I’m currently thirty-seven. In my early thirties, around an impending new year, I decided that I wasn’t very interested in making New Year’s Resolutions, but that I did want to set some goals for this decade of my life. One of those was to be published by the time I’m forty. For several years after that, my progress toward the goal was lackluster, at best.

If you follow my blog, you know that I have a tendency to take on a lot of creative projects and to jump back and forth between them, so that progress is being made, but bringing anything to completion takes much longer than it would if I’d just focus on one thing at a time. To this point I’ve: written semi-regularly for the blog, worked on a number of different roleplaying projects, started a novel during NaNoWriMo that I eventually need to return to, finished the first draft of a different novel (which is posted to the blog and is currently in the early stages of significant rewrites), and started collating and expanding the setting information for my fantasy setting Avar Narn.

I’m optimistic about rewriting my novel (Things Unseen) and expect that I’ll have it in a condition I’m much prouder of once the process is complete. I also expect that to take many months at a minimum.

In the meantime, I’ve been working on some short stories set in Avar Narn. This morning, I sent one of these to a fiction magazine for consideration. Other than a short short story contest I entered I few years back, this is the first piece of my fiction that I’ve submitted for professional publication.

As such, I’m realistic about the likelihood of publishing this story: it’s very low–especially on its first submission to the first magazine I’ve decided to attempt. Nevertheless, the step feels like a significant one in actually making progress towards the goals I’ve set for myself. At the very least, I’m trying instead of only dreaming! I’m currently working on a second short story–this one involving the main character of Things Unseen, and I’m excited about its prospects as well.

For everyone, it’s been a rough year, and I’m right there with you. As a small business owner, I continue to spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about the economy and my fate therein. Last week’s Texas winter debacle has only deepened my weariness for these times–and, whether or not you live in Texas, I know many of you are right there with me.

So, for me, this endeavor, this step forward toward achieving the goals about which I am most passionate, is a much-needed respite from the world-weariness we’re all constantly fighting against–however brief that respite may be. The fiction publishing market is a brutal one, and my eyes are wide open. But at least I’m officially on a path now that will take me away from the question “What if?”

More to come, and soon.