2016 Wrap-Up

So Cat Rambo—current President of SFWA and an absolutely amazing human being. Seriously, if you haven't gotten the chance to spend some time with her, even in passing, do it—posted on Facebook, encouraging authors to collect up everything they had that could be Hugo or Nebula or whatever-other-award eligible from 2016. And a lot of people have taken the call to action… myself included, as it turns out. I think it's a good idea, both from a professional standpoint—if you do the work for them, maybe they'll be more likely to read your stuff—and from a personal standpoint—look at how much I did this year, go me.

So yeah, it is a little chance for authors to pat themselves on the back… and the way this year has been so far, I think we could all use a little upper.

So, what did Voss Foster put out in 2016 (Please shoot me. I just referred to myself in the third person completely unironically.)?

BOOKS

The Inn (EvenstadMedia Presents #3): Book Three of my dystopian epistolary sci-fi series. I feel like this one was a big improvement from the second book, which for me is the weakest of the series so far. I'll openly admit that. It's not bad, but it's not the strongest book.

The Tunnels(Evenstad Media Presents #4): Book four of the same series. This is the midpoint of the whole series, and it does exactly what I wanted it to. The stakes really ratchet up on every side of a very multi-faceted conflict in this book, and it sets up a good run for the climax (Note: this is very uncomfortable, talking about my own books this way. FYI. I apologize for the bragging.).

SHORTS AND ARTICLES

Rifle in Hand (Horseshoes,Hand Grenades, and Magic): This is less a story and more a vignette. An old woman is called in for a job that the young soldiers just can't quite seem to get right. And, as with all the stories in the anthology, close enough definitely counts.

Ivory (Merely Thisand Nothing More: Poe Goes Punk): My retelling of some classic body horror (Poe's Berenice.). It's, to me, the most horrifying of all Poe's stories. Something about it is just chilling, and I was super-excited to get the chance to put a new spin on it. I won't say that I did it justice, but I'd like to think I at least managed a humble homage to one of literature's most talented masters.

I've Never Known aWorld Without Mass Shootings (Vox.com): This was my gut reaction to… everything. I started really looking into it after the San Bernadino shooting, and actually had a very early draft of the same article that I wrote just for myself at that point. It had finally become too much after that, and I had to do something. Writing is what I know. After Pulse in Orlando, I tossed it out into the world, and it really caught fire. I'm still proud of this one. I'm proud of all my work, but this one is really special to me, because it's so real and so raw.

Hii Shadir(Domesticated Velociraptors): Apparently 2016 was the year of the vignette, because this is skirting very close to that, as well. But with a concept as intriguing as "domesticated velociraptors," I couldn't very well pass up the chance to write for it.

In the end, 2016 was a pretty light year for publishing, but it was also the best financial year I've had since I started writing professionally. I feel like I made strides and am really in a good position for 2017. Also, I'm back to the crazy idea of undertaking the Bradbury Challenge. The whole thing: 1000 poems, 1000 essays, 1000 short stories, and a short story written every week. I've attempted this all in the past, but I'm determined. So keep me on track if you see me straying. By any means necessary.

Here's to 2017 being better… because it would have to try pretty hard to be worse…

Voss

Christmas Withdrawals

Yes, run for the hills right now if you so choose. I’m listening to Jingle Bell Rock as I write this… oh, it’s switching. Hold on. Dean Martin’s version of Winter Wonderland, now (I love Pandora. Have I mentioned that before? Because I do. I really, really do.)

Okay, this is sort of an odd post for me. We’ll categorize it as one of the posts where I get perhaps a bit too personal. Sound good? (Bing Crosby, Silver Bells, now.)

I’ve always liked Christmas. Ever since I was a kid. I mean, okay, most kids like Christmas so that’s not terribly unique, but I think I had a bit of a different experience with it. Not anything massively divergent, but different. We had three every year when I was younger, all the way up until I was in high school. We’d start with the immediate family, which was a pretty average Christmas. Some gifts, some family and food, some ornaments. A little of everything.

Then we’d go to my grandma’s house for Christmas with my mom’s side of the family. This was all about the food and the family and my aunt getting drunk on boxed wine and calling herself the queen of the party (I have photo evidence, but I’m not sharing it to protect the innocent… also to protect myself from her vengeance.).

Then we’d be rushing over to somewhere else either that night or the next morning to be with my dad’s side of the family. That was, to put it bluntly, the Christmas about presents. Not just for the kids, either. It’s not a big side of the family, per se, but my two aunts were pretty well off, so was another aunt, and the rest of the family wasn’t hurting for money, exactly. Honestly, we were the ones who really didn’t have that much money on that side (Frank Sinatra, I’ll be Home for Christmas.). That’s not to say that it was just material. It was a chance to see all the aunts and cousins you never got to run into outside of special occasions. We’d get to travel, there’d be a huge tree. It was about family, too. But I feel like I got to see three different sides of Christmas, and I feel like that let me examine things.

When I was a kid, I was selfish and materialistic. I mean, that’s pretty usual, I think. So I liked my dad’s side’s Christmas best. But as I’ve gotten older, that one means the least to me. That side had a falling out, and we kind of just stopped getting together on my mom’s side after grandma died, so I’m back to the middle of the road Christmas.

And that’s really the one that means the most to me now. The one with the best memories and the sort of “warm fuzzies” is the one from my mom’s side, where the most we got as gifts were calculators and homemade jam. That one still holds a very special place in my heart, and it informed my love of decorations and traditions (Ooh! Baby it’s Cold Outside with Idina Menzel and Michael Buble!). That’s honestly a big part of what I pine for this time of year. Santa Claus mugs and shiny baubles and tinsel all around the room with a big wood stove crackling.

But it is the one with the immediate family I want the most nowadays. My sister and brother-in-law and all their kids are back up here from Texas, which really helps. The house is packed, and we have all the bright shiny packages spilling out from under the tree every year to make sure the kids have plenty of things to open. And I personally take it upon myself to make sure everyone else has at least one gift to open. My mother instilled in me the importance of that. Everyone should have something to tear into on Christmas. Even if it’s just socks and T-shirts.

And I like giving gifts. That’s another thing. Around Christmas, I get to buy all these presents and really think about the people I love and figure out what it is they might want. Then I get to wrap them, which I also enjoy (Yeah, I’m weird.).

All this is preface for the actual point of this post, I guess. This took a turn I really didn’t expect, but we’re finally here: I’m ready. I’m ready for Christmas to be here (Holy crap, Pandora. You’re playing the original Mr. Grinch? Go you, and go Thurl Ravenscroft.). I’m always a fan of this time of year. I look forward to it. But this year it’s a stronger desire than I think I’ve ever had. I want it. I even want the parts I normally hate. I want to watch stupid shitty Hallmark movies that push Golden Girls out of their regular slot. I want the annual running of the Harry Potter movies. I’ve been pumping out Christmas music like crazy since about… well, a week before Thanksgiving.

I had to wonder why this was. Why did I want Christmas to be here quite this much? No, not even want. I need Christmas. I bought a candle that smelled Christmasy specifically so  could be immersed. I was desperate. I was having withdrawals for freaking Christmas, and they honestly haven’t improved much (Frank Sinatra, O Come All Ye Faithful.).

I think it’s 2016 that’s to blame. We can all acknowledge that it’s been a rough year. Bowie and Rickman, the election, global politics, and just a general shittiness that seems to be here this time around. I’ve never known a year where so many people close to me and my friends have died. It’s been an exhausting fucking year, but Christmas is something different. Because of us silly humans, this day is powerful. Powerful beyond measure. It can stop vicious wars in their tracks. It can bring out the inherent kindness of strangers. It can make even the glummest scrooge smile (I’m living proof of that.). I have a lot of bad things to say about people as a general rule. I don’t like most of them. But damn it all if we haven’t done something right with Christmas.

Past all the consumerism and materialism and profit profit profit, we’ve set aside basically an entire month of the year to devote to being kind and giving. I wish it was more than that, but we managed a month, and that’s something we should be immersing ourselves in.

Now, maybe you don’t celebrate. No judgment at all from here. I didn’t write this post to say that people who celebrate are in any way better. Christmas itself doesn’t matter as much as the feeling. Whatever and whenever you get that feeling is freaking amazing, but this is my experience with it.

So I’ll just be here with my advent calendar, egg nog, and candy canes, listening to Perry Como and wrapping my dogs in pretty ribbons. Because I’m really, really ready for Christmas to be here. And if it wanted to go all Groundhog Day for a week or so, that would be okay with me.

Voss

The One Where Voss Shares Too Much

(Sorry. Couldn't resist the Friends reference.)

The ground is covered in a sheet of snow, I have four half-drunk bottles of wine in my kitchen, and I keep scribbling out 2015 and correcting it to 2016. Seems like an average New Year to me. Although I’m really hoping not. I’m hoping for a kick-ass New Year this time around, and it appears to not be sucking totally right now (Knock on wood.).

Now, I’m going to give a hat tip to the elephant in the room before I continue on with things that are a little more fun. The third Evenstad Media book is coming, I promise. There was a bit of a snafu on the production side of things, so it’s going to be a bit delayed. Good news for anyone who needs to catch up, but bad news for anyone who’s been waiting for this one to release, so I do apologize. At the very latest, it’ll be out by mid-February, but a lot sooner if I get my way.

So, what about the year going forward? Well, Evenstad four is also on the docket, though I’m keeping it pretty well under my hat right now. Details will come when we get closer to the actual release date for that one (Some time this summer, unless gremlins gum up the works on this one, too. Here’s hoping not.). And, with The King Jester Trilogy totally finished at long last, I’ll be able to give some more focus to other ideas. Old ideas. Pretty ideas.

If you’ve been here for a while with me, you might remember the odd mention of Rings of Treachery here and there over the years. Well, it still exists, but I’ve vowed that I’m going to put it out this year, come hell or high water. In the interest of full disclosure, it’s currently out on submission with a publisher, so I should hear back within a few months… hopefully. If that works out, then I might have to bend a little on my schedule. Let’s say ‘published or contracted’ this year instead, yeah?

After that, depending on the phases of the moons and what the chicken intestines tell me (Or, you know, whatever I feel like), I could pick up a number of other projects. I have an old book about puppets that’s been weighing on my mind lately (Though that may just be because the puppet army is taking over Radcon this year…). Or I might turn to something a little less well-formed and see where that leads me, in the end. It’s really open. That’s what happens when a series closes off. Something that’s sort of filled your attention for months on end is finally gone, and you begin to see past it to what you can do next. Completely the opposite of reading a series. Then you just sort of feel lost and hungry for more books that don’t exist.

Or maybe that’s just me.

I’ll also be picking up on writing short stories again so I can spread tiny versions of my writing far and wide. Kind of like a plague, but slightly less deadly. Very slightly.

And when it comes to things in a non-writing sense, I’ve made some decisions about the year ahead as well. The main one is to have less anger and negativity. I tend to get rather upset with people, but it does me no good. So I’m working on it. Not to say I’ll turn all peaceful—anger is still an emotion and it’s still useful—but I’ll be more careful with how it comes out, and evaluate it more. See if it’s doing anything, or if it’s just causing me pain.

I’m also going to return to some of my other passions (This is where the part when the sharing begins. First and last warning.). I consider 2015 the year where I sort of got lost. There was really a lot of turmoil going on in my psyche at that point. I’d put back on all the weight I’d lost and shot back over 300 pounds. I wasn’t reading. I was even angrier than usual. I’d just moved away from most of my friends and family (It was really a good decision, but still. It’s hard no matter what.). I was readjusting, and things just started to drop off. I wasn’t reading anymore. I wasn’t singing anymore. I hadn’t played trombone in months and months. And eventually, that started to encroach on my writing. I hated doing it.

Eventually, I figured that I hated doing the actual writing work because I wasn’t doing anything else for myself. I used to say ‘If I’m not singing, then I know that something’s wrong.’ Except I ignored that advice and kept digging through the writing. The more I did it without anything else going on, the more I just hated doing it. And when I hated it, I hated myself a little more. The writing didn't suffer, just me.

Well, suffice it to say that’s over and done with, now. I’m not a New Year’s resolution kind of person, but I made some this year. Read more. Sing more. Make time for things that I’m passionate about. I still haven’t gotten around to belly dancing with any regularity again (Working on it.) and my trombone has only been out of the case once or twice in the past few weeks (And one of those times was to clean and oil it, so…), but it’s going to come. I’m determined not to fall into the Swamp of Sadness again this year.

Stupid horse…

So that’s my uncomfortable level of sharing. How about you? Are you taking 2016 as a chance to get shit back on track, or are you just going to continue to rock the socks off life? Let me know.

Voss