End of Year Round-Ups...

As an allegedly professional writer of fiction I might look back on 2009 with a certain sense of unease, insofar as one could say I failed to produce any writing of substance - at least, nothing fit for any significant number of people to actually read: a novel in the works, for sure, just as in 2008, but still a fair way away from home; a couple of screenplays, both in development limbo; bits and pieces of a couple of stage plays, still not resolved into wholes... you get the picture.
As such, I look over the literary reviews of 2009 in wonder at the wealth and diversity of published work, and am reminded, in the words of Roland Barthes, that the world is full without me.
So, it's heartening to see a couple of recent and friendly mentions for back-catalogue stuff of mine out there in the blogosphere: over in Maine, Mallory seemed to like 10 Bad Dates, while up in Hampshire Mark D gave a thumbs up to Crusaders. This is why we soldier on, see...