When I think back to a year ago — one year ago exactly — I was in a similar, but distinctly different place in the world.

I was geared up, feeling good, had lots of positive mojo going, and beyond work and the family, I knew that 2013 was going to be a huge year for me on the writing front. I knew it in my bones.

I was about to finalize Crossline, my first original novel with Crazy 8 Press, and I was working on the re-launch of my debut novel, Finders Keepers, also with Crazy 8 Press.

And then ……. I got bronchitis. I typically don’t get more than one or two colds a year, but I managed to pick up some super strain from my kids, and I was really sick.

For four. Straight. Months.

Not fun.

Then, the day I finally stopped coughing, and felt good … I got nailed with some wicked stomach virus that wiped me out for three days. Grrrrr.

I ultimately got my health back, and I did, in fact, release both books through Crazy 8 Press, to critical praise. But I was also in the process of selling my apartment in Queens, and buying a house in New Jersey, which also meant packing, and moving, and lawyers, accountants, realtors, plumbers, electricians, painters, and so much more.

By the time 2013 ended, I was simply exhausted.

So what’s my New Year’s Resolution for 2014?

To remain as healthy as I can, to enjoy my new home, and continue to watch my children grow and thrive.

And while I’m at it, keep building the buzz on Crossline and Finders Keepers, do as many signings, and appear at as many cons as I can, and debut the Finders Keepers sequel, which, if all goes well, will be showing up this fall.

Ambitious? Maybe.

But you know what? If all my authordude endeavors weren’t just a little bit, well … crazy, and at least kinda BIG … then it just wouldn’t be any fun, now would it?

Because as my Finders Keepers giver-of-wisdom Hank would say, “If it comes too easy, Kid, it probably ain’t worth doing in the first place. So stop yer belly achin’ and go get it done.”

Thanks for the advice, Hank. I’m doing just that.

My New Year’s Resolution is now officially under way.

The tradition of making New Year’s resolutions is traced, I’m told, back to the Babylonians who seemed to know what they were doing. Far be it from the seven of us at Crazy 8 Press not to follow such a time-honored practice.

Personally, I would love to see myself writing more work for this site. At present, I have one story for an anthology promised for this summer. Beyond that, there’s a ReDeus novel that needs plotting but realistically won’t be out until 2015.

The ReDeus universe shows tremendous promise now that we’ve seen three anthologies exploring the first two decades after all the gods have returned. It has gotten good notices form those who have read the books and that encourages Aaron Rosenberg, Paul Kupperberg, and myself. But there are other stories to tell, including my young adult fantasy and an urban fantasy. Of late, though, my imagination has been captured by a Civil War event, one I want to research and explore before deciding what to do with this incredible love story. I chanced across the tale while touring Manassas during the winter break and to my surprise I can’t find any books on this incident requiring some further digging.

(In the meantime, I continue to do reviews and the occasional other story over at ComicMix and write my twice-monthly column at Westfield Comics, so I’m not entirely idle.)

As a site that allows us total creative freedom and expression, there’s more I want to do but time, thanks to the teaching gig, is preciously limited.

But beyond that, I resolve to work harder to help C8’s third year be its best yet, building off the things discussed in our New Year’s post. I want to help raise our visibility and broaden our outreach through school and public libraries. I want to be one of the people at public events, beyond conventions.

I also promise to continue to eat fruits and vegetables, take my vitamin D and try to lose weight.

It’s been seemingly quiet on the publishing front here at Crazy 8 Press. We had a flurry of books released around Shore Leave and our second anniversary.

Looking back, 2013 was a solid year for this outfit. We welcomed Russ Colchamiro and Paul Kupperberg to our family, each bringing some incredibly fun stories with them, from space fare to a murder mystery. We also released Rob Kelley’s Hey Kids, Comics, our first attempt at publishing a title not directly produced by one of us. We learned a lot from the experience and look forward to what may come next.

Peter David and Aaron Rosenberg both released new novels while Mike finally brought his very first novel back to print after several decades. Aaron, Paul, and I produced two volumes in our ReDeus world and had tremendous fun in the process.

Since then, we haven’t released much. But we haven’t exactly been idle.

First of all, Mike Friedman launched and succeeded with his Kickstarter campaign to fund his writing I am the Salamander, a brand new novel that will roll out early this year.

Behind the scenes, we’ve been talking and planning. We have definitely rededicated ourselves to getting the word out as far and as wide as possible, improving our sales and exposure. There are some incredible books available here but it feels like a well-kept secret and we want to change that.

So, in the coming months you will hear more about us and from us. Incrementally, you should start seeing changes to the website as we grow and evolve. Navigation should be easier and it’ll be more obvious when something new is here to read or buy. We’ve started adding in our personal appearances so you can find us and say hello.

Our publishing lineup is packed and everyone is at work on stories. Out-of-print titles by some of our writers will return, which is one of the benefits of self-publishing. All seven of us will have at least one new thing to offer before this year becomes a memory. We’re very excited about 2014 and our third year, as we grow in experience, only matched by our enthusiasm.

We hope you will enjoy the ride alongside us.

Although I’m a little behind this season I’ve really been enjoying Arrow, and based on how it’s developed so far I’m confident it will keep getting better and better. Agents of SHIELD is, well, let’s just walk on by and leave that to others to pick on.

But if we’re talking about genre shows that I love, where I just can’t get enough, the conversation begins and ends with Orphan Black, on BBC America.

Orphan Black is a dark, twisty, fast-paced conspiracy thriller with maybe the best performance … ever? … by an actress in any show, and I would argue the best of any genre show for sure. Tatiana Maslany is nothing short of brilliant playing nine — yep, nine — totally unique versions of the same character. I have no idea how they pulled it off, but man oh man they did.

But it’s not a one-woman show. It’s got a full cast of characters you either root for, or against — a shout out to Jordan Gavaris as Felix – and whereas they could have dragged out this 10 episode season into multiple seasons, just to milk it, they went full throttle and brought us so far so fast, without ever leaving us behind, that you just have to hang on try to catch your breath.

If there’s a problem with Orphan Black, it’s that they actually did pack so much story into season 1, it will be difficult to replicate the quality over season 2. But if there’s any show that might just pull it off, I’m putting my money on Orphan Black.

Tatiana Maslany?

Oh. Yes, please. Just tell me when and where Orphan Black is airing next, and I’m showing up.

The theme for this month’s blog posts by Crazy 8 authors is a look at television science fiction. The problem is, other than Doctor Who and the occasional Outer Limits or Twilight Zone rerun, I don’t watch any science fiction shows on TV…and please don’t bother recommending any to me, thanks all the same. The genre pretty much lost me after the clusterfornications that were Lost and Heroes. Why was I investing my time and sympathies with shows that didn’t know quite what they were or where they were going and would inevitably disappoint? So I save myself the aggravation and growling at my TV by just not watching it to begin with. My recent dip into Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has confirmed the wisdom of that decision.

The problem I’ve always found is that the people producing science fiction TV shows aren’t usually very knowledgeable about science fiction. If they had ever read science fiction, it was probably back when they were kids. But seeing as they’re TV producers, it’s more likely their concept of science fiction was gleamed from the movies and television shows they watched growing up…produced by people who also weren’t very knowledgeable about science fiction. It’s like the way a friend described J.J. Abrams’ take on Star Trek, “It’s as though he heard a capsule outline of the original series as described by someone who watched it in 1967 and based his interpretation on that. Everything is more or less there, but it’s just not quite right.”

To TV and film producers, science fiction is just another medium, along with cop shows, forensic shows, medical and legal dramas, etc. Another example from Star Trek is the famous story of Gene Roddenberry’s use of the line “Wagon Train in space” in his pitch to the networks. For better than a decade, Westerns had been the most popular thing on the tube, so Roddenberry’s pitch line was an obvious descriptor for his show, and if’n you think about it, pardner, wouldn’t’a been so hard to transpose the Star Trek concept to a Western setting, the Enterprise swapped out for a railroad train with a company boldly going to lay tracks where no Europeans have gone before. Or as a period naval drama seeking out new civilizations during the age of exploration. It just shows the interchangeability of backdrops for a lot of ideas in the minds of TV producers.

Of course, what they–i.e. the producers and creators of TV “sci-fi”–consider science fiction is to us–i.e. longtime/lifelong readers of science fiction and even somewhat aware of the history of the genre–a joke. Even my print science fiction aficionado friends who watch televised science fiction and profess to enjoy much of it still spend more time tearing it apart for its lack of verisimilitude to “real” science fiction than praising it for its own merits. Fortunately for the producers, however, the True Fan is, other than as annoying creator of anti-buzz on the internet, irrelevant to the program’s bottom line. The True Fans’ numbers are too small to make a difference to the ratings (or box office) and, besides (Spoiler Alert!) they usually watch the shows anyway, if only to be able pick them apart so they’ll have something to complain about on Twitter…as if the Neilsen Ratings can distinguish between viewers who are tuned in because they like the show or out of sheer spite.

But what I want to see on the screen as a lifelong reader is what I’ve been reading all my life. A miniseries based on Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy? Bring it on! Except…do you know how dull that would be? Asimov’s books were largely talk and thought and, while there may be an exciting way to film it, it’s beyond my meager imagination to figure out how. I’d watch it if someone else solved the puzzle. But how many mainstream viewers would last through the first hour? TV and cinematic science fiction is designed to be a kind of shorthand version of the real thing, built with a general audience to whom “sci-fi” means ray guns, spaceships, and aliens in rubber masks in mind. Old timey non-SF conversant TV viewers remember contemporary programs like Star Trek and Lost In Space with about equal weight. Both were labeled science fiction. But then again, so were The Jetsons and It’s About Time.

So I’m not the right person to ask for my views on the latest “sci-fi” on the tube. I don’t think it’s gotten everything wrong–I call the iPhone my “Star Trek communicator,” their “replicator” has become fact with current-day 3-D printers, and, let’s face it, The Jetsons called a lot of things right about the civil and social applications of science, albeit draped in cartoonish trophs, like turning the fully-automated home into the character of Rosie the Robot-Maid–but enough so that I have, as I said, decided to opt out. Except, as I say, for Doctor Who. But that’s just the exception to my rule.

So…you have time to watch TV? Really? How do you do that? Does it involve a deal with an infernal being? Because, I mean, that wouldn’t be a total deal-breaker.

When I was young, in fact all the way up through high school, I watched prime time TV with a singular devotion. Not just science fiction but everything. Have Gun, Will Travel. The Courtship of Eddie’s Father. Colonel Bleep. Coronet Blue. Candid Camera. The Smothers Brothers. Captain Nice. I’ve Got A Secret. If I missed a show it was only because it was on at the same time as a show I was already watching, and in those days you didn’t have the option of a DVR.

On Saturday mornings I watched cartoons with near-religious fervor. If I didn’t start my day with a heaping helping of Jonny Quest, Heckle and Jeckle, and the Herculoids, I just didn’t feel right.

In college, all that went away. Suddenly I didn’t have a TV nor did I feel the need for one. I don’t know if it was TV or me that changed, but we were no longer a couple. We would run into each other at parties, exchange a few awkward comments, and gratefully recall other engagements. We had grown apart.

It happens.

Sure, there were shows I watched and enjoyed later in life. In some cases, enjoyed immensely. All In The Family comes to mind. The Star Trek programs, of course. Beauty and The Beast. Cheers. Hill Street Blues. Seinfeld. More recently, Big Bang and Madmen and Fringe, and Game of Thrones.

But it ain’t destination TV for me because there are so many other places I have to be, some of them rather unexpectedly, and I hate missing the odd episode and coming in the following week in the middle of a crisis I don’t understand. In fact, these days I seldom watch a dramatic series until it’s over and available on Netflix.

So right now, I’m the wrong guy to ask about Sleepy Hollow and Dracula and SHIELD. A few years from now, sure.

But now, not so much.