Some will be sad to see the year end. Not me. Admittedly, I’ve had worse years, but 2010 wasn’t what I’d hoped it would be – personally or writing wise. Hopefully next year will be better.
2010 in Review
In January (actually on the first day of the new year) I announced I was moving my website to a hosted site. I did it for financial reasons, but eventually realised that I didn’t want to lose my domain name to someone trying to sell underwear or DVD or useless gadgets nobody will ever use. I returned here in May but the hosted site is still in use. It’s now a useful archive site which will remain in place…forever!
Also in early January, I wrote the following goals:
1. Complete the planning for Whispering Caves by the end of summer (end of February).
2. Write the first draft by the end of the year.
3. Compile a list of publishers for Cat’s Eyes and submit, submit, submit.
4. Write a proposal for the children’s non-fiction and, again, submit, submit, submit.
Well, what can I say? I did finish the planning for Whispering Caves, but I didn’t come close to finishing the manuscript. What I wrote was good, but in the end it just didn’t come up to scratch. It was written in first person and that proved to be a problem. Besides, my focus was turned in another direction.
I did compile a list of publishers for “Cat’s Eyes” but that list was quickly discarded when I made the decision to start my own publishing company. I didn’t have to submit, submit, submit because the book was published by Kayelle Press and is doing moderately well.
The fourth point didn’t get done. I didn’t even give it a thought. Maybe next year.
I wrote a ton of reviews – mainly for books and DVD’s, but I also wrote a couple for Playstation games.
I shared my thoughts on e-publishing, much too often I think, I’m sure some people got sick of my harping on about it. Yet I have to say e-publishing is an exciting turn of events to the publishing world and a lot more people will be harping on about it in the future.
Even though I’ve started a publishing company, I still submitted short stories to publishers. So 2010 saw me in receipt of several rejection letters/emails. Luckily, I don’t cry in a corner anymore over those. I also received a copy of rejections that were more like encouragement with healthy feedback and lovely compliments.
2010 was also the year I discover ebooks. I read a couple of dozen books on my beautiful and handy iPod Touch this year. I absolutely adore my Touch and have used it practically every day since I purchased it. If you haven’t got one, then you should fix that soon!
On a more personal note, this year is when I discovered I had a rare blood disorder. The medication to help fix the disorder is so potent that I was sicker than I’ve ever been in my life for about 10 days in July. I certainly don’t want to return there any time soon. Right now, everything is under control and I’m as healthy as I can be.
Finally, I resigned from a job I loved in late November and have started a new job in mid-December. The training period proved to be intense and harrowing. I’m not sure I’m ready to face the real thing in the new year, but I’ll give it my best shot.
No, 2010 wasn’t what I expected. It wasn’t what I had planned for. But I think myself lucky that it wasn’t a terrible year filled with bad things. I am hopeful that 2011 will be a better year, filled with better things, and because of that I’m happy to say “Goodbye 2010”.
