The time has come once again to look back at the past year, and I’m happy to say 2007 was pretty damn great.

My job went from contract to permanent, I got a raise, my wife and I bought our first house, and all the kids in our neighbourhood are convinced I’m Spider-Man. Everyone in our respective families is healthy. Thor dropped a few pounds, and I managed to pack a few on, which is a good thing. Coolest of all, Kathryn and I became aunts and uncles for the first time (but surely not the last).

Yeah, 2007 was pretty decent.

In terms of writing, I look back at 2006 and see it as the year where I did a lot of work with not much to show for it. A handful of acceptance and only a single published story — “The Tattletail” in Dark Wisdom. 2007, on the other hand, has been much more fruitful.

This past year I wrote more stories and kept the sales coming, but I also started seeing the fruits of my labour. A number of stories I sold in 2006 finally saw publication in 2007. Here are this year’s tallies:

Stories published:

• “The Black Tree” in 55 Words
• “Everything Gets Bigger After Nuclear War” in Fall and Rise
• “Charlotte’s Frequency” in Horror Library, Volume 2
• “Winter Hammock” in Revelation 4:1
• “Twillingate” in Salt
• “Wood” in Black Ink Horror #2
• “Autumn Burns” in Writers Post Journal
• “The Man from the Currents” in Touched by Wonder
• “Relaxed Best” in Not One of Us #38
• “Intervention” in Shred of Evidence

Stories written:

• “The Black Tree”
• “The Bottle”
• “The Nanny”
• “Waterfront”
• “Temporary Monsters”
• “Swing”
• “Gone”
• “Pink Fields”
• “The Cat”

It’s true, I didn’t write as many stories in 2007 as I did in 2006, but then quality is always better than quantity, and I feel one of the stories, a long one called “Temporary Monsters,” is the best thing I’ve written to date. My wife feels the same way, and although she is somewhat biased, I can tell you she has absolutely no qualms about telling me when something I’ve written should be lining our cat’s litter box. So her praise means a lot.

In some ways it seems like it wasn’t a very productive year, but then I can’t argue with the facts, which say that I made a lot of progress in 2007. I do feel my writing is getting better, tighter and more focused, honed like a knife. I supposed that makes some sense. Writing is like a muscle, and the more you exercise it, the stronger it becomes. But it’s more than that. I feel like my writing has gone up a level or two. I look back on older stories I’ve written and their flaws are apparent to me. I can see how I could change them to make them better. I take that as a good sign.

As some of you already know, I’m kind of fastidious about my story stats. I keep track of everything: submissions, acceptances, rejections, withdrawals. I like to compare stats from one year to the next, and as you’ll see below, I’ve come a long way in a fairly short amount of time.

The following are the stats for 2007. The figure in parenthesis is the total amount for the whole five years I’ve been sending out stories.

Stories submitted in 2007: 120 (284)

Stories accepted in 2007: 9 (20)

Stories rejected in 2007: 106 (224)

It’s kind of frightening that of the 284 total rejections I’ve received, almost half of them are from this past year. Of course, it’s not that much of a surprise considering that I started out in 2002 with only three or four submissions for the year, and only 10 or 12 for the whole of 2003. It’s only been in the last two or three years that I’ve had a large number of stories in circulation. The plan now is to keep them moving around until they get sold. I still plan to write more short stories in the future, but the focus of 2008 will be getting my novel finished. Short of contest and anthology deadlines, I plan to work on nothing else.

In terms of networking, this year I discovered several online venues to promote my writing, such as MySpace, Facebook, and LiveJournal. Most important of all, I attended the World Horror Convention in Toronto and met a number of wonderful people: R.J. Cavender, Boyd Harris, Bailey Hunter, and the rest of the crew from the Horror Library; the lovely and talented Fran Friel; fellow writer (and my date for the Stoker Awards) Ally Bird; Gary Fry and Gary McMahon; Tim Lebbon, Pete Crowther, Ellen Datlow, and many others.

Probably the best part of the convention was finally meeting the Canadian writers whose careers I’ve been following for so long. Robert J. Sawyer, Gemma Files, Brett Alexander Savory, Sandra Kasturi, Michael Kelly, and Douglas Smith. I’m probably missing a name or two, so I apologize if I left you out. It was a wild weekend.

I also received a few reviews of my work this past year, all of them positive, which I know is just a fluke. There are bad reviews in my future, but I’m not too worried about them. Everyone gets them. It’s all part of the game. I can’t say I’m looking forward to them, though.

My writing attitude is probably the only thing that hasn’t changed in the past year. If anything it’s gotten stronger. More than ever I feel this is what I’m meant to do with my life. I love to write, I love to tell stories, and since I work in pretty much every single genre, I feel that my work is extremely accessible and has the capacity to entertain a wide audience. My plan now is to get my name out there, build a reputation, and maintain it. I still feel I’ll be able to make a living from my writing one day.

Sure, I haven’t won a single writing contest I’ve submitted to, I’m not getting invited to any closed anthologies, and I haven’t finished my novel yet, but I feel those things are coming. If it was easy everyone would do it, and it wouldn’t feel nearly as good when I do make it. I just have to be strong, positive, and patient.

I bought a new computer this year. I was due for one, but I’m also taking the opportunity to start fresh. A cleansing process, if you will. New computer, new year, new novel. That’s my slogan for 2008.

Thanks to everyone who has been following this website, those of you who have been here since the Lit Noir days and those who stumbled upon the site just recently, those of you who post comments and those of you who lurk. I really appreciate your support.

I’ll do my best to keep you up to speed and entertained in 2008. More writing news, more photos, and more fake-reindeer attacks.

In short, everything you’ve come to expect from me so far.

Have a great New Year, folks.

See you on the flip-flop.

• Currently reading: "The Apprentice's Guide to Modern Magic," by Craig Davidson