New Year Post
It'll be nothing special. Just want to wish all a happy new one and then work on a few things for CSNI. Speaking of my crime fiction blog, that seems to have been one of my greatest successes this year. Funny, because I started it up with nothing in mind but to increase my web presence and track my crime fiction reading. In nine short months I've been sent a shitload of free books, almost all of them brilliant, and been in touch with so many excellent writers. I've gone out to more readings and signings to have something to write about and had some great face-to-face chats with writers I've been reading for years. I've also been interviewed in newspapers, on the internet and on the radio off the back of it. I'm wondering if this is all a sign. Maybe I should take the fiction writing a lot less seriously and just see what happens in the new year. It's worked for CSNI.

On the writing front, I haven't finished a novel this year, but I have written and sold a number of short stories, written a stage play and a screenplay. And I won funding for the screenplay and was invited to edit both a non-fiction and a crime fiction collection, each of them crime themed. That'll do me, thank you, muse.

This year, I've been frustrated by a big publishing disappointment, and a failure to sell Piranhas. But I've taken all my knocks on the chin and still have a glimmer of hope for 2009, despite the doom and gloom of the credit crunch/recession. I feel like I've learned to take my knocks, and though those rejections still sting, I'm getting over them quicker and learned that I need to keep on trying.

As for the wee Brennan family life, my kids are great, my wife still loves me and this week of increased clan-time has helped me appreciate how lucky I am.

In 2009, I plan to generally exude cool. Any writing achievements I pick up along the way... well, that'd be gravy, man.

Happy New Year, peeps.