Wow. What an amazing year this has been for me. I had some great visits with family, my relationship with my partner continues to improve upon perfection, we’ve all had good health, and I feel like I learned a heap over the past twelve months.

The highlight of the latter has to be the book adventure I launched this year. Way back in April I sat down and started writing a book. I had no idea this would be the first one I actually completed, and I didn’t dream of getting it published. I went into it enthused and ignorant. And that’s about how I came out of it.

The character of Molly Fyde was born and unleashed upon the world. The coolest part? Just about everyone that reads this book walks away happy. Ecstatic, usually. Most days, even I am able to acknowledge that the book is wonderful. (This just happens to be one of those days.)

Now that the year is coming to a close, it amazes me to look back on my output for 2009. Before the Molly adventure, I was writing reviews for CrimeCritics. Sometimes I was reading and reviewing a book a day. 5 or so books a week. I was putting up an interview a week, doing sporadic podcasts, arranging to get advance copies from publishers. Even traveling to a few book conferences and liveblogging them. It was an amazing journey deep into the book world.

Somehow, those experience (primarily the daily writing, I think) motivated me to start writing my own book. Since April, I’ve written a handful of short stories and four manuscripts. That’s right. Four. Two of them are ready for the printer, the other two are in decent shape as-is. Both should be close to ready by April. That’ll be four books in twelve months. Good books, too.

Hard to believe, but then I get reviews like the one that popped up yesterday from the YA Book Queen, and somehow the strange and inconceivable are confirmed. I really did write a book in 2009. A life-long dream. And it’s a great book. Several reviewers have compared it favorably with ENDER’S GAME, my all-time favorite novel. They’ve compared it to FIREFLY, my favorite TV show. And to OZ, one of my favorite films.

Pinch me.

What do I see for 2010? First, a great launch of LAND OF LIGHT. I know of ten or so review sites that will be bumping it up their list, and a few hundred fans of the first book that will want a copy straight away. Chatter about this book should help get the word out.

Then I see a non-Molly book coming out around May. In July or August, another Molly book. In the meantime, I have two other manuscripts I want to write this year. Both of them are VERY different than anything else I’ve written. One is contemporary YA, the other is fantasy/satire. Both are going to be awesome.

I also look forward to more signings this year, mingling with awesome readers, watching Amazon reviews go up, doing interviews and what-not. There’s no part of this process that I don’t love right now. I’m just soaking it up. Taking the years one day and ~3,000 written words at a time.

Happy New Year everyone. See you on the other side.
-Hugh Howey