My 32nd birthday is dead ahead…September 4th to be exact. Every year as my birthday closes in, I begin to reflect on the previous year. Not sure why I do this on my birthday and not New Years, as most people do, but I just do.
Lots of things have happened over the past year from 9/4/08 – 9/4/09:
- My first novel was published in November 08.
- Several short stories were published during this time.
- One of my stories was optioned for a short film.
- The reach of my writing started to move out from the Ohio area to the rest of the country and now beginning to pick up steam overseas.
- A short story collection was completed and sent to the publisher for consideration (still awaiting word on this).
- Completed a novella about a ‘doctor that makes a house call’ which will be one of three novellas written by three horror authors and packaged into one book.
- And other various business and personal happens – some were not so good and some turned out great!
All of this makes me think about the upcoming year and what I want to have accomplished when the big ’33’ comes around in 2010.
My goals (as far as writing is concerned) are as follows:
- Finish my novel-in-progress that I had to put on the back burner when Night School was accepted for publication (it is about a classic monster with a vary unique twist and parts of it are probably some of the most hardcore and best written stuff I have ever done).
- Continue to pitch movie ideas to a certain major film studio.
- Watch the short film (based on my short story) ‘Cake Batter’ come to life on the screen after it is finished shooting in the coming months.
- Continue to work with Shadetree Films to produce more short stories and potentially a feature length film.
- Besides finishing the aforementioned monster novel, I would also like to write two additional novels on top of that.
- Would like to see the short story collection picked up. If not, I will more than likely break apart a great collection and begin to submit them individually to various magazines.
- Submit the 3-novella book to publishers and hopefully get it picked up.
- And I’m sure there will be a few short stories and maybe another novella mixed in there as well.
Whew! Sounds like a lot of work ahead of me, huh?! Well, perhaps it is. But, I also know that I need to start pushing myself harder than ever and really start to turn out some material over a relatively short period of time.
Those are my thoughts for now. And since I’ve heard from a few of you about getting/sending me something for my birthday, feel free to shoot me an email and depending on what it is (ha ha), I’ll respond with my mailing address.
Ty Schwamberger 
That does sound like a big pile of cool. Good stuff.
Wow, sounds cool, mate. Bravo.