Update VERSION.md

Author: pjfanning

release-notes/VERSION.md

@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+# Version: 2.18.0-rc1
+
+This patch release tracks Jackson 2.18. The 2.18 series has full support for Scala 2.11, 2.12, 2.13 and 3.3+. Java 8 is the minimum supported Java version. There are no new fixes in this release.
+
 # Version: 2.17.2
 
 There are no new fixes in this release; it serves to track the 2.17.1 release