One advantage of having a year’s end birthday is the opportunity for reflection: A year of life synchronized with a calendar year. 2014 and my 34th year were immensely busy. At their beginning, I was in the belly of intern year and still struggling to rewrite my third novel. Both tasks seemed endless at the time. Now at year’s end, I find myself a senior resident and halfway through medical training, or at least this phase of it. Spellbreaker has been rewritten and is, ever so slowly, working its way toward publication.

As I write this post, I must fight the urge to resort to numeric metrics for the measure of a year. (Sing the RENT theme song if you’d like.) I’ve always been one for making lists and this year has given me plenty: number of books read, number of patients pronounced dead, number of words written, number of academic articles published, number of patients who’ve recovered. Thinking of any one category brings back a range of emotions ranging from joy to grief, but is always accompanied by a sense of accomplishment. On balance, it makes me look forward to 2015 and 35. However, there is one metric about which I have little positive to write or feel: Number of works of fiction published. Zero is not the hoped for number.

Since last February, Spellbreaker has been revised and all but ready for publication. As before, we wait for my new editor to read through the past two books and revise the third. I’ve been unequivocally promised that I will have an edited manuscript back by January 20th. In March and May I have two month of outpatient (and therefore less demanding) medicine, which will allow me to turn the manuscript around quickly. As for the ultimate publication date, I won’t prognosticate too closely. Ten months from now would be fast but possible. A year is more likely. Any other date, seen on Amazon.com or Goodreads.com or wherever, is pure conjecture. As before, I will be doing little to no blogging or corresponding online as I work toward increasing my competence in writing and medicine. For those who are loyal enough to check in on the blog to see how the trilogy is progressing, know that I am amazingly grateful for your support and just as impatient as you are.

In the meantime, as we wait, I’ll continue to work on my fourth novel. More about that in 2015…