A Creative, Productive 2012

Sat down yesterday to assess the year that's just gone by. Did a little music post, and then started to look back over my creative accomplishments for the year. Took me lots longer than I though it would - made me realize it's actually been a pretty good year! First a list, then a look back.

2012 Books:
Alibi Jones and The Sunrise of Hur
Vatican Ambassador - New 2nd Edition
Earthbound Dossier
Good Samaritan: Unto Dust #1
Introducing...Red Hot #1
The Adventures of Alibi Jones: Six Short Stories


2012 Stories:
"Alibi Jones and the Ghost in the Machine" in
Hunting Ghosts: Thrilling Tales of Paranormal Investigation

"Souverain: The Kid" free eBook

2012 Columns:
"Cosmic Crackle" @ Comic Related -
Marvel Comics' Thanos
http://comicrelated.com/news/16094/the-mad-titan
Marvel Comics' Guardians of the Galaxy
Part One: http://comicrelated.com/news/16790/guardians-of-the-galaxy
Part Two: http://www.comicrelated.com/news/16855/guardians-of-the-galaxy
Part Three: http://comicrelated.com/news/16856/guardians-of-the-galaxy
 Marvel Comics' Star-Lord
Part One with Chris Claremont, Steve Englehart & origins:
http://comicrelated.com/news/17021/star-lord-part-1.
Part Two on Doug Moench's years w/character: http://comicrelated.com/news/17937/star-lord-part-2.
Part Three with writer Timothy Zahn: http://comicrelated.com/news/18390/star-lord-part-3

Guest post on the "Contradictions of Creativity" for the blog Chocolate Scotch: http://www.chocolatescotch.com/2012/04/74-mike-luoma/.

Not bad. It was a year with some nice, creative high points - a productive year.

December brought a brand new Alibi Jones story "Alibi Jones and the Ghost In The Machine" in Hunting Ghosts: Thrilling Tales of Paranormal Investigation a new anthology from Black Oak Media. This new Alibi Jones story takes place after the new novel and stands alone as a single story: http://www.amazon.com/Hunting-Ghosts-Thrilling-Tales-Paranormal/dp/1618760165/.

November marked the release of my new second edition of Vatican Ambassador. When re-podcasting the novel this past summer I revised/rewrote about half of the book! The paperback also got a new cover, to match the update my eBook covers received earlier in the year. Vatican Ambassador is now big, shiny and gold! Also delivered a third installment in my look at Marvel Comics' Star-Lord for my Cosmic Crackle column at Comic Related, including an interview with writer Timothy Zahn: http://comicrelated.com/news/18390/star-lord-part-3

Celebrated wide release of Alibi Jones and the Sunrise of Hur in October. When you self-publish, you rely on your distributors to get your books out into the retail outlets of the marketplace. I use Lulu.com for print on demand paperbacks - they get those into Amazon. It takes about a month. Smashwords.com does most of my eBook distribution. The various retailers they ship to add titles at different rates, with the longest also taking about a month. So... about a month or so after releasing Alibi Jones and The Sunrise of Hur, I could finally celebrate it being available everywhere!

October also saw the release of Earthbound Dossier, a pin-up book filled with the heroes appearing in Earthbound Comics' books. I was heavily involved in the production and release of the book, featuring contributions from over 20 creative people – it came out really well. Kudos to Ben Ferrari of Earthbound for shepherding the project from concept to reality. It's free – here, have a copy: http://comics.drivethrustuff.com/product/106128/Earthbound-Dossier

Albi Jones and The Sunrise of Hur was officially published on September 16th, 2012. A long time in the creating. It was great to get the novel out. Still currently serializing the audiobook chapters on my weekly Glow-in-the-Dark Radio Podcast. That wasn't all for September. Another of my Star-Lord columns for Comic Related – Part two - came out, covering the years when Doug Moench wrote the character: http://comicrelated.com/news/17937/star-lord-part-2.

August was a fun month that included attending both Pi-Con and The Boulder Triple-A Convention. Invited as a guest for my writing to Pi-Con once again, and represented the radio station at the Boulder conference, hearing over 30 different musical acts in 3 days. Also managed to win the Seven Daysies Award for Best Hair on a Local Personality, an "award" from the local weekly newspaper. And all month I was showing off the new, full-color Good Samaritan: Unto Dust #1 – written by me, art by Federico Guillen and color by Ken Lateer, released by Earthbound Comics on August 1^st.

Published a few Cosmic Crackles web columns in July. Started the series of columns on Star-Lord at Comic Related. Both Chris Claremont and Steve Englehart were interviewed for a look at Star-Lord's origins: http://comicrelated.com/news/17021/star-lord-part-1. And earlier in the month, I wrote a 3 part look back at the original Guardians of the Galaxy team: http://comicrelated.com/news/16790/guardians-of-the-galaxy  http://comicrelated.com/news/16856/guardians-of-the-galaxy.

In June, Glow-in-the-Dark Radio became part of the Comic Related Podcasting Network. It was an honor to be asked to join them as they expanded, joining the ranks of Zone 4, The Related Recap and more: http://www.comicrelated.com/podcasts.php. My weekly rewriting/rerecording and repodcasting of Vatican Ambassador was ongoing. I was also working on the new Alibi Jones short story which has just recently been released.

In May we published my free eBook short story "Souverain: The Kid" by Earthbound Comics, on the 1^st. A free prose story which was originally featured in the comic book Souverain #1, this stand-alone freebie was an attempt to attract new readers. My first column for Comic Related also appeared in May. I'd put a piece on Thanos together in light of his scene at the end of The Avengers movie, and it became my first Cosmic Crackle for CR: http://comicrelated.com/news/16094/the-mad-titan

Glow-in-the-Dark Radio reached it's 200th episode in April. The podcast episode featured some friendly greetings and the first podcast of Alibi Jones and the Wishing Stone: http://glowinthedarkradio.podomatic.com/entry/2012-04-22T12_45_37-07_00. Also wrote a Guest post on Creativity for the blog Chocolate Scotch in April: http://www.chocolatescotch.com/2012/04/74-mike-luoma/.

Updated the cover of VaticanAssassin in both paperback and ebook with brand new layout and art, and updated the eBook covers on the rest of the trilogy in March. Time had come. The old, boring black ones needed spiffing up! Vatican Ambassador, as I mentioned, would later get some interior spiffing up as well.

February brought a proud creative moment, when Earthbound Comics published Introducing...Red Hot #1 – art by Rhys ap Gwyn – February 1^st. By the way, Rhys is ready to work on more of the series now, so expect more Red Hot in 2013!

January was spent promoting my new audio book collection, as The Adventures of Alibi Jones: Six Short Stories came out in the final days of December, and appeared in iTunes as January began: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/adventures-alibi-jones-six/id570595252?mt=2

The creative year that was... good to take a look back. Now, time to take a deep breath and head onward into the future - hello 2013!