A year in review

Tomorrow is my birthday (yay!). However it seems that, sadly, I am not going to get the call before said birthday, so I've spent another year on the unpubbed roundabout. Things move slowly in publishing and sometimes it feels like you're not getting anywhere. So, in order to remind myself of what's been great in the past year, I thought I'd look back and see exactly what I have done.

In my 35th year I have:

1. Finished my first single title length book (also my first paranormal).

2. Seen U2 in concert again.

3. Helped one of my best friends bring her beautiful baby into the world.


4. Found an agent.

5. Finished my second single title length book (I think that I've probably written around 270-300k this year between actual books and revising and snippets of other things. Not bad with a day job).

6. Done two fabulous online courses with one of my favorite writers and writing teachers, Barbara Samuel.

7. Got to party with another of my beautiful friends, Keri, when she hit the NYT list MULTIPLE times!



8. Finalled in every competition I entered that first ST book in.

9. Celebrated other friends doing cool things like having babies, getting requests, finishing books, selling books, and many, many real estate shenanigans.

10. Finalled in the Golden Heart (TM) twice.

11. Won a few of the comps I finalled in (alas not the GH but I did get to see one of my friends win).

12. Went to RWA nationals for the first time, met some fabulous people, caught up with other fabulous people, had a wonderful time and bought some kickass cowboy boots. Jetlag from hell was small price to pay.

13. Kept the cats happy and paid their vet bills : )

14. Switched to a four day week at work.

15. Met Jenny Crusie, another of my favorite writers at the RWAustralia conference, heard her talk and had a fab Cherry lunch (with the lovely Anne Stuart as a bonus!).

16. Paid homage to the great goddess Letitsuk.

17. Am about to drink pineapple margaritas with friends to celebrate all of the above plus there might be cake. There will be nachos.

Sounds like a pretty cool year to me! The only thing I haven't achieved that I want to (apart from the obvious sell a book thing and convincing Hugh Jackman or Johnny Depp or Nathan Fillion that I am the woman of their dreams) is the losing of a few more kilos. In fact I've slid a little backwards on that and need to refocus if I want to be a fabulous 80 year old (see previous post). But there's still three and a bit months to the end of the actual year, so there's still time.

I'm hoping next year can be even cooler. With added fabulousness. What are my high level goals for the 36th year?

1. Keep writing.
2. Get fitter.
3. Go to RWA national again.
4. Have fun!