What sort of year was it?

It hasn’t been a bad year overall. Deb and I remained relativelyhealthy as we both hit 60, celebrating with our big trip to Scotland andIceland.

We saw movies and plays, visited museums and libraries, and traveled to see family and friends. Throughout the year, we’ve upgraded portions of the townhouse, notably the Master Bathroom, but Deb also took over the front room and turned it into her craft room, allowing her to spin, weave, and knit with pleasure.

Sadly, we lost Ginger in August. She had a heart defect and were told in the spring she had six to eighteen months left. That turned out to be wrong and we had just four. On her final day, she knew it was time, as did we. That has not made it any easier and when Deb travels, the house is all the emptier.

I had to ability to attend the usual assortment of areaconventions and make a pilgrimage back to the Star Trek Set Tour for an Authors’ Weekend in June. Then in July, Iorganized a big outing for authors post-Shore Leave, taking in the GoddardSpace Center, the National Air & Space Museum, an Orioles game, and theMaryland Science Center (rumor is, everyone had a good time).

I seem to have started a second (third?) career as onstage interrogator, having twice been invited to chat up William Shatner and John Cusack after screenings of their classic films before auditoriums full of fans.

And I wrote. Apparently, I wrote and edited quite a bit. Curious,I checked my records and came up with the following.

By the Numbers:

50 reviews for ComicMix

25 columns for Westfield Comics

16 introductions for Eagelmoss’ Star Trek Graphic Novel Collection

3 books edited in Valerie J Mikles’ The Disappeared series

11 volumes of back cover copy for various DC Comicscollected editions

3 sets of essays (plus a timeline) for DC Comics’ Crisis Companion trilogy

2 books written in the 100Greatest Moments series

2 stories for Crazy 8 Press anthologies

2 essays for ATB Publishing’s Outside In series

1 article for BackIssue!

1 article for RetroFan

1 essay for AnotherFine Day in Gotham Vol. 1

1 oral history of Shore Leave for its 40^thAnniversary

1 introduction to a Spanish Batman club’s memorial to NormBreyfogle book

1 book edited for Dynamite

1 project to edit started and canceled

Okay, that’s a lot more than I expected. Not bad for a guywith a fulltime teaching gig.

What you don’t see is much in the way of fiction. I’ve beenstruggling with that a lot over the last few years. I have ideas andhalf-completed outlines or projects but the passion, the fire-in-the-belly youhear so much about – that’s been absent. It tugs at me, but not with the samedegree of urgency it used to and I wonder about that.

On the one hand, 2019 will be busy with more books in the 100 Greatest Moments series (more on thatsoon) and a handful of short story commitments, but I know I am holding back mypartners in the ReDeus series andthat makes me feel like a failure. Yeah, I continue to dwell on the incompleteor possible projects rather than take pride in the list above. Go figure.

So, how was your year?