My Writing Year: A Look Back And A Look Forward

This past year has been an interesting one for me, being both productive and unproductive.

How so? Well, I wrote the least amount I ever have under my own name in a long time, coming out with just two books in 2021. This is due to getting a lot of ghostwriting work. While remunerative, it kept me from doing as much as I would have liked under my own byline.

I still wrote a lot. Although I once again missed my goal of writing a million words in a year, I did get well past 900,000 and made the most money I ever have in this career or my previous one, so that was nice.

I did come out with two books under my own name. The first was Flight to Fez, the third book in my Interzone Mystery series. The second was The Case of the Asphyxiated Alexandrian, book five in my The Masked Man of Cairo historical mystery series. So a good year for mysteries!

What's coming up in 2022? My ghostwriting work is still going strong, and I have managed to get on a saner publishing schedule that will allow me to build up my own career a bit more. My new year's resolution is to write 1,000 words a day of my own stuff. A trio of short prequel novels for The Masked Man of Cairo series are in the works, as are two new series. These are Tech Scavengers, a space opera series, and an as-yet-untitled mystery series set in Weimar Berlin. I'd also like to squeeze in book 5 of Toxic World, titled Election Day. If you have any preferences about what you'd like to read next, tell me in the comments section!

You can follow my progress with the word count bars to the right and also by signing up to my newsletter.

It's going to be a fun year!

My Writing Year: A Look Back And A Look Forward

The year 2020 is gone, and I'm sure none of us are sad to see it go. Hopefully 2021 holds out more promise with vaccines and the chance to live our lives fully once again. Here in Madrid we had worse lockdowns than most, but that didn't affect my writing. In fact it helped, because I had fewer distractions. Nothing like writing to stave off boredom and cabin fever!

This was a good writing year for me. My ghostwriting career has taken off with a great new client, the return of an old one, and the regulars staying with me. Demand for ebooks has gone up massively this year and because of that I'm getting more work than ever before. The sales on my own books rose as well. It's never been a better time to be an indie writer.

While my income has risen, my word count is almost the same as 2019. I set myself an annual goal of a million words. I've never made that goal, but having a tough goal makes me work harder. I got 947,000 words written in 2020. Not bad but still well shy of the million mark. I'll make it some year!

I also reached the milestone of writing my 50th novel. I'm now hard at work on numbers 52 and 53. There's no secret to this. I just keep plugging away every day and the novels pile up. I know a lot of writers who have written far more than I have.

The increased demands of my ghostwriting career has meant that I haven't gotten as many of my own books out in 2020 as I would have liked. At least I added a fourth book to the Masked Man of Cairo series, The Case of the Karnak Killer. I also added a short story collection to the Toxic World series, Tales from the Toxic World.

Both series will see new novels in 2021. I'm also researching a new mystery series set in the Weimar era, and have various other projects in the works. You can check my progress in the right-hand column of this blog and stay in touch via my newsletter.

I hope you all are staying well through this pandemic. I've gotten off easy, not having lost any loved ones or my job. So many others have it worse. Stay safe and get vaccinated as soon as you can!

Tales From The Toxic World Out Now!

Toxic World fans, the wait is over! 

The latest installment in the series is out--Tales from the Toxic World. Here are nine stories featuring some of the most popular characters in the series, plus new characters and a town the citizens of New City have no idea exists! This collection expands the Toxic World setting. The fifth novel in the series, Election Day, will come out next year.

A scavenger with a wondrous artifact from the Old Times sets out to avenge his past …
The sheriff of a post-apocalyptic shantytown investigates a baffling murder …
Two fishermen in a toxic sea make a startling discovery …
A peddler has to compromise his faith to help others and not end up dead …
Here are nine stories from a grim future that’s all too possible. The world has been destroyed by war, pollution, and environmental degradation. Now only a few lonely outposts struggle to keep the light of civilization lit amid vast toxic wasteland filled with human predators.
This collection is a long-awaited addition to the popular Toxic World post-apocalyptic science fiction series. It’s sure to please fans and newcomers to the series alike.

You can buy Tales from the Toxic World here. 

To get it FREE, sign up for my newsletter, Sean's Travel's and Tales, the latest issue of which is coming out later this week. There will be a coupon in there for your free download.