Don't ask me what the lolcats are about all of a sudden. Just cuz, I guess.
Some things I am happy about as a new year begins
I sold a story last year, Jadeflower, coming out in the Destination Future anthology from Hadley-Rille books. I am really happy with this one, still. It’s not just that I still like the story, but I had a great experience working with editor Z.S. Adani, who took the thing in its raw form and really helped me form it into something I’m proud of. It was my first heavy editing experience, and she set the bar a little high for me. She made suggestions (all of them excellent), but let me be the one to decide how best to implement them, and I appreciate all her hard work and, let’s be honest here, her hand-holding.
I won Nano (yes, I already wrote about this)m and found a great group of online writer friends through both the Nano sight, The Night of Writing Dangerously, and Twitter. I feel much more connected to that world now, which can only help me fine-tune my skills. The Night of Writing dangerously also taught me how much the people in my life care about me and really do want me to succeed. I’ve always been a little embarrassed about my aspirations, not being the kid of person who talked a big game and never made it happen. This year I realized I could be all about the work, but still share my goals with others, and it was a good feeling. Maybe I just needed to get over myself a little bit (I know!)
And the Calculus of Hope is almost, almost done. Hope to have the first draft in the can by Jan. 16th so I can start attacking it with a scalpel and some spackle.
I got myself to the point where I am ready to get my tech certifications and start seriously looking for a job, and at the same time have a little bit of an opportunity to do some freelance tech support here in my area for actual money. Had my first real “service call”, solved the problem, and got paid, which felt really weird.
And probably the most important thing has been realizing what an awesome woman I am married to. Seriously, any right-thinking person would have gotten tired of my act a long time ago and totally booted me out the door. This might not do much to recommend her reasoning skills, but I’m happy about that anyway. Coming off a mixed episode at the end of last year, she very literally probably saved my life. She doesn’t get a lot of credit for the things she does, supporting my ass being just one of them. She was totally the reason % had success at Nano, not only being my fundraising director for NOWD, but making sure I had the time and space to do the actual work. To be honest, I wasn’t even going to participate in NOWD, but she could tell I wanted to and insisted that it happen, making a lot of sacrifices over the course of that very long month to insure that it WOULD happen. She’s a person of strong will, and I tease her about being a type A, but without her, I would probably just bounce off one wall after another before offing myself in some bizarre, accidental face plant. She should totally list spazz-wrangling as one of her skills on her resume. Lost in my own head most of the time, I don’t do a very good job noticing these things, let alone expressing my appreciation, but for some reason she still loves me, and I really, really love her even though I don’t express that in any way that approaches adequacy. Changing that is my only New Year’s resolution.
So, happy New Year, everyone. As I said before, the bar is low, but I really do expect better days ahead.
The Random Avenger 