My ReidItWrite 2024 Review
The stories, the poems, the awards, the novels...
Here’s a selection of my most popular fiction during 2024. Please read on for more details of what I got up to this year…
As the year comes to a close, I thought I’d join the crowd and provide a summary of everything I’ve published on my Substack in 2024, as well as highlighting the ‘Top Ten’ posts which my readers appeared to enjoy most, whether they be short stories, flash fiction, poetry, or even chapters from my debut serialised novel.
So far this year I’ve posted out 36 newsletters, published 32 novel chapters and contributed two StoryVerse nodes (12z and 13z). That’s 70 pieces of writing over 50 weeks, adding up to more than 85,000 words – the same as a decent-sized novel!
For my short-form prose and poetry I managed to create 4 short stories, 13 flash fiction pieces and 10 poems. The remainder of my newsletters were musings on various topics which interest me (e.g. climate change, technology, human space exploration).
I launched my debut serialised novel ‘INGRESSION’ in September (the first in The Consilience Series) and have been sending out two chapters per week without fail since then. My dedicated readers are now one-third of the way through the story and I hope they continue to enjoy the remainder of the novel’s 100 chapters, until its conclusion in September 2025.
I was fortunate to gain some accolades in 2024 for my writing, both externally and within Substack’s thriving fiction community. These boosts help to both improve my craft and make writing more enjoyable.
Before I finish below, here’s a montage:
To conclude this review, I’ve created a linked Top 10 list of my fiction below. Interestingly, every short story bar one made it onto this list, as well as four flash fiction pieces and two poems. This might reflect my wonderful readers’ tastes, who encourage me in a variety of ways with my writing endeavours. Or perhaps it’s my varying ability with each form.
No matter what attracts you to my writing, thank you so much for all your support throughout this past year.
Until next year…
Congrats on a productive and successful year of writing! It's been a joy to meet you and follow along, even if I still need to get started on the novel. Look forward to more top fiction (and whatever else your mind cooks up) in 2025. :)
I didn't realise Writers & Artists had a free to enter competition. I'm going to have to look out for that one next year. Total kudos and congrats by the way for that one. Top 14 out of 700 is a job seriously well done. It's why I like getting these SHMs from writers of the future (I've got loads of them - they just don't like my antagonistic attitude towards humanity lol), even if I really don't want to win. Their next deadline is in two days' time so I am going to be setting myself another 24h challenge obviously. I do have a cool idea though.
Similarly, for my IFF24 winning entry this was out of around 850 entries if I remember correctly. So we are definitely both on the right track here.
I've read most of the ones on your top ten but there are a few I don't recall, so I shall put this post in my 'pending' folder until I've read them all.
Damn well done, Sir, for all of that great stuff. What I appreciate and admire the most about your work is the variety of it. To write well in one genre is good, but to do that in multiple genres is a sign of a genuine writer. And that's what you are.
You also happen to be my friend. So there.