin Wars.

In 2024 I attended five conventions: MarsCon, FantaSci, Libertycon, Dragoncon, and Dragonsteel Nexus. Each one was a little different, and I learned a little something at every con. Both marketing and production stuff, I’ll add. All important in the business, and things I’ve somewhat neglected over the years.

As for personal stuff in 2024, well… cancer. Yeah, that’s still ongoing. The surgery was a success and now I’m doing immunotherapy infusions every 3 weeks until Nov 2025. No hair loss or loss of weight so far. My BP has been skyrocketing because of it, though. We’re getting that under control so they don’t spend all this effort kicking cancer’s butt only for me to go and have a stroke. You can write with cancer. Stroke? Not as easy.

The cats are doing well. Casper will be 16 next year, and Curly will be 10. It’s weird to think that Casper has been with me for 35% of my life. He’s still acting like he’s 5, though, and not some old man, so no complaints. He’s still cantankerous, still cuddly when he wants, though he no longer sits on my arm when I type anymore. The heating pad on his bed is his home most of the time these days.

How was your 2024?