Oh, 2016

Hello, friends. Will you be glad to see the end of 2016? I know it’s a meme and everything, and I’m as worried as any other compassionate, equality-minded person about the future of the world. But personally, 2016 was a year of substantial, joyful growth and accomplishment. Here’s some of what happened to me.

Achievements

I wrote 140K words of Monsoon Season (I always think of this as my Tortoise Book because I first began working on it in June 2013. But if you strip away my many false starts, I actually began this iteration of the novel in January 2016. That’s decent going by any standard and excellent for a slower writer like me.)

I won an Ontario Arts Council grant

I was a juror for the Governor General’s Literary Awards

Candlewick Press re-issued the Agency novels with gorgeous new covers

I published my first short story (in A Tyranny of Petticoats)

I moderated my first panel at Kingston’s WritersFest

I stepped away from writing a non-fiction article that was causing me enormous stress

I established a regular and consistent home yoga practice

Our family survived a major home renovation with minimal stress

 

Experiences

I was invited to apply for a job in the creative writing program at a major university! (I didn’t.)

I went on my first artist’s retreat

I was nominated for the K M Hunter Artist Award (and am still working on the application)

I went to a party at Rideau Hall

I began to learn to skate

I tried mountain biking (and fell off, and got back on)

I went to my first led yoga class in eight years. It was terrific.

 

I’m about to start drafting goals for 2017 in my new bullet journal. Uncredited cover images trouble me so I’ve tracked down this year’s:

Johann Friederich Wilhelm Herbst (German, 1743-1807). Illustration of Cancer reticulatus from Versuch einer Naturgeschichte der Krabben und Krebse

Let us maneuver awkwardly into 2017 with our antennae on high alert, our pincers at the ready. Onwards! Or, possibly, sideways! Whichever suits you better, really. I’m with you.

P. S. This blog is going on hiatus. If you’d like to keep in touch, please sign up for my newsletter by clicking here, or using the form at the bottom of the page.