In this week’s episode, I look back to see how many of my writing goals in 2022 I reached, and I set some new writing goals for 2023. I also look back at my favorite books and games of 2022.
TRANSCRIPT
Audio file
Episode140.mp3
Transcript
00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 140 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is December 23rd, 2022 and today we’re discussing how many of my writing goals I hit in 2022 and some writing goals I have for 2023. We’ll also take a quick look back at some books and games I enjoyed this year and have a few questions from readers as well.
First up, let’s talk about where I am with my current writing projects. I had hoped to be done with the rough draft of Dragonskull: Talons of the Sorcerer by Christmas Eve (which is tomorrow when I’m recording this) but I only made it to chapter 18 of 21. So close but not quite. I would have made it, but I spent a lot of time over the last two weeks doing snow shoveling due to the bad weather. I think that soaked up enough or any time that I was not able to finish the rough draft of Dragonskull: Fury of the Barbarians before Christmas Eve. So the new goal is before New Year’s Eve. It’s another eve, so hopefully that counts. I am also 12,000 words into the book I hope to release in February, and I will talk about that a little more when I get to my writing goals for 2023.
00:01:12 Reader Questions/Comments
Before we get into our main topics, let’s have a few questions from readers. First Fluvia asks: I always look forward to your books. I’m curious. Are there any characters you miss writing? Third, for instance. Thanks. I’m glad you have enjoyed reading the books. In answer to your question, I miss writing nearly all of my characters, but then I do think it’s a good idea to try writing new characters from time to time to keep the brain fresh and the readers interested.
Our next question is from Natalie, who asks: are you planning to release the two most recent Silent Order in paperback? Yes, I am. I need to do the paperback versions of Silent Order: Rust Hand, since I forgot to do that last year and also Silent Order: Wreck Hand. I also have to get Cloak of Masks out in paperback as well. The reason I didn’t do that this month was because I always like to order a copy of the book first. After I make the paperback, I like to order a copy of the book first to make sure everything’s okay and nothing’s damaged and all the printing turned out and don’t like to do that in December because all the poor delivery people are overburdened as it is and the weather has been so bad lately anyway. In January, I will block off some time to sit down and do the paperback versions for Silent Order: Rust Hand, Wreck Hand, and Cloak of Masks, which I never got around to doing.
00:02:34 Favorite Books and Video Games of 2022
Before we get to our main topics, let’s take a look at some of the books and video games I enjoyed this year as we’re approaching the end of 2022. I thought I was going to do books, games, and movies, but I realized that if someone came up to me and said okay, books, games, and movies/TV shows, you have to get rid of one of them, I would probably get rid of movies and TV shows since I enjoyed books and video games much more. The two best movies I saw this year were Top Gun Maverick and then Father of the Bride, which I had never seen before and it’s really quite funny and quite moving and a very well constructed movie. It turned up on Prime so I watched it and it was really quite good. So those are the two best movies I watched this year, Top Gun Maverick and Father of the Bride.
Now on to books. My favorite books that I read this year, the first one would be The Icarus Plot by Timothy Zahn, which came out in July. It is a sequel to the Icarus Hunt, which came out like 20 years ago and was one of my favorite science fiction books of all time. The Icarus Plot is a sequel to the Icarus Hunt and continues the story in the adventures the story in the universe established in the Icarus Hunt. The premise is that in the future, interstellar travel is monopolized by an alien race called The Path who have a hyperdrive that’s faster than everybody else and this has led to resentments. A human archaeologist discovers a potentially faster star drive that could destroy The Path’s economic monopoly, so all sorts of intrigue and skullduggery abound, which continue in The Icarus Plot. Definitely recommended and the audiobook versions, which are read by Marc Thompson, are very good. If you are listening to audiobooks on your upcoming Christmas journeys, they’re worth listening to as well.
I also read The Law by Jim Butcher, which is a novella I believe he self-published that is a sequel to his ongoing Dresden Files series and deals with the aftermath of the big events in Battleground and Peace Talks, which he released back in 2020 during peak pandemic. It’s a very enjoyable little novella. I’ve written before and talked on the show about the trick of deescalating a long term fantasy and science fiction series and this is something that happens in The Dresden Files, since in the last couple of books here, Dresden has fought some seriously heavyweight foes. In this one he finds himself in a legal drama where his powers as a wizard and the Winter Knight are not so useful, and so he has to navigate the difficulties of that within the constraints of human law. A very interesting story and I would recommend it. I believe it’s in Kindle Unlimited if you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription, so you could be read that as part of your subscription.
I also read the Ice and Monster series by Peter Nealan. I’m not sure how to pronounce his name, so I took my best stab at it. The concept of this is that a group of Reconnaissance Marines on boats get pulled into a strange mist that transports them to essentially a fantasy world ruled by dark magic and monsters. And so the Recon Marines have to ally with the good forces in that world to fight the monsters. This is part of the long tradition of what’s called sort of portal fantasy, where people and protagonists from our world get transported to a fantasy world and have to take part in the conflict there. It’s a really enjoyable series of books as the Recon Marines deal with their own incompetent officers and the various treacherous and dangerous inhabitants of the fantasy world. And it’s not done yet. I am looking forward to the sequels.
Now on to the games I enjoyed most in 2022. According to Nintendo Switch’s Year in Review, the game I played the most of this year was Elder Scrolls Blades, which I enjoyed, but I can’t really recommend it because it is heavily laden with microtransactions throughout. If you are the sort of person whose psychology is vulnerable to microtransactions, then you definitely should not play this game because before you know it, you’ll probably find yourself putting $600.00 on your credit card for buying legendary chests and gem packs and all that. That said, I did not spend a single dollar on this game, which was nice, and I did enjoy the bite size nature of it. As you may have gathered from other episodes of the podcast, I have a lot going on and so often gaming time is quite constrained, but it’s nice to be able to pick up Elder Scrolls Blades and you know, playing for quick 15 minutes before continuing on with what I had to do that day.
I did beat the main quest without paying for any microtransactions, though it did take a long time to grind out the levels necessary to do that, which the game’s bite sized nature played with being helpful. It took me like 10 months to beat it and there are times where I set it aside and then long stretches where I would play a little bit at a time and then I gradually built up enough levels and equipment to finish the game. So I can say I enjoyed it, but I don’t necessarily recommend it.
One game I enjoyed and can recommend is Metroid Dread. Technically, that came out in October 2021, but I didn’t beat it until the end of February 2022, so I’m including that for this year. Metroid Dread is the latest installment in the Metroid series where you take control of the interstellar bounty hunter Samus Aran, and this time she’s on a mysterious uncharted planet where a mysterious armored figure traps her and she has to fight her way free past all sorts of monsters and obstacles and bosses while exploring the map and getting new weapons and all the other classic elements of the Metroid series.
I honestly think it’s tied with Super Metroid on the Super Nintendo for Best Metroid Game, and Metroid Dread has major advantages in terms of, you know, the improvements in technology over the 30 years since Super Metroid came out. The graphics obviously are much better. Controls are much smoother. Wall jumping in Super Metroid was a serious challenge that was difficult to do, whereas in Metroid Dread, it’s flawless and there are a couple of mini bosses like the corrupted Chozo soldiers you fight throughout the game are a lot easier to fight if you use wall jumping to bounce off the wall when they attack you. So if you enjoyed the Metroidvania style of games and you have a Nintendo Switch, I think you would very much enjoy playing Metroid Dread.
The third game I played most this year was the Diablo 2 remake for Switch. I’ve been playing that the last six weeks or so. I was playing when it came out at the end of 2021 and I got to the end of Act One and sort of hit a wall and could get past it and then I put it aside. But with Microsoft and Activision and the lawsuit and the Federal Trade Commission being in the news lately, that brought the Diablo 2 remake back to my mind. I reinstalled it on my Switch and started playing again and I actually enjoyed it more this time because Elder Scrolls Blades had sort of trained me on doing things bite sized.
You really can’t do that with Diablo 2, you know, play for a little bit, get a little experience, and gradually grind out levels. So this time I was able to get past Act One, and now I’m on Act Two of the game. This may have been the last good game what was left of Blizzard made before it was totally subsumed by Activision. In fairness, I hear the multiplayer experience on the Diablo 2 remake isn’t very good. It’s probably improved since it came out, but I have no interest in playing that and I’m not going to try it, so I can’t offer a definitive opinion. But if you want to play single player, it’s definitely a very enjoyable experience.
And the final game I enjoyed and would definitely recommend this year just came out on December 13th: the Master of Magic remake from Slitherine, and MuHa Studios. I got it the day it came out. Now that the game’s out, I can say I got in on the tail end of the beta program. I don’t know how much help I was as a beta tester because I got in the beta program in September and October when I was very busy and I had no time to play it. But I’ve been playing it since it came out and I really enjoy it. It’s a quite faithful remake of the old ‘90s Master of Magic with a lot of the rough edges sanded off. Some of the reviews were critical, saying that was copying Age of Wonders. The thing is the original Master of Magic came out first, Age of Wonders then came out, and then this is a remake of the original Master of Magic.
So saying the remake of Master of Magic copied Age of Wonders is like saying J.R.R. Tolkien copied the Elves and orcs of Lord of the Rings from World of Warcraft. There’s some chronological confusion that is going on there. So if you have a PC powerful enough to play the game, I definitely recommend it. It is a very heavy game in terms of RAM needed/amount of processing. I wanted to play it on my Surface Pro but my Surface Pro just doesn’t have the graphics hardware to handle it, so that’s not happening. I have been playing on my laptop at night which is good because it’s been like -10 and the laptop heats up so much that it’s a good way to stay warm without increasing the heating bill. So if you have played the original Master of Magic back in the ‘90s and I definitely recommend giving the remake of Master of Magic a try, I think you’ll enjoy it.
00:12:18 Main Topic: 2022 and 2023’s Writing Goals
But this isn’t Jonathan Moeller’s gaming podcast. This is Jonathan Moeller’s writing podcast. So let’s take a look at how I did with 2022’s writing goals and what I am hoping to achieve in the world of writing in 2023. I have to admit 2022 was my weakest year for writing since 2015, both in terms of words written and sales. Of course it wasn’t some great mystery as to why this happened, and nor was it from any one thing. It was the cumulative effect of a lot of different things, specifically and not limited to: traveling a long way for a funeral, a whole lot of home repair (including teaching myself how to do numerous things I had never done before this year but really, really, really needed to do this year), a hailstorm, a new roof, and considerably more travel than I had in 2020 and 2021 combined.
I know some people find travel energizing and even relaxing, but I don’t. I’ll travel happily for family and professional reasons when I need to, but I usually come home out of gas and takes a couple of days before I feel like myself again. The most humorous of my many home repair adventures was the squirrel. I’ve had squirrels get into the walls before, and once they’re in the walls, getting them out is an ordeal. Ask me how I know. Around September, the squirrels start looking for places to nest for the winter and one squirrel in particularly zeroed in on the front porch. Somehow the thing could sense every weak point in the porch and started gnawing to tunnel into it and because of the age of the house, if a squirrel gets through the porch, it’s going to find a way into the wall.
So three days in a row, I had to go out, replace porch boards, and paint them, and eventually the squirrel gave up and went in search of easier nesting grounds. So my nemesis had become a woodland creature like I was a Disney villain or something, but I had to trade writing time for home repair because I really didn’t want squirrels getting into the wall again and I’d say it was time well spent because there is not a squirrel in my wall right now as I’m recording this.
However, all that said, if 2022 was my weakest year since 2015, I still sold 2 1/2 times as many books in 2022 as I did in 2015. Perspective, ladies and gentlemen, is very important. So I had eight writing goals for 2022 and let’s see how I did with them.
The 1st goal: write 1,000,000 words of new fiction. That didn’t happen. I wanted to write a million new words, but for all the reasons I’ve explained above, I only made it to 814,000, which admittedly is still a lot of words. Granted, it’s only 81% of what I wanted to do, but 81% is still a passing grade. I mean, as we’ve seen from recent history, you can graduate from Harvard with an 81% average and have a long and prosperous career in government. So I’m not going to complain about hitting an 814,000 words, though I really would have wanted to get to 1,000,000.
My 2nd writing goal was to continue the Dragonskull series, and I did that. Dragonskull: Blade of the Elves, Dragonskull: Curse of the Orcs, and Dragonskull: Fury of the Barbarians all came out in 2022. I would have liked to have gotten one more Dragonskull out in 2022, but it didn’t work out. Dragonskull: Talons of the Sorcerer, assuming I get finished, will be my first book out in 2023.
My 3rd writing goal is to continue the Cloak Mage series. We actually ended up with a lot of new Nadia this year: Cloak of Iron, Cloak of Shards, Cloak of Spheres, and Cloak of Masks, so I had four new Nadia come out this year, which is pretty good. So that went pretty well. I’m hoping to start on Cloak of Dragonfire, the 9th Cloak Mage book, in February once Dragonskull: Talons of the Sorcerer is out.
My 4th writing goal of 2022 was to write a third Cormac Rogan mystery, and I didn’t do that one, I’m afraid. I got about 40% of the way into it and then set it aside to do other things. The problem is that, like everyone else in 2022, I’m concerned about money. Home repair and fighting off squirrels does not pay for itself, alas.
If I published a third Cormac Rogan book, I have a good idea about how much money would make. I also know that if I published a new Silent Order book, it would make five times as much. A new Nadia book would make 8 to 10 times as much, and a new Dragonskull book would make 10 to 12 times as much and all for about the same amount of work. That makes it really hard to justify spending that much time finishing the Cormac Rogan book, so I thought it was best to set the third Cormac Rogan book aside and do Silent Order instead. Maybe I will have a chance to work on it again at some point.
My 5th writing goal was to write the 11th Silent Order book, Silent Order: Rust Hand and unlike my previous goal, I actually did this one. In fact did it twice as well as I hoped. I ended up doing 2 Silent Order books, Silent Order: Rust Hand and Silent Order: Wreck Hand. The advantage of Silent Order books, from my perspective, is that they’re shorter and so easier to squeeze in when real life gets busy, which it did several times this year. I am hoping to start on Silent Order: Thunder Hand (that’s a cool title, I think) in February and as with the previous two books, I’ll squeeze it in what looks like I’m going to have a busy real life month, which undoubtedly will happen. Since a few people have asked, there will be a grand total of 15 Silent Order books to wrap up the series and Thunder Hand will be #13. So after Thunder Hand, we will have two more Silent Order books.
My 6th writing goal for 2022 was to finish the Frostborn series in audio. People have been asking for this to happen for years, since 2017 when the first Frostborn audiobook started to come out from Tantor and 2022 is the year we finally did it. Frostborn: The Dragon Knight and Frostborn: The Shadow Prison came out this year, finally completing the Frostborn series in audio, with the first five books excellently narrated by Stephen Crossley and the final ten books excellently narrated by Brad Wills. As an added bonus, Brad was also able to do Malison: The Complete Series in audio, which sold really well when the ebook version had a Bookbub back in November.
My 7th writing goal for 2022 was to finish Ghost Exile in audio and we did this as well. We had Ghost in the Inferno, Ghost in the Seal, Ghost in the Throne, Ghost in the Pact, and Ghost in the Winds. All came out this year and all of them excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. I need to sit down and total up how long the combined Ghosts and Ghost Exile series are, but I think it comes to like 220 finished hours. Looking back I did a lot of audio in 2022 and by autumn, combined with everything else that was going on in real life and that kind of became overwhelming. I have to admit for a while it seemed like I was forever behind and trying to get ahead, but we got through it and these excellent audiobooks are now available for you to listen to. I think I’m going to take a break from producing new audio books until spring or summer of 2023. A break from proofing audio books would be nice before I get back to it.
My 8th and final writing goal was health related for 2022. It was to lose 1 pound, which did not happen. I actually lost like 500 lbs. The problem was it was just the same pound I lost over and over and over again. So we’ll give that another try once the holidays are over and the giant plates of Christmas cookies are not sitting within easy reach. So those are my 2022 writing goals. I hit most of them, missed some, maybe I didn’t hit many of them as I would like, but it could have been much worse. So I’m grateful things went as well as they did, and that so many people read my books.
So let’s take a look at what I would like to do in 2023. I don’t think I’m going to set like any really big goals. The last two years have shown in the folly of long term planning, so my goals will be more along the lines of stay the course and don’t do anything stupid. I do want to try something new, which I mentioned earlier in the show, with the book I’m hoping to have come out in February, but more on that as we get through the writing goals.
Of my five writing goals for 2023, the 1st one is to write as many words as possible but try to hit 1,000,000 new words. The last time I hit 1,000,000 words in a year was 2020 when I did 1.27 million words. Of course, that was the year of the great coronavirus shutdowns and everything else connected with that, so there was nothing else to do but write and take Photoshop classes, as it happens.
I think I had 22 10,000 word days in 2020, whereas you know in 2022 I only had one. I also wrote the entirety of the Wraithshard series and about half of Dragontiarna in 2020, which seems crazy in hindsight. That was a lot of writing, like when you look back at the stuff you did in high school and college and wonder how you lived through that. That’s kind of how I feel about writing the entire Wraithshard series in 2020, though that was only two years ago. I would like, if possible and feasible, to hit over 1,000,000 words in 2023. We’ll see if that happens or not.
My 2nd writing goal for 2023 is to continue the Dragonskull series. The Dragonskull series will between eight to ten books long. It depends on how long book seven turns out to be, whether it will be eight, nine, or ten books. So I might finish it in 2023. We’ll see what happens. That’s not a promise. At the very least I definitely will continue it. Dragonskull: Talons of the Sorcerer should come out in January, if all goes well and I’d like the book after that to come out in March or April.
Ah, my 3rd writing goal for 2023 is to continue the Cloak Mage series, and if I could do a couple more Cloak Mage books out in 2023, that would be great. I’m going to start on Cloak of Dragonfire in February. I do have very specific ideas for the next few books, so I’m looking forward to getting them. Nadia is going to be very busy.
My 4th writing goal for 2023 is to continue Silent Order. I would like to at least get Silent Order: Thunder Hand out in 2023 and maybe the 14th book, if things work out that way. But again, if 2022 taught us anything, it was the folly of attempting to predict the future. So we I would hope I can get the Thunder Hand out and then we’ll see if I can get any other books in that series out.
My 5th and final goal for 2023 and one that I’ve alluded to already in the show, is write in a new genre of fantasy. I’m going to write a new genre of fantasy and I am actually 12,000 words into it. I realized that I haven’t created any new settings since 2017 when I started writing Silent Order. You could say that Mallison was a new setting, but was really part of the Frostborn universe and was integrated into Dragontiarna. In fact, this was kind of a prequel that Dragontiarna, so I don’t think it counts as an entirely new setting, so for my new genre of fantasy I decided to try writing a LitRPG book.
Let’s be honest, I played a lot of games so I have the background for it. Also LitRPG, Gamelit, and progression fantasy in general seem to be more popular with the younger generation than traditional epic fantasy and sword and sorcery, so I thought it’d be a good idea to try writing one. One of the keys to success as an indie author is to find the overlap on the Venn diagram between things that will sell and things that I enjoy reading and writing. LitRPG might fall into that category for me. We’ll see.
I have a specific sales figure in mind for the book to hit its first month. If the LitRPG books hits it, I will write sequels. If it doesn’t, it will be a standalone experiment I enjoyed. I think after 137 or so books I’m an experienced enough writer to pull off LitRPG. However, the other possibility’s also true that I’m too old to pull off a LitRPG, but we will find out when I write it. More details to come after Dragonskull: Talons of the Sorcerer’s done and I would like the LitRPG book to be out in February, if all goes well. And so finally, thanks for reading, everyone. I hope you enjoyed the books over 2022 and I am looking forward to writing more in 2023 (unless the squirrels get out of hand, of course).
So that is it for this episode. And in fact, that is it for this year. I thank you everyone for listening to the show over this year and I hope you found it useful and enjoyable. I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and that the new year gets off to a good start for you. If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform choice, whether Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all in 2023.
