Looking ahead

Took a little break from blogging to enjoy the Christmas holiday and am now back at it in full force.

What are you writing goals in 2008?

My writing goal is simple.

I will write 500,000 words of fiction in 2008 in any combination I damn well feel like. But I will record a half-million words. That is less than two thousand a day if you write five days a week.

In 2008, I will submit no less than 20 short stories for consideration to be published in magazines, webzines or anthologies. Five of these will be in genres other than mystery. Two will be a sub-genre of mystery I generally do not write.

I do have other goals sure to help my writing.

I want to read books by 10 authors I've never read before. Five of these cannot be mysteries. Three must be non-fiction.

I want to make myself healthier. I think healthy people are more productive people. That means more words.

About finished

It started off as a crime story set in a diner in the middle of the night. A really cool female sheriff - an homage to the police chief in Fargo -- would take care of things.

Then I took a hard left, though I didn't intend to.

My crime story has turned into a ghost story. No more Ghost Hunter marathons for me.

I think it is a good story...a darned good story. I'm kind of proud of it, particularly the character development, so we'll see how it does out there.

My favorites in FICTION from 2007

These are the best books I read in 2007. It's just what I read...some of these were published in other years...a few in other decades. I'll publish my non-fiction favorites in a few days.

These below are five I think are worthy of mention.

I think the best book I read was

The Watchman

by Robert Crais. In this book his sidekick to Elvis Cole, Joe Pike, takes center stage. There is family reconciliation, a bit of a weird love story and of course Pike kicking ass. It was Crais at his best and I loved the book.

I also read

Captain Alatriste

by the great Spanish historical mystery author Arturo Perez-Reverte. This man is a master of the language, just as Alatriste is a master at weapons. A great book, and a great start to what I'm certain is a wonderful series.

I also read and very much enjoyed

Fragile Things

by Neil Gaiman. I've said it before — Gaiman is the best short story writer alive today, and this collection supports my thesis.

I picked up the first novel by a very popular mystery writer this year. I'd never read Jonathan Kellerman before, but decided to try out

When The Bough Breaks

and was pleasantly surprised at the results. His main character, Alex Delaware, a psychologist, is a different type than I'm used to and very enjoyable.

Every year, I read again

Ender's Game

and it never fails to amaze me. A great science fiction novel.

Writing Instruments

Over the weekend I wrote a short story. It's an OK story, probably going to need some work before I can consider sending it out.

What is different is I wrote the story by hand.

And you know what?

I HATED doing that.

Most writers seem to wax poetic about switching from the keyboard to a handwritten manuscript, like there is somesort of magical connection between the brain, a hand, a pen and paper. Not for me.

The only thing I could think was "at some point you are going to have to type this thing up."

I grew up on keys. I wrote my first published article at at the age of 15 on a dedicated Brother word processor I purchased with birthday money (yes I'm a dork).

Yes, I can hand write a story. But was it magical? Hardly.