Welcome to another yearly recap! You can read my previous reviews at the links below:
Overall Stats
Numbers don’t always tell a complete story. Still, as an analytical person, I like to track key figures to see how I’m going.
| Stat | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Words written | 168,993 | 253,119 | 163,787 |
| Writing days | 166 | 194 | 136 |
| Editing days | 86 | 89 | 127 |
| Outlining days | 16 | 14 | 26 |
| Days when I showed up | 73% | 81% | 79% |
| Words per day (365 days in year) | 463 | 693 | 449 |
| Total writing hours | 320 | 341 | 170 |
| Words per hour | 527 | 743 | 964 |
| Non-writing hours | 209 | 160 | 243 |
| Total hours | 530 | 501 | 413 |
(I started keeping these stats in 2018, but only a quarter into the year. Thus, I’ve excluded 2018 from this graph.)
You might wonder: what’s the point of these stats?
Well, I’ve been tracking my daily wordcounts since early 2018. And I think it’s one of my best habits.
For my money, the biggest impediment to a successful author career is procrastination.
Writing is hard. But for me, 60% of the difficulty comes from starting. In some ways, once you just get started typing, you’ve cleared the hardest hurdle.
My ‘Writing Tracker’ spreadsheet helps me make that leap.
Having the satisfaction of jotting my wordcount in a spreadsheet at the end of a day’s work is surprisingly motivating. You want to see the day get marked. You don’t want to see empty days.
In short, it gamifies the process. And that makes my creative goals marginally easier to achieve.
Some insights from these stats:
- Despite spending more hours writing, editing, and outlining, I had a huge decline in total words written. That’s because I was writing The Siege of Treboulain. I’ll get into why this was comparatively slow later.
- Despite having bigger life commitments this year, I was able to spend more time writing! Not everyone’s in the same situation, of course. But it’s shown me that I can easily balance regular writing with my day job.
- Words per hour slowed right down, even though I think this year has made me into a faster writer. Again, more explanation later when I talk about The Siege of Treboulain.
What did I write last year?
This was the first year since 2017 where I published no stories. That’s because 2021 was devoted almost entirely to The Siege of Treboulain.
The Siege of Treboulain is a 260,000 word interactive fantasy fiction game. In the story, you’re the ruler of a magical city. When the city comes under attack, you must protect the city from siege.
You can play a demo of the game here.
The full thing should be out in a few months!
I’m writing this game for Choice of Games, whose previous interactive fiction stories have won multiple Nebula Awards.
Put simply, this is the most ambitious story I’ve written.
Not only is it a whopping 260,000 words (my previous-longest book, Across the Broken Stars, was 80,000), but I’ve had to code the entire game as well.
So I’m not too shocked that my words per hour stats have fallen—getting the code right explains that.
Writing The Siege of Treboulain was a wonderful experience. (I should say, is – I’m currently polishing off a few last edits.) Game writing has subtle variations from regular prose that made for an enjoyable challenge. It was particularly bizarre to play the game myself.
When I re-read my novels for editing, I know exactly what’s coming. Yet when I played through the game, it felt like someone else had written it. There were whole patches where I forgot about writing them. I don’t just think that’s due to the length. I think it’s because the choose-your-own-path mechanics means that every single play-through will be a unique experience.
Perhaps the biggest thing I learned about writing this year was a lesson in self-belief.
Writing something as gargantuan as the 260,000-word The Siege of Treboulain has taught me that I have the endurance needed to go the distance. I also think it will make me a much faster writer when I return to prose.
Speaking of prose, I spent a few weeks re-reading The Sands of Truth. After, I prepared a whole heap of revision notes this year. While I doubt it will be my next project, I have a strong plan for improving this when I eventually return to this story.
What did I read last year?
I read 44 books last year.
My approach for books is simple: try to only read books that I know I will be sad to finish, because they’re that good.
Obviously it’s easier said than done, but it’s my general aim.
Some other guidelines that I like (your mileage may vary):
- Avoid trendy, heavily marketed new books (unless you like the author or it seems good); seek old wisdom and timelessness.
- Avoid obligation or a sense of ‘I should read this.’ If you read 3 books a year, and you’re 20 years old, and you will live to 80, that means you can only read another 180 books in your life. And you want to waste one of those books to satisfy someone else, or some trend, or your own sense of obligation? Not for me, thanks!
- Don’t feel bad about quitting. I did this for about 10 books, maybe more. Reading a book you don’t enjoy means you are sacrificing a book you would enjoy. Remember: you only get to read a finite number of books.
Click the titles below to see full reviews. (If they’re not clickable, that means I didn’t write a review.)
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (re-read)
Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel
Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection by Brandon Sanderson
Dead or Alive (Skulduggery Pleasant, #14) by Derek Landy
Love Is Not Enough by Mark Manson
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness by Eric Jorgenson
Steelheart (The Reckoners, #1) by Brandon Sanderson (re-read)
Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive, #4) by Brandon Sanderson
Rise of Gods (The Paternus Trilogy, #1) by Dyrk Ashton
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
Fast Asleep: How to Get a Really Good Night’s Rest by Michael Mosley
The Bands of Mourning (Mistborn, #6) by Brandon Sanderson
The House Hacking Strategy: How to Use Your Home to Achieve Financial Freedom by Craig Curelop
Mistborn: Secret History by Brandon Sanderson
Write to Market: Deliver a Book that Sells (Write Faster, Write Smart, #3) by Chris Fox
Launch to Market: Easy Marketing For Authors (Write Faster, Write Smarter, #4) by Chris Fox
A Promised Land by Barack Obama
Breach of Peace (The Lawful Times, #0.5) by Daniel B. Greene
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini
Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
Unsouled (Cradle #1) by Will Wight
The True Colour of a Little White Lie by Gabriel Bergmoser
The Skulduggery Pleasant Grimoire by Derek Landy
Starsight (Skyward, #2) by Brandon Sanderson
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Feet of Clay (Discworld, #19; City Watch, #3) by Terry Pratchett
Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie
The Inheritance by Gabriel Bergmoser
The Consequence by Gabriel Bergmoser
The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time, #1) by Robert Jordan
Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel by Rolf Potts
Character: The Art of Role and Cast Design for Page, Stage, and Screen by Robert McKee
Big Shot (Diary of a Wimpy Kid #16) by Jeff Kinney
How to Live: 27 conflicting answers and one weird conclusion by Derek Sivers
A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine
Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave by Ryan Holiday
George Lucas: A Life by Brian Jay Jones
Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki
Ascendant (Songs of Chaos #1) by Michael R. Miller
By the way: if you want to receive my book reviews as I write them, click here to follow me on goodreads.
My top 5 favourite non-fiction books
Note: these are affiliate links. If you buy a book through these links, I’ll get a small commission at no extra cost to you. So if you like my writing and want to support me, it’s a great way to help out!
5) Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
An absolutely gripping exploration of how and why different human cultures came to be – all the way from our ancient ancestors through to the 21st century. Perhaps the biggest lessons that I took from this book were:
A) How pretty much everything that we take for granted as ‘natural’ is almost entirely an artificial fiction.
And B) How societal cohesion relies upon us accepting shared delusions.
… which creates some interesting philosophical and ethical dilemmas, that don’t necessarily have right answers.
If you’re looking to better understand human psychology, and develop more self-awareness around your own thinking, this is a brilliant book to read. And don’t think it’s stuffy and boring just because of that dreaded ‘history’ word in the title. It’s an incredibly well-written, entertaining, and almost suspenseful read that makes it hard to stop. Highly recommended!
4) Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel by Rolf Potts
A fantastic, concise guide to considering travel through a first-principles, personal, intrinsic lens. This is ostensibly a book about long-term physical exploration; but it’s really a guide to better understanding what you want and getting rid of the beliefs and assumptions that no longer serve you. In that regard, this isn’t just a (superb) guide to long-term travel; it’s also a guide for living as well.
3) How to Live: 27 conflicting answers and one weird conclusion by Derek Sivers
As the title suggests, each chapter argues for the best life philosophy to guide your actions. Not ‘a’ best philosophy; ‘the’ best philosophy.
The problem?
Each chapter totally disagrees with each other!
For example: one chapter stresses the importance of freedom and independence. But the next argues that commitment is crucial for a meaningful existence.
This cognitive dissonance makes for an incredibly engaging and thought provoking examination of what it means to live a good life. With 80% of the chapters, I was fully in agreeance with their respective life philosophies. There’s no straw men here. All of these 27 answers are totally valid. And that’s the point.
This book is short and every word carries great weight. I am already confident that many re-reads lie in my future. Highly recommended.
2) The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness by Eric Jorgenson
Naval Ravikant is a multi-million dollar angel investor, with a lot of excellent wisdom. Yet, this book was not written by him. It was compiled by Eric Jorgenson, who curated Naval’s most insightful interviews and poignant reflections.
The result? Probably the most wisdom per word of any book I’ve read (although ‘How to Live’ comes very close).
This book helped me stop comparing myself to others. As Naval says: “If you’re not willing to do a wholesale, 24/7, 100 percent swap with who that person is, then there is no point in being jealous.”
And another one: “If I say I’m happy, that means I was sad at some point. If I say he’s attractive, then somebody else is unattractive. Every positive thought even has a seed of a negative thought within it and vice versa, which is why a lot of greatness in life comes out of suffering.”
Every line of this book is like that: a ridiculously profound (and often unique) way of viewing the world. Highly recommended.
One last quote:
“A happy person isn’t someone who’s happy all the time. It’s someone who effortlessly interprets events in such a way that they don’t lose their innate peace.”
1) Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Meditations is the diary of roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (you may remember him from the Gladiator movie). Written almost 2000 years ago, this book—written with no intention of publication, and discovered long after Aurelius’ death—is easily the most life-changing non-fiction book I’ve read.
Essentially, it’s the writings of the most powerful man in the world, in the self-reflective process of reflecting on how to be a better leader, father, husband, philosopher, and person.
This took me a few attempts; the lengthy introduction threw me off the first few times. But when I decided to just skip the intro and read what Aurelius had actually wrote, it only took a few days to finish. And I’m glad I did. This book is packed with profound wisdom, and I found myself highlighting so many lines.
Perhaps the thing that stands out the most is this: Aurelius lived 2000 years ago, and yet the struggles he faced and the admonishments he directed towards himself are the EXACT SAME struggles and self-directives I find myself dealing with today.
Don’t think this book is irrelevant because it’s old. The opposite is the case.
To paraphrase Aurelius himself; nothing changes – only the actors. That’s why it’s so valuable to read sources of timeless wisdom, like the kind contained in Meditations. This is a book that I think everyone should have. The short, almost bullet-point format is perfect for flicking through the pages when you have a few spare minutes, or when you’re struggling with something – changes are, you’ll find the solution, or at least the peace of mind to deal with reality.
Since my initial read, I’ve re-read it over and over again. Each time I find something incredibly insightful and profound.
Highly recommended for everyone seeking to live a better life.
(PS: I read the Gregory Hayes translation, as recomended by Ryan Holiday.)
My top 4 favourite fiction books
(All of these are spoiler-free).
4) Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie
Abercrombie does it again. A masterful, gritty story of revenge and redemption, set alongside a cast of complex, compelling characters. I listened to the audiobook over the course of more than a year (I’m a slow audiobook listener), and I’m glad I did. Drawing the story out over such a long time made me feel like I was watching multiple seasons of a TV show – helped, of course, by Steven Pacey’s vivid narration.
How on Earth does Joe do it? The characters he creates in Best Served Cold are amongst my favorite creations. They feel so interesting and lifelike that almost every other character I’ve read about feels hollow by comparison.
Abercrombie is simply the master.
And now that I’ve finished his first two trilogies, I can’t wait to dive into The Age of Madness …
3) Rhythm of War (The Stormlight Archive, #4) by Brandon Sanderson
For me, there’s nothing quite as immersive and all-consuming as a Stormlight Archive book. And Rhythm of War is no exception. While it opens with a bang, for the most part this forth volume takes a while to get going. But once it does, it gets going with spectacular aplomb.
I’m not sure how much of this immersive quality comes from Sanderson’s skill, or from simply the fact that this is just the most pages I’ve ever read in a series (I think we reached about 5000 total series pages by the end of ROW). Either way, I’m grateful for it. The characters feel extraordinarily realistic, and for the most part Sanderson finds new dimensions to explore within their psyches. That’s an impressive feat, considering how much territory we’ve already covered with them.
Kaladin continues to be my favourite character in this series. One of the strongest things about ROW is how expertly it deals with Kaladin’s arc, moving him into new territory that I had never anticipated, but that makes perfect sense and resulted in some epic moments.
Adolin, too, became far more interesting in this book than in previous entries. I love when side characters are elevated to main characters in later books, because it truly makes you feel like everyone in this world is real and fully-developed.
At the heart of this book, however, was Navani’s relationship with a sometimes foe, sometimes friend, and the world building development that came out of this was awesome. At times it felt like a little bit of an excuse for exposition, (and in general, there was a lot of exposition crammed into this volume, presumably to set up the 5th and final Stormlight Archive book in this first 5-book arc); however, I come to the Stormlight Archive for the world building and for the amazing setting, so I loved these thinly-veiled exposition dumps. (Without having seen any other reviews yet, though, I think this will probably be the thing that annoys most readers).
Ultimately, Rhythm of War was a return to form after Oathbringer. While Oathbringer was still amazing, it had fallen off significantly from Words of Radiance (which remains my favourite volume in the series). ROW blending extraordinary world building with a tightly-paced plot (particularly in the second half, which I think I read in under a week), and fantastic character development.
One of the things that made Words of Radiance so amazing for me were the number of epic moments that made actual goosebumps form on my skin. There were plenty more of those moments in ROW as well. These days, it’s so rare for a book to give me an actual physiological reaction, and so the fact that ROW did this is a testament to Sanderson’s skill.
Oh, and that ending…!
I can’t wait for the next book!
2) Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Holy cow, what an incredible book.
The premise is simple: man wakes up in a strange room. Man has amnesia. Man realises he’s on a spaceship. Man realises he must save the Earth from a cataclysmic event.
And things unfold from there – in spectacular fashion.
It’s Castaway meets Children of Time with a wonderful blend of hard science, gripping suspense, laugh-out-loud scenes, and a heap of heart.
It’s uplifting, funny, unexpected, thought-provoking, and a huge improvement on The Martian. And that’s saying something, because I’ve re-read The Martian 3-5 times and it’s one of my top books.
Highly recommended!
1) Mistborn: Secret History by Brandon Sanderson
This was stunning. Here, Sanderson has somehow managed to create an interquel – a kind of not-sequel that weaves into the original Mistborn series with stunning effect. In the past, I’ve been burned by authors attempting similar things (cough Cursed Child cough). Here, however, Sanderson’s story makes the Mistborn trilogy better. That’s no small feat, considering that Mistborn was one of my top 5 all-time series to begin with.
I went into this story expecting a lot of answers about previous reveals mentioned in prior stories. What I got was a whole lot of fun. It’s a short novella, but Sanderson still packs in some fascinating world building, along with one of his best characters to date. There’s also some amazing tear-jerking moments. When our main character finally meets another certain main character towards the end, there was such a sense of profound melancholy, intermingled with a strangely uplifting sense of joy. It made me tear up. Only a few books have ever done that, and I would go so far to say that this scene I’m describing is in my top 3 or 5 scenes I’ve ever read from Sanderson.
Make sure you’ve read Mistborn books 1-6 before jumping into this, for full enjoyment. (And believe me – once you finish book 6, you won’t be able to stop yourself from craving Secret History).
Bravo, Sanderson – you continue to leap over the staggeringly high bars you set for yourself, with remarkable skill. I can’t wait to see this continue!
What’s coming in 2022?
The Siege of Treboulain should be releasing in a few months. All my edits are almost done. From there, we’ll be on to playtesting and proofreading, and then the game will be published.
I recently got the cover art for the game. It looks spectacular.
I’ll be sharing the art exclusively with my email newsletter in a few weeks. If you’re not already part of my email newsletter:
Click here to join (and get a free fantasy novella).
After The Siege of Treboulain is out, I will start writing my next novel. Not to much to share so far, but it will involve dragons, magic, spies, and war…
I hope your 2021 had some great memories and great reads!
If you’ve read any of the books I mentioned about, feel free to comment about them below.
And you’re also more than welcome to let me know what you read last year.
Here’s to another year! Let’s hope it’s a good one 🙂
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