It’s an odd feeling, that first time you measure a major thing in life by a decade.
While I’ve had an insatiable love for books since first I can remember (what 8-year-old reads “The Lifecycle of Lobsters” for fun?), and my first attempt at a novel at age 10 resulted in 3 pages of double-spaced, handwritten prose about space pilots using lasers to defeat a giant computer (genius!), I distinctly know that my decision to make a lifelong pursuit of the writing career happened in my sophomore year of college. 2002. And it being 2012 means 10 years have passed since.
What’s happened since then?
A lot, to put it succinctly.
Less succinctly….a loooooooooooooot.
Ahem. Let’s break it down, shall we?
- I’ve written over a dozen manuscripts (three being part of a trilogy), most between 80-100k wordcount. I count most of these as “apprentice” novels.
- I attended the NYU Publishing Institute and, through that, worked several years at Simon & Schuster, getting a firsthand look at how publishers work.
- I worked with one agent for a year, and have now been with my current one for 1.5 years.
- I’ve had 6 short stories sold and published. (not a ton by some measures, but I haven’t focused on them much)
- I’ve attended numerous writing conferences and fan conventions, and, in the course of those, have met countless other writers, authors, agents, and editors.
- I began a column for speculative fiction news, book reviews, and author interviews.
- I established a website that compiles many writing and publishing resources.
- After several years of portfolio-building, I began freelance writing and editing full-time.
And that’s all just the writing/publishing focused stuff. It doesn’t take into account all the other big “Life” events, like my getting married, moving numerous times, my variety of day jobs, etc. Yow.
There are some milestones I’ve yet to reach, some goals I’m still working towards. Finally getting a book published is a big one, along with attending cons as an author, and I hope to see more growth in my freelancing. Right now, I’m just wondering what the next 10 years have in store.
Let’s find out.
Many congrats on your first decade Josh; I can only say it's been a pleasure to have been a beta for some of your excellent stories (I make it only 5, so where are the others, buddy? :-)) and a huge to boost to me to have you critique my stories. Let's keep at it!