Happy New Year!

Okay, this day snuck up on me.  I just posted yesterday and here I am needing to say something pithy and profound and summative about the year that is rapidly heading toward extinction.  And I need to say it quickly, because I went for a lovely ride on this cold, crisp afternoon and now I can't stay awake.  I'll be lucky to make it to midnight East Coast time, and I live several times zones west of that one. . . (Guaranteed insomnia cure: exercise until you're frozen, come in and thaw out and eat a large dinner and then just TRY to stay awake!).

Okay, wise cracks out of the way, I do want to look back over the year.  At the beginning of 2012, my writing was just about where it is now. . . except it was the first Ninja Librarian book I was trying to polish up, and now it's the second.  Over the course of the year, I've seen my book in print, done author readings, and been recognized in the grocery store as a writer. 

I have developed as a writer, doing a much better job of believing that it's a real job, and therefore should take precedent over many other things, including sweeping the floor.  Not always there, but getting better.  I've learned more about marketing than I ever guessed I would ever need to, and just enough to tell me that I've only scratched the surface.  I've also learned that nothing about my new published status has made me any more eager to sit down with a flawed MS and do the hard work of turning it into a publishable book, but that having people waiting for the new book can inspire me to do even that.  I think that's part of what it means to be a professional.

I have also learned that I can write short stories just for fun, and share them so that others can have fun too.

In my personal life, I have watched my boys get another year older, and seen my Eldest Son putting me to shame for his ability to write under nearly any conditions.  While I want to crawl off alone, he sat in the middle of the family Xmas bash with his computer in front of him, and added page after page to his first novel.  It's pretty good, too.  I don't know whether to be a proud parent, or just chagrined that he manages to write, and well, under circumstances that made me give up (twelve people in our dinky house over the holidays, for example).

I have also done some great trips, including my first visit to Hawaii and a seven-day backpack trip in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming (here and here).  That was one of the most scenic I've done, and the longest single backpack since I was 27 and hiked 200 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail.  It was a lot more fun doing it with my family than alone, as I did back then.  

What do I wish for 2013?  Aside, that is, from peace and love and general good stuff for all humanity.  Let's stick with the personal here.  Mostly, let's stick with what the writer wants.

1.  Make writing a featured part of every day.  Write like a professional.  Except on Zero days.
2.  Bring out the sequel to the Ninja Librarian (still mostly on track for Feb., though we are looking at the end of the month, not the beginning).
3.  Either finish and publish my "PTA Murder" novel, or decide it has no future and start a new one.
4.  Sell more books each month, find more followers for this blog, and discover more great reads for myself.  Which I'll share if you are good.
5.  Go for another backpack trip as glorious as last summer's.  Swim even more, ride even more, and--the gods willing--become a runner again when my about-to-be-operated-on toe heals.