Did you see my stats post from January? Four things I did then posted this month:

• SF Signal podcast #175, The 2013 List of Conventions You’re Looking Forward To This Year, with Gail Carriger, Jaym Gates and Patrick Hester (February 4, 2013).
• My indie comics column on “Gerry Alanguilan’s “Elmer” – The Greatest Chicken Comic Ever” (February 5, 2013).
• A tech column for Functional Nerds, “Free Open-Source Software For Your Windows (or Mac) Machines” (February 13, 2013).
• “The Balancing Act of the Writer“, an essay for Haralambi Markov’s The Alternative Typewriter. (February 15, 2013).

Continuing the trend, in February I:

Read

• an ARC of The Lives of Tao, the forthcoming debut novel from Wesley Chu.
• David Marusek’s collection, Getting to Know You. 10 short stories. (Read my review here.)
• Strange Attractors, a graphic novel.
• a super-short flash piece by Sherman Alexie: “Across The Way“
• The Secret History of Moscow, by Ekatarina Sedia.
• The first 200 pages of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars.

Wrote

• another 1300 words on “Darling, Daughter, Dear”, which got a new title – “About the Mirror and its Pieces”. (Also edited & revised several times, submitted it on Feb 16 2013.)
• started “Hammer of the Night God”, a Lovecraftian tale set in Slavic Germany in the 12th century (200 words).
• added 174 words to “On The Off Chance”, a modern fantasy story I started at the end of December.
• My Guide to Conventions #1 (snark)
• Two links roundup posts: that one and this one.
  
• SF Signal comics reviews for Daniel Clowes’s The Death Ray and Strange Attractors by Charles Soule, and part 1 of my Brief History of Indie Comics in the US.
  
• a bit about how quiet February is, and why that’s good.

Edited / Published

• Bibliotheca Fantastica. Edited by Claude Lalumière & Don Pizarro. Included proofing, ebook and print layout, interior art, etc. We’re so very close to this being published… maybe another week. It’s a fantastic book, and everyone involved wants to make sure it’s perfect, which is satisfying.

I also

• donated Dagan Books titles to the World SF Travel Fund.
• updated my profile on the SFWA forums.
• voted on the 2012 Nebula Awards nominations.
• submitted three stories from 2012′s IN SITU to be considered for the WSFA Small Press Award (tough choices, but they only let us pick three).
• updated and started posting a string of interviews from FISH authors (read them here).
• did my taxes, and paid self-employment tax (from writing/publishing) for the first time ever.
• Updated my website, including my “Non-Fiction” page (again), Press and Reviews page, Editing page, theme, widgets, etc.
• Interviewed Wesley Chu (that will post on May 1 to coincide with his book release).

Overall:

I read two novels & started a third, one graphic novel, and 11 short stories. I wrote 1674 words of fiction, 4350 of non-fiction (slightly more fiction than last month but only 1/2 of the non-fiction words I wrote in January – I’m guessing because the month was a little shorter, because I read more, and because I spent more time doing editing and other work). I also submitted my first work of fiction since June 2012. Proofed and assembled a project for Dagan Books (in progress). Continued to update my website, and did other career-advancing administrative/office type things for both DB and myself.

My advice for March:

Make lists. If you have a list of all the things you need to get done, you can pick whichever one you most feel like doing that day, and it’s still a useful thing to have done. That way you’re doing the one thing a day I suggested in February, but you’re not forcing yourself to do something you hate … you’re making a choice. Less to resent. (Yes, we all have days where we resent the work we have to do, even when we know we have to do it, because isn’t it nicer to drink a beer and watch Firefly instead? But a career isn’t made from taking breaks, it’s made from the work you do in between.)