2011 was a pretty crazy year. It feels like it dragged on forever and at the same time was a huge whirlwind of hectic chaos that flew right by. I started grad school (a master’s program in Library and Information Science) and spent a week in Syracuse, NY hanging out with other people in the program, who were all amazingly awesome. I had jury duty the day I got back (again!), but thankfully I didn’t actually have to go in.

Writing wise, it’s felt like a pretty slow year, but maybe that’s just the last couple of months talking. I wrote about 90k over three books (not including notes and throwaway material). One of the books I finished, one of them I put on hold indefinitely, and the other is going out on proposal. And while I sold Russian rights for Renegade X–not sure if I ever announced that–and Disney renewed their movie option, I didn’t sell anything new in 2011, just like I didn’t in 2010. In 2010, that was devastating. In 2011, it was frustrating and sometimes discouraging, but I’ve more or less come to terms with it and learned a lot about myself in the process.

Actually, I learned a lot about myself in 2011 and about what makes me happy. I discovered I like having a variety of odd jobs. And I like jobs you sign up for and test into rather than interviewing for. I suck at interviews, but I’m great with tests. I don’t want writing to be the only focus in my life, but I do want to be able to focus on it when I choose to. So I like having my own schedule.

And I never thought self-publishing would make me happy, but in fact I’m ecstatic about it! (In case you missed it, I recently announced that I’m going to be self-pubbing a sequel to Renegade X.) Everyone’s been super supportive of it, and while I still want to be traditionally published as well, getting to work at my own pace and keeping myself as busy as I want to will be a nice complement to traditional pubbing.

I also finally started crocheting plushies for my Etsy shop. which I’d always sort of wanted to do but never really thought I would. And it turns out it’s wonderfully fulfilling. So between the Etsy shop and the self-publishing epiphany, I’ve been really taken by surprise about what makes me happy. I always thought I’d *know* ahead of time what would make me happy, and it’s kind of pleasantly surprising that I was wrong.

So that was my year in a nutshell. I hate making New Year’s resolutions, plus if this year’s taught me anything, it’s that I don’t always know what my goals are, so I won’t make any. But I can tell you I’m looking forward to the new year. I’ll be turning 30 in March and starting a new decade of my life, and I’m ready to embrace it.