As I write, it’s the day after a pretty good Christmas. Among the scraps of ribbon, the bits of confetti, the sounds of new toys (and the feline enjoyment of the first two and the boxes the third came in), my eye is inexorably drawn to the next holiday.
My eye is also drawn to the remnants scattered across the lovely tray of cookies I received, but we’ll ignore that. As hard as we can.
New Year’s Day is coming fast. 2011 has whizzed by, full of work and joy and some setbacks, as years tend to be. 2011 will always be a special year for me. It was the first year I had a book out all year. It was the year I released my second book. The year of reviews that have delighted me, the year my original stories moved beyond the circle of those who read because they knew me, creating a new circle of those who found me through my work.
Is it too meta if I wax into fangirling over my fans? I won’t, then, though I’d like to say a brief and heartfelt OMG THANK YOU to each and every one.
2011 was my first year as a published author. The work is much the same–writing, editing, beta-reading and being betaed, editing some more–but it’s profoundly different as well. It’s the real thing now. My friends and I are out there, trying for it, shooting for the stars together.* It is terrifying, exhilarating, joyous.
As I look forward to 2012 (Queen’s Man, coming in April!) I am filled with joy at the prospect of another year of being who I was meant to be–an author. It’s a dream come true, and it’s all I ever dreamed it would be.
My wish for 2012 is for all of you to reach what I found late in 2010 and realized through 2011–the chance to live free as who you were meant to be.
It is a state so amazing that even this fairly prolific writer is robbed of appropriate words to describe the joy.
*together–have you had a look at Winter’s Night yet? Proceeds benefit UNICEF!