I suppose 2014 was one of the strangest years I’ve had for a long while. After all, I entered it as a bushy-eyed eighteen-year-old starting the second term of my Psychology and Philosophy degree. And I seem to have finished it high in optimism and wisdom, but not so greatly in success. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve given up on writing by living in the moment.
So the reading… Thinking about it, I read more books than it seems to me at first glance, particularly in the summer. I was sent swooning with Leah Raeder’s Unteachable. I got my friend Yawatta Hosby’s One By One free and speedily read the horror/thriller. I found a new favourite mystery author in the late Kyril Bonfiglioli. I finished the last Skulduggery Pleasant book a week before Christmas and still find myself nodding at the conclusion to the bestselling series. Vicious by VE Schwab chilled and thrilled me and set me eagerly anticipated A Darker Shade of Magic, Schwab’s next book for adults. I cracked through two-and-half steampunk books: Soulless, The Iron Wyrm Affair, and I’m currently reading the wonderful Cindy Spencer Pape’s Steam and Sorcery. I hurtled my way through Aiyana Jackson‘s novella Encante.
I was also lucky enough to interview Cindy, which started off my Steampunk Spotlight for steampunk and alt-history fantasy authors on the blog. Apart from a couple of ‘paint jobs’, this was the only major addition to the blog – well, that and my WIP page, which keeps track of the novels I’m writing. Like, the big ones I know I’m going to finish, even if I never edit the blasted things.
I was one of the many Steampunks – or Victoriana-dressed people from around the world, to attend the Lincoln Asylum VI, the largest solely Steampunk convivial in Europe, run by UK’s own Victorian Steampunk Society.
Compared to some years, I have not written as much, in terms of quantity. Last year, I was rattling off all the novels and short stories, but this year has been one with more dips and curves than I expected. I started the year thinking about what might have happened after my short story in the Fauxpocalypse anthology, which came out in print mid-January.
In February through June, I wrote very little but focused on my editing, of mostly WTCB, but also OJAP, the YA murder mystery I first wrote when I was a youth.
I completed NaNo in July, and came out with my most impressive NaNo yet, at 73K. I’m currently adding bits to the Steampunk novel, Horology, before I send it to my Alpha reader and it’s definitely going to hit its 80K target.
In August, I made the mistake of swapping back to contemporary after a long stint of SFF writing, and started writing an NA contemporary romance set in a fictional uni. My writings from then on to the rest of year – before my academia took me away from being able to actually scribe things down at all – were thus centred, though I did have another attempt (in vain) of rewriting a short psychological horror about a lady who encounters some graffiti that may or may not be destined to cause her death.
I also started querying WTCB properly this year. How’s it going? I honestly couldn’t tell you. However, I did get into the agent round of Pitch Slam, and, boosted by that, I posted the premise of WTCB in gifs. It was fun. It has Sherlock, The Doctor, and Jack Sparrow.
Emotionally, I had a lot of big events this year, too. In February, for instance, I dyed my hair red to raise money (£120 to be exact of the final total) for the British Heart Foundation. I had red hair for a good three months before it completely washed out. Oh, how I missed my golden curls in the end.
Whilst finishing my first year at university was stressful enough, one of my good friends moved away. I lost my position as Social Secretary on the Quidditch team, but gained the role of Treasurer for the Swing Dance Society – and, for a while was even playing Secretary and President when my friends and colleagues where away. Around the same time, I got confirmed into the Catholic Church, and finally managed to put my trust in God.
Oh, and this happened:
I hope you had a good 2014 and a Merry Christmas. Happy New Year for tomorrow and may your 2015 be full of wonders, too.
Alexandrina Brant 
Seems like you had a productive year! (Hey, you wrote more fiction than I did!) I love the steampunk photos. 😀
Aha, thanks 🙂 Did I really write more than you?
Fiction, yeah. I talked about this in today’s post, actually – I don’t write a ton of fiction. I probably wrote more creative nonfiction than just about anyone else I know, but I didn’t write *too* many stories this year. 🙂
Oh right? That’s interesting. I mean, I do a little bit of creative fiction (eg. philosophy notes and abstract ponderings), but not a lot. I don’t have the time any more.
You have had a productive year, which I will try to copy for this year…being productive, I mean. I used to love writing short stories and blogs, but it all seems to have faded away as the sewing and creating has taken over.
Last year was a good one for steampunk outings and events, for us, but I have been very lax in writing about them…it seems that I have lost my writing hat! The Asylum was awesome as usual (sorry for the over-used ‘awesome’, but brain not in gear at the moment), and we actually got to Whitby Goth Weekend too, after wanting to go for the past few years. We are definitely going again in April, and accommodation is already booked…yay!
I guess I have had a productive year, though sometimes it doesn’t feel that way to me! I wish I had the skill and patience for sewing and creating, though. I loved woodwork and D&T when I was younger – but going to an independent girl’s school, subjects like that were not offered – but I never had any love for the Textiles class offered.
Are you planning to go to many Steampunk events this year? My boyfriend and I might go to April’s Whitby, but our group had a lot of stress travelling up for November’s, so we’re on the fence whether we want to do that again.