Time for my annual review of the creative year. It’s always interesting to compare what I’d planned for against what actually came to pass. I always feel that when it comes to creativity, you’ve got to be prepared to roll with it a bit. Some projects won’t work out, while inspiration for others will blizzard in on you from the sides. As long as the results are good, I’m usually happy. The worst year is an empty year and 2017 certainly wasn’t that.
On the writing front, I didn’t publish many new stories, but I was really pleased with my near future surveillance-society novella, The Memoirist, which came out in the first third of the year as part of the new NewCon Press novellas series. My other new effort of the year was my weird psychological horror short story, The Insider, which was published in Imposter Syndrome, an anthology already gaining high praise.
I had a few nice reprints too. An old, old piece of mine, Amber Rain, was selected for Elasticity: The Best of Elastic Press and Foreign Bodies made it into the Best of British SF 2016 anthology. And I made my first US sale in a while, with Silk Bones being reprinted in the November issue of The Dark.
But the most satisfying news on the writing front was that I completed Queen of Clouds. Fingers crossed that others like it as much as I do!
Writing plans for next year? Well, I’ve already started a new novel and there should also be a new novella kicking about before too long. A handful of anthologies have invited me to submit short stories and, following on from a lovely chat at this year’s Helsinki Worldcon, there might be something a bit different on the way sometime in 2018 too.
So, it all looks as busy as ever for the next year.
On the music side of things, De Saw and Finkle did fewer cabaret gigs in 2017, but the ones we did do were pretty excellent. Including, Anatomy at Edinburgh’s Summerhall, Shoreline of Infinity’s event at the Edinburgh Book Festival, and getting to create a new and slightly creepy inversion of the Peter Pan story for Night At The Museum, held in Glasgow University’s Hunterian museum in November.
On a more melancholy note, 2017 was the year we decided to officially call it a day with Murnie. The band had become a sidelined by work, family and other life commitments and it seemed the right time to draw a line and be proud of all we achieved over the years.
On the converse of that, I’m not going to stop songwriting, so I’ve got a couple of plans on the burner which I’ll announce at the start of the year.
Funnily enough, I started this post thinking it’d be quite a short one this year, and lookit!? Here’s to the next bunch of stuff coming your way in 2018 whether you like it or not**!!!
**But I hope you do like it, and if you *do*, drop me a line and let me know!
ayeahmur 