2012 in Review and 2013 Goals

I’m just going to put it right out here in front: I’m so glad to see this year end. Though, professionally, this has been a very good year for me, with a ton of new releases, my first starred review, and a book that has hit several “best of” lists, it has personally been a huge bugbear. Starting in January, where I spent the better part of the month trying to save my dog Rio from a mystery illness (which turned out to have been misdiagnosed and exacerbated for what I hope were innocent reasons by the emergency clinic I took her to here in DC), unexpected childcare, health, and financial difficulties, complete with power outages lasting the better part of a week, a hurricane, more revisions than I’ve ever done for a book… it’s not hard to see why my goals-complete list looks so scraggly.

Au revoir, 2012. You may not have given us the apocalypse, but you weren’t exactly a picnic, either.

That being said, there were a lot of good things the year brought as well. Rio survived her illness, Queenie is growing up into a lovely, bright, fun little girl, one of my brothers got married, the other one had a baby, we had a lovely family vacation, I made some good friends, I took some big strides professionally, and I went to several fantastic writing and book conferences, including my first Nebula Awards Weekend, BEA, Dragon*Con, the Baltimore Book Festival, the Virginia Festival of the Book, CapClave, and YALL Fest.

And though I may not have done all the writing I’d planned to, I did finish my longest, most complicated book yet, as well as get a good, healthy start on some new proposals I hope will come to fruition in 2013. The vegetable garden I thought we’d destroyed with “green” compost I managed, with a great deal of effort, to salvage and turn into a highly-productive veggie/herb garden (two, actually).

So here we are. 2013. What’s the plan?

Family

• Find summer activity/ childcare for Q.
• Take Q to swimming lessons this summer
• Start hiking with Rio again.
• Quality family time (I think family vacation already arranged)
• Quality SB time

House

• Declutter (especially bedroom and kid stuff)
• Get rid of unused furniture (yes, still)
• Fix fence (yes, still)
• Plant veggie garden
• clean up yard/plant flowers
• resod place where grass died after tree fell in derecho
• paint kitchen/family room

Writing

• Finish new proposal 1
• Finish new proposal 2
• Write and sell at least two short stories
• Attend 4 writing related conferences
• Prepare for release of Across a Star-Swept Sea
• Work on work/life balance