I try to sit down at the end of each year to figure out how much writing I've accomplished in the past 12 months. The header, which stays the same from year to year, tells you how I feel about it.

Here's this year's list of big projects:

The Dangerous Type

I finished my “Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Star Wars in the Hammer Horror future” Hong Kong revenge space opera.  I’m really proud of how it turned out.  I hope my agent can find a home for it soon.

The Death of Memory

I turned in four sample chapters to my agent.  Hope she likes it enough that I can go ahead and revise the rest of the book.

This Morbid Life

I pulled together a memoir as told through essays.  I’m happy with how it came together.  I hope to turn it in as soon as I can talk to my agent about it.

I wrote two new short stories this year:

“Never Bargained for You” for the Demon Lovers anthology, coming out from Ravenous Romance in 2012.

“A Curiosity of Shadows” for The Haunted Mansion Project, coming out from Damnation Books soon.

I found a home for one other story this year:

"The Shattered Rose" will appear in the upcoming genre issue of Instant City.  That story and “A Curiosity of Shadows” share the same protagonist with The Death of Memory.

Miscellaneous other stuff:

In January, Gothic.Net interviewed me.  The interview appeared in pieces over the course of the year.

I was also interviewed by Katie Dirge for her Black Sunday zine.  That was a huge amount of fun.  You can see what she’s up to at http://blacksundayzine.com/.

Angel McCoy invited me to be a guest editor at Wily Writers.  By coincidence, I picked two werewolf stories, which went up in July and September. It was an honor to get the first look at “Moon Drops” by Florence Ann Marlowe (http://www.wilywriters.com/blog/?p=2295) and “Chaser” by Satyros Phil Brucato (http://www.wilywriters.com/blog/?p=2283).

Trilby Plants asked me to be a judge for the Petigru Review’s Nonfiction Contest.  They haven’t updated their site yet, but the issue with my favorites is available at http://myscww.org/literary_journal.php.  It was a thrill to read the high-caliber work coming out of South Carolina.

I did my first podcast this year, a true ghost story that will appear in This Morbid Life.  You can hear me read it at Jennifer’s Ghosts at http://jennifercaress.podomatic.com/entry/2011-11-01T05_55_27-07_00

I started a new blog at CemeteryTravel.com.  I managed 153 posts this year, which I’m particularly proud of.  I’d like to post 200 times in the new year.

In contrast, I only managed 78 posts on this blog, but two of those scored me books from the topic of the week contests, so I’m proud of that.  The series I did about writing in cafes was fun, too.  I’d like to make it to 100 posts next year.

The only reading I got invited to participate in this year was Instant City’s gig at the Lit Crawl. It was really fun to read my vampire erotica to a rapt and breathless audience.  Thanks, Gravity, for all your hard work.

This year was a washout for publications.  In fact, I didn’t even have anything accepted that wasn’t specifically solicited by the editors first.  Still, I feel like I did some stellar work.  Hopefully, I also laid the groundwork for better success in the coming year.