It’s that time
of the year again when we’re going through the past year’s accomplishments and
list the highlights.
On the writing
front:
16 short
stories written + one novella
Stories
published in 2012 available on-line:
- "Periuţa, bat-o vina...", Gazeta SF, no. 18, June, 2012
- "Afacerea secolului", Nautilus, no. 53, June, 2012
- "Printre heliotropi şi zâmbete", Suspans, no. 24, May, 2012
- "Seminţe de înţelepciune", Nautilus, no. 51, April, 2012
- "O oră de iubire", Nautilus, no. 49, February, 2012
- "Invazia", Moshul SF, January, 2012
One English story sold for EvolutionVol. 2, available as ebook as well as print edition.
There was
supposed to be one more anthology published this year, but it was delayed. And
no, the zombie anthology is still not out. That’s all right, it means there’ll
be three anthologies featuring my stories next year, if everything works well.
My own Romanian
story collection was postponed for spring. Still no signed contract, so we’ll
see.
There was one
other project I sent texts for, but no idea what’s the status of that one.
To shake thing
up a bit, I got into self-publishing and I’ve got two titles published already:
- an
apocalyptic novella: Human Instincts, June, 2012
- a paranormal
story collection: Blue Moon Café Series: Where Shifters Meet for Drinks,
December, 2012
Next in line,
it’s a vampire novella, The Impaler’s Revenge.
What I didn’t
get to do is write a new draft for book 1 in Stolen Wings Prophecy series and
finish book 2, but, well, there’s always next year.
And to brag a
little, I was nominated in the Debut category at ROMCON 2012, won my second
AtelierKult contest, and was awarded second prize at Helion contest. Hmm, does
this make me an award-winning writer? I don’t know about that.
But enough
about writing, let’s talk about reading. It takes less effort, and it’s just as
fun.
87 books read
this year out of which 54 read on e-reader.
My Kindle turned out to be a great investment. And I’m getting a little
better at not finishing books I don’t enjoy reading. I put down about 5 with no
intention to get back to them.
Best books read
in 2012:
Among Others –
Jo Walton
Mechanique –
Genevieve Valentine
The Shadow of
the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Leviathan Wakes
– James S. A. Corey
Drowned Cities
– Paolo Bacigalupi
Before They Are
Hanged – Joe Abercrombie
Caliban’s War -
James S. A. Corey
The Last
Argument of the Kings – Joe Abercrombie
Consider
Pheblas – Iain M. Banks
Dark Tower 4:
Wizard and Glass – Stephen King
Wool 1-5 – Hugh
Howey
Ready Player
One – Ernest Cline
Mistborn. The
Final Empire – Brandon Sanderson
Moving on to
music…
Best music
albums of 2012:
Leonard Cohen –
Old Ideas
Garou – Rhythm
and Blues
Matchbox 20 –
North
Muse – The 2nd
Law
Les Miserables
2012 OST
Movies – Err,
I’m drawing a blank here… I’ve seen tons of movies, but nothing memorable comes
to mind. I miss movies with an intelligent dialogue, I haven’t seen one in too
long. One thing is clear, 3D movies are still crap plot-wise. And The Dark
Knight Rises was not as good as expected. Prometheus, Total Recall, John
Carter, Bourne, Skyfall, The Hunger Games were all sort of disappointing too.
But we loved Brave, which shows that we’re all kids at heart. Now I’m overly
excited about Les Miserables and I can’t wait to see it.
There’s no news
to report about work. Things are starting to pick up a little after the last
slow year. No new website, but Absolute Skating is keeping me pretty busy.
Health wasn’t
so great, unfortunately. I began the year with IV’s because of my stomach and
then in the summer I had the worst bronchitis in the last ten years. I needed
shots and three types of antibiotics to get over it. Whoever said that only
geniuses catch cold during summer was terribly mistaken. You have to be an
idiot to move from 35C to 15C and expect things to be just peachy.
The worst part
of it is that it happened just before going away on vacation so I spent the
first half of it still recovering and unable to fully enjoy the trip. But we
spent two lovely weeks in Venice and Florence and, if we ignore my health
condition, it was great.
Update on the
mutant cacti: four of them are still alive, though only one kept the colored
top on. Once we moved them on the windowsill to enjoy the sun, the red top one
let its top die, while the purple top one spent the entire summer blooming like
crazy. Go figure!
I’m still proud
of my new bookshelves, even if they’re fully loaded with books and threatening
to fall off the wall. I’m slowly plotting to have another set built next to
them, but maybe next summer.
We were running
a little late with the Christmas preparations, still in the end everything was
fine and we’ve been having guests ever since. Fun. We’re also having lots of
snow, which is a nice change even if it was really cold for a while.
And here we
are. Happy New Year everyone!
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