I was all set to publish this on the last day of the year and enjoy the fireworks … and then ended up with the flu. If that’s not indicative of the past 2 crazy years, I don’t know what is!
In thinking about what I wanted my last post of the year be, I quickly decided to go with a year in review. To look back at what this year meant for my writing and take a moment to reflect. For anyone who would like to support my writing, consider buying my first novel:
| Lambda – Kindle | Lambda – Paperback |
|---|---|
| United States of America | United States of America |
| United Kingdom | United Kingdom |
| Germany | Germany |
| France | France |
| Spain | Spain |
| Italy | Italy |
| Canada | Canada |
| Netherlands | |
| Australia |
If you’ve been following my blog posts, you know that overall I’ve written less in the past few months. And the two main reason for that are contained in the header image of this post. The two little mischievous devils that go by the names of Diana and Buttermilk Biscuit. Love them. They are terrible.
Anyway, here’s the topics I want to reflect on:
- Lambda
- Deathway
- Space, Time, and the People in Between
- Webpage Redesign & Blog
Lambda
The year 2021 marked my first ever published book. Digital version on this webpage first (available here), followed by a paperback and kindle release as well. This is kind of surreal to me, as I’ve been trying to get it done, more or less seriously, for about 7 years. With lots of life changes that I went through, there was a chance for it to never exist at all. Just like my writing attempts from close to 20 years ago, from my early teens.
To be honest, there are a few things that I should have changed. For my first book, it’s undoubtedly too long. I also had too many characters that I tried to squish all in one book. That all stems from some commitments that I made to myself. Essentially, I didn’t just want to finish a book, I had a set idea on how many chapters I want it to be, how long(ish) they should be and so on.
I also didn’t plan ahead on where the story was going to be headed. For better or for worse. I considered doing a complete rewrite, but that got me stuck in limbo with the book too. So instead, I just revised and polished. I do think I managed to decently patch it up all together, but it’s definitely taught me a thing or two on how to plan for my next book.
Overall, could the Lambda have been better? Sure! I don’t think any writer, musician or artist in general is ever infinitely proud of their first work. It’s important as a starting point though. And for that, I am immensely proud and happy. That chapter of my life, concluded.
Deathway
When it comes to my second book, Deathway, I think it ended up being a much more cohesive book than Lambda. The experience that I learned writing and thinking about that one has undoubtedly affected me writing this second book. It is also shorter by quite a lot (again, realizing Lambda was just too long), and hopefully, more engaging and overall better!
With what I learned from before, I was able to come up with the idea, organize my thoughts, write this book, make the subsequent first edit, and publish it on my webpage all within the same year! My plan was to return to editing it some more and perhaps even get it into a paperback / digital sellable version, but that didn’t happen (thanks puppies!). But hey, that’s what 2022 is going to be for!
I really enjoyed writing it and I hope you will enjoy reading (over here)!
Space, Time, and the People in Between
The short stories have a special place in my heart. This is where my creative writing in English started all those years ago, before I began writing Lambda. I finally re-read over my old short stories and rewrote them. I kept the character names and some ideas, but otherwise they have been completely refreshed. 4k resolution remaster with less bugs, making them more in line with my current writing capabilities. I also conjured quite a few entirely new short stories.
To me, this all represents a continuation and reexamination of my work that I wanted to do for a while now. Achievement unlocked!
The styles, genres and just overall tone of them is quite different and they are way more digestible than a lengthy novel. With that said, they 15 stories available here will become a published book in other formats (under the name Space, Time, and the People in Between), hopefully / probably in 2022.
Webpage Redesign, Blog & More
Also this year, as I was uploading more and more stuff on my webpage, I learned the hard way how some of the page organization that I’ve made was becoming really unmanageable. I also wanted (and this is something that I keep striving towards), to improve the readability of my webpage and its content. Naturally, that included some redesigns, as well as deciding on my tagline and a logo. I am not sure if anyone else really cares about any of this, but hey, it’s important to me!
If I had more money, I’d invest it in a paid plan with wordpress.com (I like their solutions and the advantages it brings over another hosting site with wordpress.org installed) and include some plugins and fancier settings and whatnot. Maybe one day. For right now, I’m limited to what the free plan allows me to do (and only pay for the domain) and honestly, even that is fantastic!
I have also tampered with the blog and had some weekly updates, but finally deciding on monthly ones instead. Both because that way I can more easily keep up with them, as well as take the time to insert some images and so on. I will undoubtedly continue this trend into 2022.
I was also (for the most part) effectively kept up with 30 second reviews. I think I haven’t quite yet found the perfect way to summarize it, but I’m getting there. And I’m having fun doing it, so, there’s that!
Finally: Thank you everyone for reading! Have a happy new 2022!
Tomo Umer 
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