When it comes to my writing productivity this year has been curious. Earlier I sold my first novel to Flame Tree Press and that was exciting, thrilling, and informative. I look forward to the stages and processes yet to come, the cover reveals, and ultimately the book’s release early next year.

Now, you would think having achieved something that has been long sought after, fought for, and dreamt about would be a vitalizing incident spurring an explosion of creativity and output but it’s been rather the opposite. Every short story I attempted for months following the contract stalled and crashed. It seemed that I could start a story but following through to completion seemed impossible.

Last moth as we hurtled towards the deadline for the quarter for the Writers of the Future contest, something I will remain eligible to enter and win until early next year when the novel is published, it seemed I was going to have to skip entering as none of those accursed shorts would land instead of crashing. Then, with less than six days before the deadline a new idea burst in my skull. At first I had thought to rewrite an idea from many years ago but sudden inspiration transformed it into a new concept with wholly new themes. A furious several days passed and the story, this time, behaved, coming to a dark and hopefully satisfying conclusion.

Since that submission my creative energies have been growing and I have begun work on a new novel, tacking for the first time in a novel length work an alien as a central character. It would seem that the strange and mystifying dry period that followed signing the contract has ended.