Welcome 2008 and Christmas catch up

Back from Christmas with the fam-in-laws. Managed to miss the truly icky weather, although driving up, the winds were fierce. When I stepped out of the car at a rest stop, it almost blew me over. I think we actually got better mileage from the tailwind.

Got much shiny stuff, including this awesome Shakespeare action figure from my brother-in-law and his wife:

A pair of fairy doors from fosteronfilm—they’re both 10″ high, the perfect size for fairy folk. (I think we’ll install the red one in Hobkin’s area so his fey visitors will have a convenient entrance):

And gadgety goodness, my hubby got me a GPS!

Aside from the convoluted, tesseract-esque confusion which are the Atlanta streets, my direction sense (or rather the lack thereof) borders on the tragic. It’s a regular occurrence for me to call home ’cause I’ve managed to get myself lost or turned around and can’t figure out where I am. Hee! Having this gizmo is downright liberating. Now if I can only figure out how to install it directly into my brain . . .

Writing Stuff

2007 Writing Year in Review and 2008 Resolutions

2007 was a bit of a mixed year for me. Good stuff and not-so-good, encouraging successes and disheartening rejections, and a worrisome drop in productivity overall.

Looking over 2007’s Writing Resolutions, I determined to:
• Finish a novel.
Sigh. I made good progress at the beginning of the year but then was derailed when I got invited to submit to a couple anthologies.
• Write 500 words a day, every day, barring weekends, holidays, and the legislative session.
Nope here as well. Again, I made a good start after session, but . . . see above re: derailed. Fooie.
• Don’t stress the hamsters and don’t be afraid to turn some away.
Hamsters hamsters hamsters. Lessee, I resigned from my assistant editor position with The Town Drunk, went on hiatus at Critters, and my monthly Writing for Young Readers column ended with 2007. Tangent fell apart (much stupidity there), but within hours of that debacle, I agreed to helm and re-launch The Fix. The Fix is now to the point of taking up about the same amount of time that Tangent did, but for a couple months, it took up all my free (i.e., writing) time. And, of course, I’m still the director and editor of The Daily Dragon, which takes out about a month for prep and organizing.

So my hamsters are still a juggling act in progress.

2007’s highlights and accomplishments, I:
• Agreed to re-launch and helm TTA Press’s The Fix which went live in mid-October.
• Survived another year as The Daily Dragon‘s Editor/Director.
• Made 22 fiction sales, including repeat sales to Realms of Fantasy, Cricket, and Escape Pod, and broke into Interzone and Jim Baen’s Universe.
• Saw 24 works published, including stories in Best New Romantic Fantasy 2, OSC’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, Magic in the Mirrorstone, and 3 stories in Cricket.
• Conducted an online workshop on Worldbuilding for the Carolina Romance Writers.

And herein my Writing Resolutions for 2008:
• Finish the ^#$!@# novel.
• Write 500 words a day, every day, barring weekends, holidays, and the legislative session. I really want to focus on this as my word count went way down this year. I only managed to write four new stories (although I plan to complete a 5th before session starts) and 15K words on the novel. 2007 was my least productive year since I started writing professionally. Badness badness badness!
• Be more willing to say “no” when new hamsters come a’beggin’.

Happy 2008 to all!