a new blog post for a new year

Well, here we are. January, 2016. Last year went by in a blur. I’m not going to dwell on 2015; there were a number of things about it that were not good. But there were some other things that were good. It was a year of transition, and those are always difficult. Now I’m choosing to look forward. The transition year has left me poised to move ahead confidently in the direction of my art, and I’m excited to do so. I don’t really do New Year’s resolutions, but I like to do goals, so here are my (vague) goals for 2016: Take better care of myself. Write more. Freelance less. Give myself more down time. 

How about you? What are your goals or resolutions or dreams for 2016?

I will tell you one highlight of 2015: my partner-in-crime and I adopted a kitten. We still have Zoe, our smart, beautiful, antisocial girl who is now almost nine. And now we have Isabel. She's a delightful terror, and is eight months old. I'll post some photos at some point, I promise.

I read a lot more books than I blogged about in 2015. There’s not time to discuss them all, so here’s a list of some of my favorites from last year that I haven't mentioned previously: Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley, The Archivist Wasp by Nicole Kornher-Stace, Chimes at Midnight and The Winter Long by Seanan McGuire, Uprooted by Naomi Novik.

I’ll leave you with links to two blog entries that I read the other morning and found inspiring:

https://mariadahvanaheadley.wordpress.com/2015/11/06/taking-writing-risks-new-adult-novel-sold-to-fsg-and-more/

http://pacificrain.blogspot.com/2016/01/2016-new-direction.html

Blood and kisses, and Happy New Year!

why do we?

Happy New Year, everybody! This'll be a fairly brief entry, but hey, first Friday of the year and here I am blogging!
I hope you all had a good holiday season. I spent mine in Oregon visiting family and friends. As always, it was great and too short, and I'm happy to be home. I helped my dad move offices, saw a friend who I lost track of when I moved out here a decade ago, got drunk with one of my favorite people in Oregon, spent a day with my best friend, and spent a couple evenings with my oldest goddaughter and her toddler. And on New Year's Eve, my mom and I made a Scandinavian dinner. It was great! I flew home yesterday, and awoke today to . . .
. . . a cold. That's right, the traveling funk got me this time. It's not TERRIBLE, just a runny nose and a scratchy throat and some tiredness. I'm going about my day around it. I just hope it doesn't last long.
My 2014 was a roller coaster. Some great things happened (VP! WtO!) and some terrible things happened (my grandfather passing). Some things were stressful (day job) while some things were fun (the workshops, and the pool league). I think 2014 was better than 2013 was, but I'd like to see 2015 do well for itself. And to that end, I've declared 2015 to be the year of self-care, and the year of piss-off-I'm-writing. On the self-care side of things, I'm going to start exercising again. I went for a long walk today! It's a start! I'm going to continue to be more conscious of my diet. I'm going to delve further into canning/preserving. On the writing side of things . . . Well, that's fairly self-evident, I think. I also want to read more. I didn't read NEARLY enough last year.
Do any of you have resolutions or goals to share for this year? Or thoughts on how the last year has gone?
And now, I'm off to eat homemade chicken soup and get back to my proofreading, because there's writing time this evening if I get enough work done. Happy Friday!

time marches ever onward

Let's be honest. 2013 was a pretty lousy year for many of us. There were a lot of things about last year that I was uncomfortable with. I spent too much time on the wrong things and not enough time on the right things. I made some questionable decisions. A lot of things didn't turn out how I'd planned. So I've decided that 2014 is going to be a year about me. I will take better care of myself. I will spend time and energy on people who I feel are worth it, and not with people I don't. And I will spend more time doing the things that are most important to me: writing and making music. The only specific goals I'm laying out for myself are writing goals, though. I want to wrap up Emmelina and the Rat King and the ghost/witch novel, and submit both of them. And then I want to make a really solid start on a new project. I'm going to a writing workshop/retreat in June, and am going to apply to a couple others.
What's everyone else thinking for the new year?

i denied it all so long

Happy New Year, everybody! I know I'm a little tardy in saying that, but the new year really started with a bang for me. Party, then hangover brunch, then right back into work and freelancing. So, first, a loose end from last year. I did read two more books, to round out the year at an even forty.
39) The Chains That You Refuse by Elizabeth Bear. Stunning short story collection. Everything she writes is brilliant, as far as I'm concerned.
40) The Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way. This was a fun, interesting graphic novel. Different than a lot of the stuff I've read. Very gray area, not so black and white. I can't say that I was completely sucked in, but I was definitely intrigued.
Okay, onward. I've rejoined band for the season; there's some serious wind ensemble music happening, and some good Broadway songs. And it's nice to be back around other musicians; it's a good community, and I enjoy making music with other people.
My New Year's goals: To work less. To write more. To take better care of myself. I suppse I could break that down into monthly goals and whatnot, but that's a lot of effort and I'm fine with the vagueness for now. I will say for the writing, I didn't manage to finish my draft during staycation. So I'll finish it in January. My goal is to revise again in the second half of February, then submit in March. Then start writing something new in April.
And that's that. I wish I had more to share right now, but I don't. I'm just busy wrapping up prior commitments and playing with Zoe and being overly social.
Tell me about your New Year's goals!

happy new year!

Happy 2012, everybody! I hope last night was full of good company and good booze and that today has minimal hangovers involved.
I made my list of goals for 2012:

• less work


• more yoga


• read fifty books


• spend fifteen minutes a day on myself


• finish/submit the ghost/witch novel


• finish novelizing Emmelina


• write two shorts


• start the fey folk/secret societies novel

Pretty good list, hmm? I think it's reasonable. How about you? Any goals or resolutions for this year?

A New Year

So on the New Year theme, I thought I'd make up a list of goals. Not resolutions, mind, just goals. So here we go:

• Read thirty books (not hard, if you know me at all)
• finish working on Nor and start another novel
• three to five short stories
• spend more time outside
• treat my body better
• make music more consistently
  

I think that's a good list, don't you? Not too much, not too little. What about you all? Any brilliant things on your horizons sparked off by New Year?
On to other topics . . . my holiday trip was quite good, overall, with the major exception of what I discussed in my previous entry here. I saw my godchildren, saw my whole immediate family, spent some time with my partner-in-crime's parents, and saw some of my friends. Not enough of them and not for long enough, but that's the way it goes on these trips. Of course, having my flights messed up in both directions wasn't great, but I seem to have bad luck with holiday travel, so oh well. It was a pretty good Christmas. I even saw what-if boy on my last night; we watched a movie together, and then slept next to each other, as chaste as brother and sister.
In regard to my goals for this year, I've already read two books. The first was Greywalker, by Kat Richardson. I love good, dark urban fantasy! This one is about a woman named Harper who has a near-death experience and afterward sees the world differently. Literally. She can now see a place called the Grey, which is a sort of limbo between our world and the otherworld. Which means, of course, that her life immediately gets complicated through the presence of vampires, witches, and ghosts, none of which she believed in before. This book was dark, and gritty, and the interactions between the characters was natural and believable. Beyond that, Harper's transition from total disbelief to accepting the change in her was also believable. And it's the first book in a series, which means I have several more stories about Harper to enjoy!
The second book is called Freaks, by Annette Curtis Klause. It's about a boy born and raised among circus performers who are physically different in all sorts of ways. Eventually he feels too normal for his extended circus family and sets off to seek his fortune on his own. It's a really fun read; there's some good teenage angst, and a great love story between Abel (main character) and a three-thousand-year-old Egyptian mummy, and some great secondary characters (particularly a gaggle of children Abel saves from an evil circus man named Dr. Mink). I really enjoyed this book, but still, somehow, I'm not sure that it's a keeper. It just didn't catch me as much as some books do.
Anyway. Twelve minutes left of the workday, so I should probably wrap things up before it's time to go. I also need to pick a new book to read, since I finished Freaks on the train this morning, and that always takes a few minutes!