My Totally Awesome Year In Review

So, no doubt, this was a pretty awesome year. Two manuscripts, one agent, an entire community of friends and a LOT of books later, I'm thinking back on all the highlights that made up 2012.

JANUARY

Life: My brother raised over $500 for Maryland Special Olympics. 

He plunged into the Chesapeake Bay wearing this penguin costume. He's pretty much awesome. You can help him raise money this year too–I'll confirm the penguin costume wasn't ruined too much last year.

Writing: My YA contemporary/magical realism was on its last legs in the slushpile–but I was still trying.

FEBRUARY

Life: Spent a lot of time with my dear friend, Kelly, in New York who helped me come to grips that after nine months in the slushpile, my YA contemporary/magical realism needed to be put down.

I also made the panda hat happen.

Writing: Finally received that one rejection that made me scrap the YA contemporary/magical realism, dove head first into a YA contemporary romance–wrote like A. Crazy. Person.

MARCH

Life: Guys, I was writing like a crazy person. Seriously, I had no life.

Writing: My husband and I refer to this as "the dark time." Not because anything bad happened, but because I was so sucked into my new story, I didn't do much else.

APRIL

Life: Life resumed, because after you write like a crazy person, it must. We got out, I ate cupcakes, I learned to play the drums, I held this cute chick (and made a weird face).

Okay, no. I'm totally lying to you. This was the one weekend my husband made me go out because I had no life. I was in crazy mode getting feedback and revising the query and manuscript for my YA contemporary romance. I was going back into the slushpile and I had a battle plan.

Writing: YA contemporary romance was almost done, and then revision mode, and then out into the slushpile. I held my breath.

MAY

Life: Yeah. I won't lie. There still wasn't much of one.

Writing: Three words: THE. WRITERS. VOICE.

Do you know why you MUST do contests? Because it seriously is like showing up on the first day of camp and saying, "You mean...there are other people who just want to spend their days writing stories about teenagers and posting funny things on Twitter?? Where have you been all my life???"

Not only was I mentored by the fabulous Monica BW, but I basically met all my new writer friends in one contest. In one word, it was epic.

JUNE

Life (or Writing, I'm not sure. They kinda go together now.): Oh, you mean the month in which the amazing LAUREN MACLEOD called me, signed me, and changed my entire life?? Know what the best part was? I could finally tell everyone who knew me in real life that I'd been writing (Yes, yes. I was a closeted writer). It felt a little something like this: 

JULY

Life: Things were awesome! I think this was also around the time I met Hayley Farris, who entered my life as a medical editor and quickly become my dearest friend, 2 AM text message buddy, and knower of all my secrets.

Writing: I was trying to figure out what to write next, so I started book binging hard core. I read, like, everything. EVERYTHING.

AUGUST

Life: Cupcakes, yo. Lots of cupcakes. I baked my ass off–mostly because it was everyone and their grandmother's birthday (Happy 83rd, Nan!) but also because I just really like cupcakes.

Writing: Started batting around a few ideas. None really panned out, and that's okay because I had a lot of living to do. 

SEPTEMBER

Life: Celebrated my two year anniversary with my best friend and awesome rock star husband. He inspires every story I ever want to tell.

Writing: I needed a new project like whoa. And I was on the hunt to find it. Critique partner and awesome friend, Dahlia, said, "This Project K idea of yours sounds pretty good. Why don't you write that?"

I pulled the laptop back out.

OCTOBER

Life: Pumpkin patches? Is that what we did? I'm not sure. Really, who cares at this point–I had an idea burning inside me. Most of my friends had to deal with me going back to being a misanthropic recluse. Sorry guys!

Writing: Research for Project K was well underway. I was excited to start up a new WIP and I had my eyes set on NaNo.

NOVEMBER

Life: If you haven't noticed much, my writing habits tend to tilt the Life/Writing scales.

Writing: Na.No.Wri.Mo. It was on like Donkey Kong. I had my 50,000 words in by the third week. I was on a super roll and it felt really good to be back in the writing sattle. I settled in for DecRevMo (December Revision Month).

DECEMBER

Life: Excited to ring in the New Year with friends in New York. Excited to start seeing more of that life column fill up in January and February 2013.

Writing: Revising Project K and also have an idea cooking for the next WIP. So here we go again!