I can't let the year roll over without looking back and summing it up. So without further ado, here's my look back at 2003!

-----<>-----

Like last year, 2003 was a busy year for me. I did a lot of running around as part of my settling-in to the USA - lots of paperwork, getting a driver's license, establishing a credit rating, the dreaded interview, and so forth. That's mostly taken care of now, at least until I have to do more paperwork in two years time. The only unresolved hitch is the residency card screw-up, so I'm hoping that gets resolved sooner rather than later. Anyhow, now I'm pretty much settled-in and enjoying life on the opposite side of the world :)

On the job-front, Carrie finally had enough and changed jobs back in March. She's been much happier since and finances are better than they were (meaning we can actually pay the bills now!). I'm still looking for work, and there's still no sign of an economic recovery, despite what the spin-doctors would have us believe. The IT job market is even worse, so I'm beginning to wonder if a career change will be necessary. I only had one job interview this year! Even temp work is non-existent where we live at the moment, so we will most likely be moving early next year.

As for my fiction writing efforts, this is the first year I have really gotten serious about the whole thing and started submitting stories to various genre markets (ie fantasy, science fiction, and horror). I've learned a lot, but still have much to learn. One of the things I did to try and reduce the learning curve was to join Critters and to start critiquing stories. This has helped immeasurably in judging what works and doesn't work in short fiction, and it has also given me plenty of valuable feedback on my own work.

Here are some of my writing stats for 2003:

2003 Word count:	64,272
Stories written:	6
Total submissions:	14
Total acceptances:	0
Total rejections:	12
Waiting for response:	2

2003 was considerably more productive than 2002. Although I only wrote a handful more stories than in 2002, my word count for 2003 is almost double, and I've gone from zero submissions in 2002 to 14 this year. The numbers are still quite modest, though, and no doubt would've been higher if my motivation hadn't slipped in the second half of the year!

The novel I started in 2002 still remains incomplete, despite the writing burst at the beginning of this year. It all seemed to go downhill after I started research for a subplot and I became tangled up in plot threads. My change in focus to short stories worked wonders in improving my writing, but at the same time made it glaringly obvious that the novel will need a lot of work. If I thought the first draft was hard to write (and I'm still not done), the second draft is going to be a revision nightmare! That said, I did learn a lot about novel-writing in the process and I've got enough outlined such that picking up where I left off shouldn't be too difficult...

I was able to do a lot of reading this year, but as usual, I didn't make much of a dent in the to-read pile :) This year I read mainly genre fiction (ie Science-Fiction, Fantasy and Horror), and I tried to catch up on a lot of the classics I've missed. There was also quite literally a flood of excellent new short stories and novels released this year - more than any one person could possibly read! Of course, I did my best to sample a wide selection, and I've tried to cover the highlights since starting this blog.

Here are the numbers for 2003:

Books read: 33
Mags/Chapbooks/Fiction read: 43

The magazines were primarily genre fiction, but I've also included related publications like Locus in that total. I also read magazines like Scientific American, Total Guitar, The Official X-Box Magazine, and others that I have not included in the total above. I don't usually keep a record of every magazine I read, other than fiction-related stuff.

As for movies watched during 2003, I'm not even going to attempt to come up with a list. There were simply too many, and this journal entry is long enough as it is! Like most years, there were some good ones and some bad ones, but on the whole I think it was a good year for movies.

So, that's my 2003 in a nutshell! I'll leave the commentary on world events, politics and so forth to the countless other 2003 retrospectives :) Stay tuned for my 2004 New Year's resolutions...